Reddit mentions: The best law books

Alright man, you'll probably never see this since it's so late in the discussion, but - if you live in the USA - I seriously suggest your reconsider becoming a lawyer. The one exception would be if you are getting a STEM degree currently, ideally in electrical engineering or a handful of other disciplines.

The biggest risk you run, pursuing law, is spending the next 20 years after graduating law school drowning in debt. I am a lawyer, and I regret, more than anything, that I decided to go to law school without a STEM degree (disclaimer: I'm also debt free at this point, which should tell you how crushing this career can be if you don't end up doing exactly what you want to do).^1 I have recently started pursing an EE degree, and I'll tell you, the work I'm doing now sure as hell beats the legal work I was doing. But I'm fortunate enough to have the means to change tack on my career. You may not.

I can also tell you, I went to a top law school and did well, really well. I've worked for big firms. But the opportunities just aren't there for most people. One of my closest friends is struggling just to stay afloat as a lawyer, another guy I know left the law forever to do programming instead. A third is lucky enough to come from a rich family but is doing a business degree because it's worth more (and that's saying something truly terrifying about the value of a law degree right now).

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All the reasons you shouldn't become a lawyer

First of all, lawyers have a bimodal salary distribution which inflates the apparent average salary, this is true even now, in 2019. This means that, for most lawyers, you will start out making under $60k (often well under) and you won't make anywhere close to six figures until well into your career; that is, unless you're part of the 14% or so of lucky lawyers who land big firm jobs at the entry level. Even if you wanted to care for your sister, it would be difficult on the average lawyer's salary. Want to have a family? Good fucking luck if you've got a disabled sister to try to care for.

Second, hiring in the legal market is only growing for above entry-level positions. Don't believe me, visit a job board that has open posts for positions, or check out government agencies and see if they're hiring at the GS-12 or below level. There are positions, but the vast majority of positions want 3+ years of experience (and, in the past few years, 5+ is becoming more and more common). The glut of under or unemployed lawyers has not been fully absorbed.

Meanwhile, at the entry-level, the market continues to shrink, year to year. This means that even people who benefit from presenting the legal job market in the best possible light, like NALP Executive Director James Leipold, are unable to say that the market is any better than at any point since it crashed a decade ago.^2 Growth is basically keeping pace with broader growth in the economy. It is not a good situation.

Thirdly, the law school you go to matters. Consider this list of the top ten law schools that put the largest percentage of students in law firms. You can dive deeper into the data, like NALP data, to get a more refined picture. But, the summary is that the only law firms that matter are the big ones, so the law firm data these schools report often overstates the salary opportunities. Either way, if you want people to take you seriously, you need to get into a good law school, which means acing the LSAT and pulling a 3.5+ GPA in undergrad (unless, of course, you are getting an EE or CE degree, or pursuing a masters or Ph.D. in certain other subjects - more on that later).

Fourthly, law school is not about learning the law. Law school exams are designed to create a curve, and employers hire based on your school's reputation and where you sit on the exam curve. I'd recommend Fischl and Paul's Getting To Maybe for details. If you go into law school without understanding what law school exams are like and how the legal market operates, you frankly deserve what's coming to you (and it won't be pleasant).

Fifthly, lawyers are really, really depressed. Lawyers also suffer from alcoholism. Being a lawyer is incredibly stressful, and the financial renumeration is often paltry compared to the demands made on you.

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Reasons you should become a lawyer

There are only three reasons to become a lawyer:

One: If you're really okay with the idea of probably making peanuts and dealing with other people's problems, if you actually want to deal with the procedures and processes of being a lawyer (as opposed to just feeling some vague attraction to helping people or to "justice" or whatever other nonsense might be knocking around in your head), then it might be worth it. Even then, there are probably better ways to help (like joining a congressional staff or working for a political party or learning practical skills, like being a doctor and volunteering for Doctors Without Borders or something). Fun fact, doctors are like the most likely profession to end up in the top 1% of income earners. But their work-life balance is pretty terrible too, and it takes a long time to get there.

Two: You are related to someone rich and influential or a relative you're on good terms with is a partner at a big law firm and can guarantee you a job.

Three: You have a BS in electrical engineering or computer engineering, or a masters or Ph.D. in chemistry, biology, other types of engineering, etc. You'll need to google what background is in demand - last I checked it was Ph.D. for chemistry and biology. There is still tremendous demand for patent attorneys, demand that actually grew during the great recession and continues to grow, and if you can work as a patent agent and you can get into a decent law school, you can come out of it with real opportunities to not drown in debt for the rest of your life.


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^1 Law is highly specialized at the big firm level. If you don't know exactly what kind of law you want to practice, you may end up being a generalist or a litigator. I did litigation. It is fun, I have to admit, but it's also incredibly stressful and it does not pay as well as the specialists. I don't know a single generalist who makes what they're worth.

^2 “Barring another economic slowdown or interruption and barring a significant jump in law school enrollment as a result of rising applications, the employment outlook for recent law graduates looks brighter (if not exactly rosy) than it has at any time since 2008, and that is good news,” Leipold said. However, contrast this with Bernard Burk's comments in the abovethelaw article I linked.

