David uses a quote from William Blackstone’s famous Commentaries about common law that explains the two foundations for human law and how they were applied to various kinds of social issues. He uses it to test the legal arguments being made in court by leading pro-family advocates in defense of laws involving children and medical procedures affecting their reproductive systems. The contrast may shock you.

Having eliminated all the alternatives for grounding an ethical legal system to that grounded in a “transcendent and immanent” God, law professor Arthur Leff turns us to the U.S. Constitution as a possible substitute. Both David and Leff find trust in an authoritative Constitution misplaced and unworkable. The evidence is found even in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision reversing Roe v. Wade.

Ever wonder why some policy positions or legal arguments are not simply a matter of logic or reason or common senses. For you they are plain as day. For instance, how could any educated person think a biological boy can become a girl? David will explain what changed over the centuries that led educated people to throw out reasoning based on “the facts” as basis for law and public policy.

Today, David disposes of a couple of popular theories for establishing an authoritative ground for law once the God of the Bible is banished. He uses an exchange between Justice Clarence Thomas and the attorney for the United States in last year’s oral arguments on abortion to demonstrate how those systems cannot produce a consistent and coherent system of law. No wonder God sits in the heavens and laughs (Psalm 2:4).

This week, David begins to examine the alternatives to a Christian based legal system that mankind has come up with and how the late Yale law professor Arthur Leff, an atheist, debunks them as non-authoritative and unworkable. Leff provides great insight into what he calls a search for the “metaphorical equivalent” to the God of the Bible.

Today David begins to take listeners through the question Yale law professor asked in 1971—on what basis can we have an authoritative legal system that can answer the equivalent of “sez who?” question of the playground bully. You will be surprised by Leff’s answer. Law professor Philip Johnson called it “the modernist impasse.” It is a guide to understanding what is going on in American law and the trouble law faces.

We think we know what law is, but perhaps not. Law has always been rooted in an understanding of the nature of the cosmos, what it is for, and how it works, i.e., cosmology.  Two cosmologies are and always have been at war with one another, and, in today’s podcast, David will use the preface to Berman’s Law and Revolution to explain the challenge we have in thinking of law cosmologically.

At the Choc Knox Live event we hosted in Franklin last month, panelist Dr. George Grant said, “If you want to change a culture, you have to change the calendar.” On today’s episode, panelists Jason Farley and George Grant will explain why that is so, and what changed that has turned Christmas into a holiday season and June into Pride Month?

Few today know of the contest between Thomas Jefferson and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story over the conception of law that would guide the newly formed United States.

The legacy of Story’s victory—the triumph of common law over positivist law—is available to us today if we will employ it against the legal positivists of our day.

When you talk about common law, you are likely to run into two kinds of opposition—the uninformed who you can help, and those who hate the thought we don’t get to make up the law. It’s not anything new to our country. David will help you answer the critics and use a SCOTUS decision to help you spot those critics who have a self-interested political agenda.