This is a series, I and the world, I'm John Bachelor, the

juridification of public life.

I welcome Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution

writing most recently at Reelcler Politics

about a new book,

S succinct, everyday freedom,

designing the framework for a flourishing society all sounds very positive

However within this is a concern of something that Peter and I deal with routinely because we're public speakers and public writers.

That is that there is nothing I can say on this air

or post on my podcast that is not subject to judgment, judgment that can be very harsh in order to

protect well therein lies the question.

Peter a very good evening to you.

Juridification of public life.

Mr. Howard, Philip K. Howard, anticipates where we are.

The left and the right both are for enforcement enforcement of what Peter what are they protecting us from good evening to

Good evening to you John well they're protecting us protecting us from ourselves and protected us from fellow citizens and they think

protecting us from the heavy hand of government and law but all this protection actually brings the heavy hand of law and government authority down upon us in in

unprecedented ways. Howard's great observation is that in post-1960s America in order to reduce the unfairness of

the exercise of power we decided to elaborate extensive rules and develop very detailed procedures and

proliferate rights claims so as to bring more and more behavior under the under the eges of law. The aim was to eliminate unfairness,

but in the process of trying to eliminate unfairness we eliminated the exercise of

discretion reliance on common sense we shut down the sphere of what what Howard calls

...