I passed the CA bar awhile ago but ended up writing this mini guide up for friends who took the bar after me who, like myself, were frustrated with the commercial bar prep courses. I ended up studying supplements (while using Kaplan only for its MBE question bank) almost exclusively on my own schedule (and passed - with a lot less stress than a lot of my peers who struggled to complete the commercial bar prep schedule). My friends found this really helpful so I thought I'd share it with you:


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Reviewing the Black Letter Law
I highly recommend lean sheets because they were compact and great for reviewing rule elements.
They also had room in the margins for me to add any other notes I wanted to make.
http://www.leansheets.com/california-bar-exam-outlines-leansheets-com/


I suggest printing the entire pdf in color - double sided - 8.5 x 11 paper
http://documents.staples.com/ASP1/
Binding/Booklet 1
Paper/8.5x11 28lb Premium White / Standard / Standard Print (Precut Size) / Color / Duplex ($23)
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Multiple Choice:
Many people say that kicking ass on the MBE section is essential because it's the one section that is truly in your control to differentiate your score. The essay and performance test grading can be arbitrary - most people will get an average of 60 something on everything if they apply the correct IRAC method to the essays. But a lot of people mess up MBEs, and there's no excuse for that because one can definitely improve this with practice.

1. Critical Pass: http://criticalpass.refr.cc/DHGJQMN (my referral link but you don't have to use it 📷. This was Great to review in the evening when I was too tired to do practice questions. They already added flash cards for the civ pro mbe questions. I was stupidly impressed with how these cards actually covered so much of the questions on actual exam. Definitely essential in my opinion
   
   
   
2. Strategies & Tactics for the MBE, Sixth Edition (Emanuel Bar Review)
   https://www.amazon.com/Strategies-Tactics-MBE-Emanuel-Review/dp/1454873124/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
   
   
   I used this book mostly for the general MBE test-taking tips and the tips were so on-point. Because I was using Kaplan and it already had a huge question bank - I practiced with those questions.
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   Essays:
   
   
   Formatting is KEY. Do NOT write big long paragraphs. I underlined, made sure to write a lot of mini-paragraphs (5-6 sentences max), then move on.
   
   
   During the exam, make sure you use every single fact in the fact pattern. Use a highlighter and highlight each fact or mark each fact after you incorporate it in some way into your essay.
   
   
   Don't worry if the question asks you something pretty obscure or you just blank on something. Just put down something reasonable and move on. Use every fact (there are almost never any red herrings - I never saw any).
   
   
   Using the call of the question--- IRAC. But the IRAC's should be really short and concise - (1 sentence for the issue; 1-2 rule statements, 5-6 for application, 1 sentence for conclusion).
   
   
   I didn't have a memorization plan for rule statements, but made sure to know certain rules very well: Community Property opener, Contract (applicable law, offer, acceptance, etc), Evidence (definition of legal and logical relevance, hearsay exceptions), elements of negligence claim for Torts, etc. You'll find good rule statements in the following book:
   
   
   Essay Exam Writing for the CA Bar Exam: http://www.amazon.com/Essay-Exam-Writing-California-Bar/dp/073550993X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/176-3124324-1877215
   
   
   I didn't actually practice writing a lot of actual essays. I read this book in its entirely and thought it was amazing. The only essay book you need in my opinion. I found the checklists a little hard to memorize, so I just focused on the approach this book outline for every subject. (And memorizing the rules used in the sample essays).
   
   
   And what I did is, after reading the tips, I practiced writing essays for the practice essays at the end of each chapter - read the sample essay + looked at the issue chart + rewrote it again.
   
   
   I liked this book the best because the sample essays weren't ridiculously long like kaplan and barbri. This book emphasizes what HAS to be in your essay responses, and leaves out the extraneous stuff that will hardly get you any points on the exam itself.
   
   
   My essays were much shorter on the actual exam than in any barbri or kaplan sample essay - and I think it was sufficient.
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   Performance Tests
   http://ipassedmybarexam.com/2011/02/13/the-bar-exam-performance-tests-are-easy/
   
   
   Honestly - that write-up sums up all the tips you need to do well on the performance test. Really thorough and really hits the nail on the head.
   
   
   To be honest, I practiced maybe 2 performance tests in total. The only things I think you need to do is read through all the tips above, and then print out and read all the sample performance test answers for the past 3 years from the CA bar site: http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Admissions/Examinations/California-Bar-Examination/Past-Exams
   
   
   Getting a feel for the memo structure that the bar examiners wanted was the most helpful thing.
   
   
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   Rule Statements
   I did not use this site when I studied for the bar, but someone posted this in another thread and it looks pretty good if you're looking for black letter law outlines and rule statements: By the way, I was briefly looking at this thread for the July 2018 Bar exam and someone posted this link as a good place to get solid rule statements for some of the major subjects:
   
   
   https://law.stanford.edu/office-of-student-affairs/bar-exam-information
   
   
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   Best of luck!!!

