The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far
by Philip K. Howard
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philip K. HowardEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2001-04-24
ISBN: 0375504222
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Random House
Book Reviews of The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far
Book Review: Howard Goes Too Far
Summary: 3 Stars
Howard's previous effort, "Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America," was spot-on. This one, unfortunately, takes the misguided and anti-liberty view that our courts are supposed to make law, rather than decide its legality.
Howard correctly excoriates the judicial approach which examines laws in anal-rententive detail, which finds "hidden meaning" where there plainly is none. He correctly prefers the precepts of common law over the intrusive restrictions of legislation. He believes judges should have the power to simply throw out obviously ridiculous cases. Yet, Howard goes too far, and has nothing but praise for the idea that judges should be able to use their "superior abilities" to make life decisions for us poor, simple regular folks.
He assumes that judges are the wisest members of society, and loves the idea that they are often appointed for life, which supposedly leaves them free to consider long term views. He wholly embraces the idea that judges should make law for the benefit of society, that they should decide social issues for our own good. (A typical example found in the book is his adulation of the anti-property rights Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, an elitist and moral relativist. In a case Howard highlights, Holmes ruled that a statute which restricted the workday of bakery employees "for their own safety" to ten hours was legal. Fortunately, the rest of the court voted against him, which Howard laments. Of course, there is nothing in the Constitution allowing the government to restrict workers' hours, nothing which allows any government interference in business practices; any attempt to do so is a monstrous "stretching" of the document and an assault on liberty. Yet Holmes is lauded by Howard for his efforts at social intervention.)
Essentially, Howard wants judges to run the country, because they are just so darn smart.
Summary of The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far
Author Philip K. Howard returns with the same storytelling style and supreme reasonableness that made his first book, The Death of Common Sense, such a smash hit in 1995. He begins The Lost Art of Drawing the Line by noting the damage predatory litigation has done to the communal fabric of the United States: "Social relations in America, far from steadied by law's sure hand, are a tangle of frayed legal nerves." He tells how seesaws have started to vanish from playgrounds, how teachers are banned from touching students, and how emergency-room staff are blocked from attending to patients off hospital grounds--even if they can see them bleeding to death just 30 feet away. These aren't just speculations, a parade of hypothetical horror stories--they are actual trends and events that Howard describes and documents. The ability to weave dozens of anecdotes like these into his narrative is one of Howard's great strengths, and it allows him to make important points in entertaining ways.Yet the book is much more than a collection of outrageous stories or a mere broadside against the legal system--though the legal system does come in for plenty of criticism. Instead, it's a meditation on the meaning of freedom, why freedom cannot exist outside of authority, and why individuals in positions of authority should have the ability to make decisions based on sound judgment. There is a temptation to secure liberty by restricting authority through the law, but this can be overdone, and it carries a high price: "Put law or any other formal construct in the middle of daily dealings, and people will start looking to the law instead of to one another." Then things get much worse: "The more our common institutions fail us, the more Americans want to limit their authority. Through a downward cycle of distrust, legal controls, [and] worse failure ... we drive Americans' governing institutions further into the bureaucratic maw." That is a terrible place to be, where no one is held accountable and antisocial behavior rules. And it has nothing at all to do with freedom. --John J. Miller
The Lost Art of Drawing the Line will appall and irritate — and entertain — readers every bit as much as Philip Howard’s first book. Why is it that no one can fix the schools? Why do ordinary judgements fill doctors with fear? Why are seesaws disappearing from playgrounds? Why has a wave of selfish people overtaken America?
In our effort to protect the individual against unfair decisions, we have created a society where no one’s in charge of anything. Silly lawsuits strike fear in our hearts because judges don’t think they have the authority to dismiss them. Inner-city schools are filthy and mired in a cycle of incompetence because no one has the authority to decide who’s doing the job and who’s not.
When no one’s in charge, we all lose our link to the common good. When principals lack authority over schools, of what use are the parents’ views? When no one can judge right and wrong, why not be as selfish as you can be? Philip Howard traces our well-meaning effort to protect individuals through the twentieth century, with the unintended result that we have lost much of our individual freedom.
Buttressed with scores of stories that make you want to collar the next self-centered jerk or hapless bureaucrat, The Lost Art of Drawing the Line demonstrates once again that Philip Howard is “trying to drive us all sane.”
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