Category Archives: Law

Killing Commerce

I import my beans freshly roasted from the fabulous JJ Bean Coffee in Vancouver, Canada. The place is charming and quaint—it sports a vintage 4-barrel Jabez Burns sample roaster. Back in the day, I used to love sipping a cup of the house blend and munching banana bread as I waited for my beans to be packaged.

The other day I was informed by JJ Bean’s insurance agent that the company’s goods will no longer be available in the US:

Legal liability laws in the US and Canada differ markedly with respect to consumer products. American product liability laws include ‘Strict Liability’ and this difference makes it prohibitively expensive for JJ Bean to continue with its US sales.
In Canada when a business sells a product, and that product causes harm to the consumer, the consumer must prove that the product caused the harm. In the US the onus of proof shifts onto the business owner, who must prove that he did not negligently cause the harm, something that is generally much more difficult to prove.
Accordingly, commercial legal liability insurance premiums in the US are much higher than in Canada, and if a Canadian business sells products into the US they are subject to these higher rates.

Because JJ Bean is a small franchise, it doesn’t generate enough business to support the steep overhead.

It is clear that Canadian law is far more compatible with the free market. American law is illiberal; it gums up trade, infantilizes Americans, and is tantamount to open season on business. What makes it particularly egregious is that, in the event that some malcontent initiates criminal proceedings against the company, the law leans toward a presumption of guilt, not innocence. Innocent until proven guilty; no crime without intent—now aren’t those supposed to be some of the foundations of the American judicial and constitution tradition?

Mackinnon’s Textual Harassment

Feminism, Gender, Law

The baleful influence of feminist Catharine Mackinnon on American and Canadian jurisprudence cannot be underestimated. With relatively few obstacles from the dreaded patriarchy, Mackinnon, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, “teacher, writer, and activist,” has been transforming law since the 1980s. Her legal conquests, especially in developing sexual-harassment law, are the subject of this meaty volume, which comprises speeches and screeds Mackinnon has disgorged over 25 years.

The excerpt is from my review in The American Conservative of Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws by radical feminist, Catharine A. Mackinnon. Comments are welcome.

Mackinnon's Textual Harassment

Feminism, Gender, Law

The baleful influence of feminist Catharine Mackinnon on American and Canadian jurisprudence cannot be underestimated. With relatively few obstacles from the dreaded patriarchy, Mackinnon, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, “teacher, writer, and activist,” has been transforming law since the 1980s. Her legal conquests, especially in developing sexual-harassment law, are the subject of this meaty volume, which comprises speeches and screeds Mackinnon has disgorged over 25 years.

The excerpt is from my review in The American Conservative of Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws by radical feminist, Catharine A. Mackinnon. Comments are welcome.

Bill (Anderson) On Black (Conrad)—and Derivative Deviltry

Bush, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, libertarianism, The Zeitgeist

Hooray for crusader against injustice, economist Bill Anderson, who wrote in agreement with my column, Crucifying Conrad (Black):

“I am in complete agreement about ‘derivative crimes’ such as mail fraud and wire fraud. Candice Jackson and I have written at length about this stuff, so I am glad to see someone else also beating this same drum. An attorney friend of mine once told me that federal prosecutors are the single greatest threat to liberty in this country, and I agree.
That is why I have not been among the cheerleaders of Patrick Fitzgerald and the bogus “Plamegate,” in which the prosecutors early on realized that no law was broken, so they decided to look for other charges. I have strongly criticized other libertarians who have been cheering Fitzpatrick because he is tormenting the Bush Administration. In other words, all libertarian principles go out the window because the political outcomes in ‘Plamegate’ are satisfying.

Must reads are Bill’s “The Courts and the New Deal,” and Washington’s Biggest Crime Problem.