The Constitution has to be interpreted loosely, otherwise it becomes a straitjacket. You can't interpret it literally. You can pretend to, and go digging around in 18th Century dictionaries to figure out what 'cruel and unusual punishment' meant or what… — Richard Posner Copy Share
I was an advocate of the deregulation movement and I made - along with a lot of other smart people - a fundamental mistake, which is that deregulation works fine in industries which do not pervade the economy. The financial industry undergirded the entire economy and if it is made riskier by deregulation and collapses in widespread bankruptcies as what… — Richard Posner Copy Share
The Constitution has to be interpreted loosely, otherwise it becomes a straitjacket. You can't interpret it literally. You can pretend to, and go digging around in 18th Century dictionaries to figure out what 'cruel and unusual punishment' meant or what the 'right to bear arms' meant, but that is all fake really. The Constitution has to be interpreted in light… — Richard Posner Copy Share
MacKinnon's treatment of the central issue of pornography as she herself poses it - the harm that pornography does to women - is shockingly… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
Fact is often stranger than fiction because most writers of fiction try to make their stories plausible. — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
But Friedman seemed to share Friedrich Hayek's extreme and inaccurate view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
It is the censor's business to make a judgment about the propriety of the content or message of the proposed expressive activity. The regulation here does not authorize any judgment about the content of any speeches. ... A park is a limited space, and to allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility… — Richard Posner Copy Share
A diversity of approaches is necessary if there is to be a good chance of hitting on one that works. Progress is a social… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny -… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
The only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction-that same-sex couples and their children don't need marriage because same-sex couples can't produce… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
If belief in the existence of God is predicted to lead to a feeling of contentment, and the prediction is fulfilled, does it follow… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
I do not know what has caused MacKinnon to become, and, more surprisingly, to remain, so obsessed with pornography, and so zealous for censorship.… — Richard Posner Copy Share Image
