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Tom Woods some years back mentioned the 3x5 index card
Posted on: March 28, 2019 at 09:22:34 CT
pickle MU
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of allowable opinion (including “dissenting” opinion). Here’s what he means and an example (this post isn’t a discussion about Lincoln, but for today’s topics and how TB views the media and non-establishment perspectives):
Law Prof Pilloried for Exam Question on Lincoln and the Constitution
If you’ve listened to me for any length of time, chances are you’ve heard me refer to the three-by-five card of allowable opinion.
As long as you stay confined to the range of opinions on that card, you’ll be in good standing with the media and the establishment.
It’s fun to observe someone who’s never once strayed from that card confront ideas that are nowhere near it. Their brains genuinely do not know what to do.
A spectrum of political options running from Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton are all their brains are programmed to handle.
This happened recently with a 3 x 5 card fellow named Elie Mystal.
He was outraged that Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, asked students on a constitutional law exam to consider some of the actions of Abraham Lincoln during the so-called Civil War, and imagine a scenario in which articles of impeachment are brought against a President Lincoln who survived the attack by John Wilkes Booth.
Blackman asks students to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments raised in these hypothetical articles.
Mystal is outraged at the exam questions, and proceeds to launch into a victimology routine: these questions are “racist” and disadvantage black students, etc.
Some lawyer this guy would make! If he gets a case that makes him uncomfortable, he won’t be able to represent his client effectively.
More to the point, Lincoln’s own racial views were closer to those of the Ku Klux Klan than to the NAACP, so it’s not immediately obvious why merely asking questions about the constitutionality of some of the sixteenth president’s wartime actions should cause a particular problem for black students.
And really, so what if questions make us uncomfortable? That’s the point!
A lawyer should have to consider questions like this, where his own strongly held beliefs may conflict with the law. It would be extremely inadvisable not to make lawyers confront situations like this, where particular outcomes please them but the way those outcomes were reached is difficult to justify.
Moreover, the question of wartime powers, of emergency powers of the president, are of continuing importance. Donald Trump has suggested that he can build the border wall by invoking emergency powers; how could it possibly not be relevant to confront and evaluate their historical use?
The questions on the exam involve scenarios that are actually and obviously quite fascinating, and there is surely a profound benefit to be derived from contemplating them.
In one of my favorite recent episodes of the Tom Woods Show, fellow historian Brion McClanahan and I take a closer look at some of Lincoln’s controversial decisions, and dismantle the whiny, content-free Elie Mystal complaint.
We have a blast.
https://tomwoods.com/ep-1325-articles-of-impeachment-against-abraham-lincoln/
Law Prof Pilloried for Exam Question on Lincoln and the Constitution
If you’ve listened to me for any length of time, chances are you’ve heard me refer to the three-by-five card of allowable opinion.
As long as you stay confined to the range of opinions on that card, you’ll be in good standing with the media and the establishment.
It’s fun to observe someone who’s never once strayed from that card confront ideas that are nowhere near it. Their brains genuinely do not know what to do.
A spectrum of political options running from Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton are all their brains are programmed to handle.
This happened recently with a 3 x 5 card fellow named Elie Mystal.
He was outraged that Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, asked students on a constitutional law exam to consider some of the actions of Abraham Lincoln during the so-called Civil War, and imagine a scenario in which articles of impeachment are brought against a President Lincoln who survived the attack by John Wilkes Booth.
Blackman asks students to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments raised in these hypothetical articles.
Mystal is outraged at the exam questions, and proceeds to launch into a victimology routine: these questions are “racist” and disadvantage black students, etc.
Some lawyer this guy would make! If he gets a case that makes him uncomfortable, he won’t be able to represent his client effectively.
More to the point, Lincoln’s own racial views were closer to those of the Ku Klux Klan than to the NAACP, so it’s not immediately obvious why merely asking questions about the constitutionality of some of the sixteenth president’s wartime actions should cause a particular problem for black students.
And really, so what if questions make us uncomfortable? That’s the point!
A lawyer should have to consider questions like this, where his own strongly held beliefs may conflict with the law. It would be extremely inadvisable not to make lawyers confront situations like this, where particular outcomes please them but the way those outcomes were reached is difficult to justify.
Moreover, the question of wartime powers, of emergency powers of the president, are of continuing importance. Donald Trump has suggested that he can build the border wall by invoking emergency powers; how could it possibly not be relevant to confront and evaluate their historical use?
The questions on the exam involve scenarios that are actually and obviously quite fascinating, and there is surely a profound benefit to be derived from contemplating them.
In one of my favorite recent episodes of the Tom Woods Show, fellow historian Brion McClanahan and I take a closer look at some of Lincoln’s controversial decisions, and dismantle the whiny, content-free Elie Mystal complaint.
We have a blast.
https://tomwoods.com/ep-1325-articles-of-impeachment-against-abraham-lincoln/
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Tom Woods some years back mentioned the 3x5 index card - pickle MU - 3/28 09:22:34