A dictator is a fundamentally bad thing. The best interests of all leaders (dictators or democrats) usually reside in getting/staying in power. For democrats, that means keeping a winning coalition of the people at large happy, but since a dictator has only to keep a small group of powerful supporters happy (usually a military, or a group of rich elites), they have no direct motivation to invest in public goods that benefit the population as a whole when keeping just a small inner circle happy is so much cheaper.

This is not to say there is no such thing as a benevolent dictator. Altruism is rare, but it does exist. Lee Kuan Yoo, the former leader of Singapore, is the best example modern history has of someone with near-absolute power who used it mostly for the betterment of the people. The problem is that hoping for altruism is playing the lottery, with pretty bad odds since it usually does take some level of ruthlessness and conniving self interest in order to become a dictator in the first place. It's hoping that someone chosen for his lack of niceness might turn out to be nice after all.

Democracy doesn't function very well without democratic institutions. It needs a system where it's beneficial for all involved to maintain the system as opposed to exploiting it. Military leaders have to feel that they're better off supporting the ruler than strong-arming them. Lower class minority groups have to believe that the system is close enough to them to not be worth rising up against. Everyone has to feel that following the law is better than bribing officials or ignoring the rules, without the necessary threat of force for it. It's hard to get there, and especially when democracy is put in place from the top down. If the power of a leader is guaranteed by American military aid, then the leader has a bigger motivation to appease the American military than to invest in public welfare. If a democrat draws support from anything other than a winning coalition of the populace, democratic institutions will lack enough power to enforce stability through democratic means.

I think your question could be asking two different things: "Can dictators be good for the people they rule over?" and "Can keeping dictators in place be good for American interests?"

The answer to question 1 is a near-unequivocal "No," though there are a few counterexamples. The problem is however that replacing them is extremely difficult.

For question number 2,the answer is often "Yes." Be careful not to confuse the two.

It is however worth remembering that even the most successful democracies had a lot of difficulty getting there. Most European countries had monarchs slowly give up more and more power over time, and have had several different political systems over the years. The initial governments put together after the American and French Revolutions were failures. The American Revolution began in 1776, and Washington was inaugurated in 1788. One could reasonably argue that America didn't have working democratic institutions until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Remember that (and the progress made in Tunisia) whenever someone writes off everything about the Arab Spring.

If you're interested in the motivations for public welfare for dictators and democrats, I would suggest reading [Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's The Dictator's Handbook.] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845) It explains the way that preferences affect systems in an easy to understand way with great real-life examples.

I'm actually a minarchist who believes in a particular kind of restricted natural duty theory of social contract (Kant's justification for the state), but I was an ancap for a long time so I think I can give a good crack at an ancap answer.

>The social contract doesn't exist as a single legal document that one writes up and then signs, to be stored away for future reference.

As you say, the social contract is very clearly not a single historical event which establishes consent. However, this is one very common way of arguing for a particular kind of social contract (in particular, it's a common libertarian way of arguing for a social contract), so it's not as if ancaps are just strawmanning the position.

The general problem seems to be establishing:

(1) what the contract actually is

(2) how it's established

If the social contract is supposed to operate like any other contract, so that you 'consent' to the terms of the contract by an actual act of consent, then there are some pretty clear problems. For one thing, it's hard to identify what specific actions constitute consent - and, if you didn't perform those actions, would that constitute non-consent? For instance, if using government roads means that you consent to the government, then does not using those roads mean you don't consent? Second, it seems like the only way that a lot of these conditions for consent can "get going" in the first place is through something you did not consent to - for instance, in order for the government to begin to provide services for the "first citizens" who benefited from those services, the government probably coerced those citizens to make that provision possible (for example, by taxing them, or by preventing competing organizations from providing the same services). This is most clearly the case with law/security/defense.

For example, if the US government commanded the obedience of native Americans because they were "residing on US government land", this wouldn't be legitimate, because the only reason the US government "owns" that land is by conquering and subjugating the non-consenting Indians; so the conditions for consent depend on a coercive act, which invalidates the state's claim to those conditions.

This general approach to social contract theory, which establishes some way of providing actual consent, is called a transactional consent theory - the idea is that people have certain moral rights in a vacuum, but that that transact or transfer those rights to the state by an act of consent. There are other credible approaches to justification of a social contract, but I think it's pretty clear that the transactional model (which most libertarians criticize) is not one of them. It ends up boiling down to "you relate to the government by X, which means you consent", and libertarians saying (probably correctly) that "the only reason X exists is because the government coerced me prior to establishing X!"

> It exists as a state of relationships between people, communities and societies. We observe it's natural convention at work when we interact with our friends as opposed to strangers, family members as opposed to foreigners, and as one nation in contrast with other nations.

