“[Tomas] Jefferson is more out of fashion, both because of his views on race, where he's properly questioned, that part of his legacy, but also because the libertarian critique of bigness in business and government, the idea that size is a danger is something that's shared on the right when it comes to government and on the left when it comes to corporations, but not both.” IdeasGovernmentLeftViewsRaceFashionDangerSizeLibertarianLegacyCorporationsCritiqueTomas Jefferson Author:Jeffrey Rosen
“They said, OK, nine [Louis] Brandeis's is too much, but one is OK. So, with friends like that, and so forth. But, yes, the idea that because he was Jewish he would rule a particular way was an ugly undercurrent of the hearings, which resonates with current claims that a judge can't be impartial because of his or her background or ethnicity or race. It's, I guess, a small comfort that in the end the Brandeis vote wasn't close.” WaySaidIdeasEndsRaceToo MuchParticularJudgingComfortVoteClaimsCurrentsUglyHearingNineBackgroundsThey SaidEthnicityLouis Brandeis Author:Jeffrey Rosen
“The tyranny of Harvard and Yale is another thing that transcends this problem of the set point. But what's so striking about [Louis] Brandeis is he had this vision of cultural pluralism that completely gave the lie to the idea that there was any inconsistency between being Jewish or being a woman or being African American and being fully American.” IdeasProblemLyingVisionTyrannyAfrican AmericanHarvardBeing A WomanYaleInconsistencyPluralismLouis Brandeis Author:Jeffrey Rosen
“Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity.” IdeasGovernmentFantasyBuildingCamerasAgreePrivacyShoppingDystopianSurveillanceStadiumsSubwayMallsUnthinkableAnonymitySept 11Surveillance CamerasBiometrics Author:Jeffrey Rosen