This is a more 'associative' theory of political obligation - the idea is that, because you exist in some unchosen association with other people, this establishes some sort of collective obligation for people due to this association. But it seems like the problem with this theory is that, absent some more ethical work to flesh it out, it's only begging the question: we have a political obligation to people based on X association (family, clan, race, nation, humanity, etc.) because... why, exactly? It seems like the answer is just "because of the association" (we can talk about all the details of that association - the fact that you share certain characteristics or have a shared history, or because you tend to cooperate together, or something else), but, again, it seems like it builds the conclusion ("unchosen associations imply obligations") into the premise.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that, because I think it is possible to mount a compelling defense of an associative theory of political obligation (it's actually a theory associated more strongly with conservative political philosophy - although your flair says you're a socialist, the best sources for this sort of theory are, imo, Aristotle and Edmund Burke). But it's not very compelling for most people today, because people today generally think that consent is a morally important factor for the sort of stuff that the state does, and the social contract is supposed to show us that consent actually exists. This associative theory might establish that we have a duty to obey the law and the state has a right to command us, but it doesn't establish that this relationship is consensual (for the theorists I have in mind who advocate this theory, however, consent simply isn't important for establishing political authority or obligation).

>In any country you live in, certain rights are accorded to you as a citizen that aren't available to other people who aren't.

First, ancaps will disagree with this characterization of rights. Ancaps think (and I do too, even though I'm not an ancap) that rights are logically and historically prior to the state: even if there exists no state, you have certain rights, and these rights don't depend on their being secured to be morally important (for instance, even if you have no way of defending yourself and you live in a stateless island, it would still be a violation of your rights for someone else to kill you).

Second, it's unclear what the sort of positive rights you're talking about have to do with the social contract without at least some further explanation. The mere fact that you are given special privileges doesn't seem to imply that your relationship with the person who grants those privileges is consensual - for instance, you might be accorded rights to water use against your neighbors (so that your neighbors can't use some water, but you can) because of a local warlord who prefers you to your neighbors. But this doesn't mean that everything else the warlord does to you is consensual; all it means is that he's nicer to you than everyone else.

>When someone talks about the social contract, this is simply what they're referring to (1).

Yes, yes, we all know who John Rawls is. However, the defense of social contract theory which you've provided is actually not much like John Rawls's theory of justice at all. If you're going to condescendingly posture yourself as better educated than we stupid libertarians, at least be better educated.

>Claiming that you're not part of a larger social system because nobody presented you with a piece of paper is just a straw man argument, you understand it in your public and private behavior every day.

See: all above.

First, in reality the whole thing is fluid and political science is more of an art than a science. There is a part of me that sees government from the lens of The Dictators Handbook which views governments without any regard to ideology but only on the number of people who control wealth (democratic governments have large groups of people while autocratic have smaller groups). From that perspective I'd imagine that AutDem, PatAut and NatPop are the same sort of oligarchy with an elite group of maybe a hundred people in government, industry, military, media and religion who make all of the decisions for the state.

However in my experience there is more motivating people than merely a desire for control of the budget. Though I could never get past the pornography in Game of Thrones but it had some great thought on the subject power is power and power lies where people believe it lies. The primary difference between the three authoritarian government has to do with the stories people tell to explain power. As best I can tell NatPop tells a story of a great people and the emphasis is on the blood of the people, they are the descendants of gods and are of a different sort then other people. AuthPat is a story about a great man, the world is filled with chaos but HE brings order and so we follow HIM. AuthDem is a story about a great nation, the government is better than other governments and its laws are better than other laws.

How I understand this is to say the OTL Churchill in the UK was an authoritarian democrat. The justification for his quasi-dictatorship was not that Churchill was just such a great man (though obviously that is implied in his telling of story) and certainly it was not that noble English blood is better than other blood (though that too he believed) but primarily it was that the United Kingdom was the greatest empire in the world because its laws were just and it made the world a better place. Churchill's narrative was that they would win because their whole system was just better than those of their enemies.

We can add Totalism to the same model since the number of people who controlled the budget was very similar to that of the others. Their story is that they have set the people free and any oppose them are seeking to enslave the people, therefore everyone should give up what they have for the cause of the world's freedom.

I think part of the problem is really that people are looking at only granular parts of problems today and don't have enough historical context. Its useless to follow every story about everyone and every little thing. There are lots of ups and downs in politics and there's no reason to be so reactionary to every single new and probably manufactured "scandal".... that's what's exhausting. I like to keep updated on a few big issues, I follow the careers of a few people I find inspiring (and follow a few that do things that worry me), and spend the rest of the time reading up on topics in book form... they have the advantage of being written over time, and with more vigorous standards for accuracy. The news, while still important where immediate info is necessary, is essentially click bait now. You don't need to get caught in the rip tides that pull you everywhere constantly, just understand the general trajectory of the important things.

edit: to those curious about some book recommendations: I'm by no means an expert in anything really, and the books you read should really be about the topics you personally are interested in, so don't take my word as gospel (or any author's). I like American history, ancient history, international relations, and though I think they're more boring I force myself to read about the health care system and the American education system because I feel they're important. I'm also looking to read some books on the military industrial complex and cyber security/ big data because I don't really know anything about them other than the stuff I see in passing on the news or here on Reddit. So if anyone knows a good overview of those issues, feel free to let me know.

• For a good start on human history and the beginnings of modern economics/ intl relations (basically why the West has historically dominated), try Guns, Germs, and Steel I believe there's also a documentary if the book is too dense for your taste (it is pretty dense).
  
  
• Perhaps if you're interested in why people get so damn heated talking politics, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation
  
  
• If you wonder why people vote against their own social and economic interest: What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Full disclosure: I liked this book, but I lean left. I'm not sure if it matters, the point of the book is just to track how the Republican party went from being the party of elites, to the party of blue collar workers.
  
  
• If the Supreme Court interests you at all, I liked Jeffrey Toobin's, The Nine
  
  
• The achievement gap? Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria
  
  
• Health care? There's a lot, but this one is an easy read and it compares the systems of Britain, Japan, Germany, and I believe Cuba (which is very good for their GDP!) and the US's. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid
  
  This is just some stuff I've listed off the top of my head. Another thing that I find helpful to better understanding intl relations are books about the major genocides of the past few decades, which are hard to get through (because of the brutal content) but... What is the What (Sudan), First they killed my father (Cambodian genocide), Girl at War (more of a autobiography, but still chilling) there's a couple of others I've read that I can't remember now.
  
  Anyway, just go to Good Reads and look at Contemporary Politics. Perhaps Great Courses has a political philosophy course too that you can draw from if you wanna go even farther back into the origins of society's structure and political thought.
  
  Also podcasts! I've just discovered these but there's a lot of audio content (FREE!) that you can listen to on your commute and whatnot. I like Abe Lincoln's Top Hat right now.
  
  Edit edit: wow thanks for the gold!!

I would say that countries are really complex systems that cannot be simplified with a couple of variables into developed and underdeveloped.

I always thought that this oversimplification made sense but then I migrated from India to the US and realized that the United States is actually archaic in a lot of things that India is good at. A big example would be mobile payments and mobile internet in general - Even the poorest of Indians are comfortable using mobile wallets and more Indians have mobile wallets than they have credit cards. I think India sort of skipped the plastic money phase and went straight to mobile.

Planet Money has an excellent podcast on the topic of how and who determines the variables that make a country developed or underdeveloped - https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/01/31/582233478/episode-821-the-other-davos
Essentially it works just like how an inefficient, political system works - The powerful and well networked get to make the decision on what matters

Another thing to factor in is democracy and functioning of the government. There is and there never will be truly altruistic leaders. Every individual is essentially motivated by self interest. So lets a leader comes into power in a developing country, he will have a cohort of individuals whom he has to keep satisfied for him to stay in power longer. This cohort will consist of people who have the most resources in the country - Industrialists, people who own the media etc. The smaller the number of people he has to please, the better it is for him. If the country becomes developed, then there will be more people to keep satisfied and thus it becomes harder for the leader. So development is actually counter-intuitive for someone who wants to stay in power.

There are some interesting exceptions - Saudi Arabia, China etc. It would be really good if someone can explain the rationale of leaders in these countries and how they stay in power. It's difficult to rely on stats such as the Gini coefficient in these authoritarian countries - cause they may be manipulating it.

A really good book on this topic - https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

There is a video that explains the book perfectly. Could not find it. sorry.

Deviating a bit to reply to one of the comments....

One of the comments here say that knowledge comes at the charity of developed countries - nothing could be further from the truth. Developed countries invest in developing countries purely for utilitarian purposes. China for rare earth minerals and manufacturing, Inda and Bangladesh for clothes etc. There is nothing wrong with this. Capitalism at work. I think one thing that badly affects developing countries is "Interventionism". That is rich people thinking they exactly know what a kid in Kenya needs. This has historically lead to more inequalities and even civil wars in Africa. If you really want to help someone, just give them a small loan, they will know what to do with it.

Blackistheonlycolor, I largely agree with this post but I would like to share a few thoughts.

Self Study is THE way to prepare for the LSAT. I think an LSAT course is only a good option if you need more help grasping the basics than self study is providing.

The books that PhiPsiSciFi provided are certainly good, but I think there are a few changes which could maximize your prep. My book recommendation list would be:

• The Logic Games Bible $45
  
• Manhattan 3-book set $82
  
• Cambridge LR 1-20 $47
  
• Cambridge LR 21-40 $60
  
• Cambridge RC 1-20 $32
  
• Cambridge RC 21-40 $40
  
• Cambridge Complete LG Set PDF $90
  
• PTs 52-61 $20
  
• PTs 62-71 $22
  
• LSAT SuperPrep $17
  
• [LSAT PT 72] (http://www.amazon.com/Official-LSAT-PrepTest-72-PrepTests-ebook/dp/B00MXDVYS4/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412298868&sr=1-2&keywords=LSAT+72) $6
  
  Total is $461. Now I realize that is significantly more money that the list given above, but if you can swing it, you will get a lot more bang for your buck. The Manhattan LSAT books tend to be a little bit better than the Powerscore ones. The Powerscore Logic Games Bible is certainly a great asset to have, which is why I included it here, but the LR Bible doesn't flow as well as Manhattan's and the RC Bible is nowhere near as good. The next big difference is that my list includes PTs 1-40 only as drills instead of complete tests. The earlier tests are quite a bit different than the modern LSAT, so while you won't get an extremely representative score by taking the full PTs, you can get improve by having the questions broken down into drills. That said, if there was anything you wanted to take off this list, The Cambridge LR 1-20 and RC 1-20 aren't 100% necessary. They are certainly nice to have, but you can only realistically do so many drills and it will be better to do the more modern ones found in PTs 21-40. But if you are planning to study for 6+ months, get 1-20 as well as 21-40. You will want to get all of the Logic Games though. Personally, I think PDF works better because you will want to re-print several of them to complete multiple times. You will also want to re-do every logic game section from tests 40+, which isn't really necessary for the LR and RC sections.
  The rest of my list is pretty much the same. I added PT 72 and you will want to get 73 when that comes out too. Overall, you will get 24 PTs from my suggestions (20 from the two books, 3 from SuperPrep, and PT 72. Obviously you hit 25 if you get PT 73 as well) which should be plenty. If you needed anymore buy the individual PTs from 41 up. I know this is a good bit of money, but it is soooo much cheaper than any reputable LSAT Course and it is more effective too.

George Orwell: 1984. Essential to understanding the Totalitarian Left, and ideas that have now entered our language and are becoming more relevant by the day, such as doublethink, thoughtcrime, and newspeak.

Donald J. Boudreaux: The Essential Hayek. (also Hayek's original works, eg The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty, but they are much more expensive. This is a good introduction to the Austrian School of economics).

Carroll Quigley: Tragedy & Hope: a history of the world in our time.
http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf
> One of these persistent questions is typical of the twentieth century rather than of earlier times: Can our way of life survive? Is our civilization doomed to vanish, as did that of the Incas, the Sumerians, and the Romans? From Giovanni Battista Vico in the early eighteenth century to Oswald Spengler in the early twentieth century and Arnold J Toynbee in our own day, men have been puzzling over the problem of whether civilizations have a life cycle and follow a similar pattern of change. from this discussion emerged a fairly general agreement that men live in separately organized societies, each with its own distinct culture; that some of these societies, having writing and city life, exist on a higher level of culture than the rest, and should be called by the different term "civilizations"; and that these civilizations tend to pass through a common pattern of experience.

Carroll Quigley: The Evolution of Civilizations. http://www.archive.org/stream/CarrollQuigley-TheEvolutionOfCivilizations-AnIntroductionTo/CarrollQuigley-TheEvolutionOfCivilizations-AnIntroductionToHistoricalAnalysis1979#page/n1/mode/2up
> In this perceptive look at the factors behind the rise and fall of civilizations, Professor Quigley seeks to establish the analytical tools necessary for understanding history. He examines the application of scientific method to the social sciences, then establishes his historical hypotheses. He poses a division of culture into six levels, from the more abstract to the more concrete—intellectual, religious, social, political, economic, and military—and he identifies seven stages of historical change for all civilizations: mixture, gestation, expansion, conflict, universal empire, decay, and invasion.

J.C. Unwin: Sex and Culture
https://archive.org/details/b20442580
> With care-free open-mindedness I decided to test, by a reference to human records, a somewhat startling conjecture that had been made by analytical psychologists. This suggestion was that if the social regulations forbid direct satisfaction of the sexual impulses the emotional conflict is expressed in another way, and that what we call 'civilization' has always been built up by compulsory sacrifices in the gratification of innate desires.

Sir John Glubb: The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
> d) The stages of the rise and fall of great nations seem to be:

>The Age of Pioneers (outburst)

> The Age of Conquests

>The Age of Commerce

>The Age of Affluence

>The Age of Intellect

>The Age of Decadence.

>(e) Decadence is marked by:

>Defensiveness

>Pessimism

>Materialism

>Frivolity

>An influx of foreigners

>The Welfare State

>A weakening of religion.

>(f) Decadence is due to:

>Too long a period of wealth and power

>Selfishness

>Love of money

>The loss of a sense of duty.

>(g) The life histories of great states are amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.

E. Belfort Bax: The Fraud of Feminism. http://www.angryharry.com/FraudOfFeminism.htm (written in 1913, it clearly shows that there was no 'golden age' of feminism, and that feminists can never be satisfied).
> Though women have been conceded all the rights of men, their privileges as females have remained untouched, while the sentimental "pull" they have over men, and the favouritism shown them in the courts, civil and criminal, often in flagrant violation of elementary justice, continues as before. The result of their position on juries, as evinced in certain trials, has rather confirmed the remarks made in Chapter II. anent [concerning] hysteria than otherwise. The sex-bias of men in favour of women and the love of the advanced woman towards her sex-self show no sign of abatement.

And two recent important works in political philosophy that are therefore not available for free.

John Rawls. A Theory of Justice. A seminal book providing an alternative to Utilitarianism. "Rawls's "Theory of Justice" is widely and justly regarded as this century's most important work of political philosophy. "
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0674000781/

T.M. Scanlon. What We Owe to Each Other. Following on from Rawls' insights, and applying them more broadly than only to justice, to what underpins a society working together. "What do we owe to each other? What obligations of honesty, respect, trust and consideration exist between people?"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/067400423X/

Finally

Jonathan Haidt: Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Haidt shows that there are at least 6 foundations of what people see as social good. Of these, the Left see 'Caring' as the good, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Libertarians see 'Liberty' as the good, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Conservatives are fairly evenly balanced across the 6, and have the easiest time understanding the perspective of the others as a result. See also http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042366 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONUM4akzLGE. You might know Haidt from this talk: http://www.sciencevsfeminism.com/the-myth-of-equality/jonathan-haidt-coddling-u-strengthening-u/

> A Pigouvian tax need not be "perfect" to be Pareto improving -- just because policymakers calculate the optimum does not mean that they can't enact benefitial policies.

Yes, but it doesn't mean that they can, either. It's a shot in the dark, at best, even if you leave out the political incentives involved.

> Interpersonal comparisons of ordinal utility are impossible, but von Neumann and Morgenstern's formulation and Nash's existence proof may offer a way out of this problem.

I endorse Murray Rothbard's response to von Neumann and Morgenstern, excerpt below:

>The errors of this theory are numerous and grave:
>
>1. None of the axioms can be validated on demonstrated preference grounds, since admittedly all of the axioms can be violated by the individual actors.
>2. The theory leans heavily on a constancy assumption so that utilities can be revealed by action over time.
>3. The theory relies heavily on the invalid concept of indifference of utilities in establishing the numerical scale.
>4. The theory rests fundamentally on the fallacious application of a theory of numerical probability to an area where it cannot apply. Richard von Mises has shown conclusively that numerical probability can be assigned only to situations where there is a class of entities, such that nothing is known about the members except they are members of this class, and where successive trials reveal an asymptotic tendency toward a stable proportion, or frequency of occurrence, of a certain event in that class. There can be no numerical probability applied to specific individual events.
>
>Yet, in human action, precisely the opposite is true. Here, there are no classes of homogeneous members. Each event is a unique event and is different from other unique events. These unique events are not repeatable. Therefore, there is no sense in applying numerical probability theory to such events. It is no coincidence that, invariably, the application of the neo-cardinalists has always been to lotteries and gambling. It is precisely and only in lotteries that probability theory can be applied. The theorists beg the entire question of its applicability to general human action by confining their discussion to lottery cases. For the purchaser of a lottery ticket knows only that the individual lottery ticket is a member of a certain-sized class of tickets. The entrepreneur, in making his decisions, is on the contrary confronted with unique cases about which he has some knowledge and which have only limited parallelism to other cases.
>
>5. The neo-cardinalists admit that their theory is not even applicable to gambling if the individual has either a like or a dislike for gambling itself. Since the fact that a man gambles demonstrates that he likes to gamble, it is clear that the Neumann-Morgenstern utility doctrine fails even in this tailor-made case.
>6. A curious new conception of measurement. The new philosophy of measurement discards concepts of "cardinal" and "ordinal" in favor of such labored constructions as "measurable up to a multiplicative constant" (cardinal); "measurable up to a monotomic transform" (ordinal); "measurable up to a linear transform" (the new quasi-measurement, of which the Neumann-Morgenstern proposed utility index is an example). This terminology, apart from its undue complexity (under the influence of mathematics), implies that everything, including ordinality, is somehow "measurable." The man who proposes a new definition for an important word must prove his case; the new definition of measurement has hardly done so.
>
>Measurement, on any sensible definition, implies the possibility of a unique assignment of numbers which can be meaningfully subjected to all the operations of arithmetic. To accomplish this, it is necessary to define a fixed unit. In order to define such a unit, the property to be measured must be extensive in space, so that the unit can be objectively agreed upon by all. Therefore, subjective states, being intensive rather than objectively extensive, cannot be measured and subjected to arithmetical operations. And utility refers to intensive states. Measurement becomes even more implausible when we realize that utility is a praxeological, rather than a directly psychological, concept.

I highly recommend that entire paper, by the way.

As for Nash, the fact that we can know there is a Nash Equilibrium has no implications as to whether we can actually calculate it. Hell, mapping Nash equilibrium for a simplified poker game is a PhD thesis in itself.

>This is backwards -- positive externalities should be subsidized, not taxed (negatively taxed). A Pigouvian official would pay the artist to create and display art in her yard.

Interesting. Who knew there could be subsidies without taxation?

>This is what I don't understand. Who, in a stateless regime, is doing the "focusing?"

I primarily meant our focus as economists. Humans have a tendency, however, to create complex systems for the definition and protection of property rights, and these systems function best polycentrically. Most economists are quick to decry even the shadow of a monopoly in industry, but the same critiques (and more) apply to states as monopolies over the production of certain services within given territories. Bruce Benson's book is great on the history of private law, if you've ever got some time to kill. For less of a time investment, David Friedman's case study of the Icelandic Commonwealth is fascinating.

>Is there some kind of dialectical approach where the need for state enforcement of property will wither away, because I am not sure that I could be convinced that a sudden imposition of anarchy would result in clear, focused property rights.

No dialectic, and no "new [ideology] man." I agree that a sudden "imposition" of anarchy would not result in much of anything positive in the short run. People tend to respond badly to sudden impositions in any context. There are many theories regarding this. My ideal transition, for example, would be entrepreneurial advances in technology that allow the market to outcompete the state in the provision of various services despite the state's monopoly by providing higher quality, leading to a gradual decline of state relevance.

> Furthermore, I am not sure that property rights alone are enough to ensure functioning markets, especially in regards to distributive justice (the second welfare theorem). Market outcomes may be "better" without the state, but is this necessarily so if individual utility is a function of income distribution and relative wealth? I think it's reasonable to suppose that an other-regarding individual may choose a less efficient, more equitable state outcome than a stateless, efficient outcome, if given a Rawlsian choice.

I don't think it's at all self-evident that the market outcomes will be less equal than under states. On the indexes of economic freedom (primarily Fraser for credibility, though Heritage's isn't bad even if it carries their name) economic freedom actually has a negative correlation to economic inequality. That said, envy is cultural, but also contextual. If there's no nation, people will tend to look toward more realistic economic regions in comparing incomes. I also hypothesize that the culture of a propertarian anarchist region would tend to discourage such envy (as Protestantism did in Western Europe for centuries, and as seen in Jewish culture).

Manhunt by Peter Bergen is about the ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden by the United States government, written by the only Western journalist to ever interview OBL. It's hard to find someone involved in the hunt whom he didn't interview, and the result is fantastically fair and even-handed.

If you're looking at something a bit more big-picture, The Art of Intelligence by Henry Crumpton is a solid overview of modern intelligence operations as framed by his career. It's not for cynics, but it's a good read nonetheless.

I also went on a Supreme Court-related kick this summer after the Obamacare decision. The definitive look at how the Supreme Court functions comes courtesy of Bob Woodward's The Brethren. He wrote it 25ish years ago with Supreme Court insiders (including a former Justice) as sources. The subject matter is a little historical (he covers the Burger court from 1969 to 1975) and at times a little technical (I'm a SCOTUS dork and even I had to look a few things up) but if you're interested in how the Court actually works, it's essential reading. I highly recommend the chapter on the 1973 term - Woodward devotes at least 50+ pages to their ruling in United States v. Nixon (the Watergate case) with a blow-by-blow account of Watergate from the Supreme Court's perspective. If you're a constitutional dork like me, it's both heartening and heart-pounding.

For a more recent perspective on the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine is worth checking out. He writes about the Rehnquist Court from about 1992 to 2006, and while it's neither as well-written nor as neutral as Woodward's book, it's still pretty insightful about the current Court's jurisprudential disposition.

When I said "51 onward" I was referring to PrepTest 51 and onward. PrepTest, commonly abbreviated as PT are previously administered LSATs. Every LSAT is released as such, except for those pertaining to the February administration. The most recent PrepTest is number 77, which corresponds to the LSAT that was administered in December of 2015. Each PrepTest contains the four officially scored sections of the LSAT plus the writing sample question, it however does not include the experimental section as this would compromise future LSATs. When you purchase the LSAT PrepTest volumes, you do not receive explanations, only an answer key and percentile conversion chart to each exam. However, the LSAC has released a book called SuperPrep II which includes 3 PrepTests, of which is there not only an answer key, but official explanations to each and every question, explaining why the right answer to each is the, well right answer. Although the LSAC does not have an explanation for all of their PrepTests published, there are many forums, websites and even published books which will do so for you. For example, The Princeton Review will be shortly releasing "LSAT Decoded" which will explain all of the answers in corresponding LSATs(PrepTests) I listed the following books that I purchased and recommend. Go to your local bookstore and read a couple pages of the Prep Company's book and see if their method of teaching works for you, if not, find another. Lastly, I would like to say that it is of absolutely no trouble for myself, I am more than happy to help, and thus I wish you the best of luck in your endeavour! :D

I posted the links to the books I bought and have been enjoying, please take caution before purchasing it from these links, as I posted the Amazon Canadian links as I live in Canada. Anyway, I believe either the Kaplan Premier 2016-2017 or LSAT trainer are an absolute must, although you could get away with not getting a prep company strategy set, I strongly encourage getting at the very least a comprehensive all in one. Any more questions or concerns about anything related to the LSAT please feel free to send me a message/reply.

http://www.amazon.ca/10-Actual-Official-LSAT-PrepTests/dp/0986045519/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1457253768&sr=8-2&keywords=LSAT

http://www.amazon.ca/Official-LSAT-SuperPrep-II-Champion/dp/0990718689/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1457253768&sr=8-10&keywords=LSAT

http://www.amazon.ca/Actual-Official-PrepTests-Comparative-Reading/dp/0984636005/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1457253768&sr=8-9&keywords=LSAT

http://www.amazon.ca/LSAT-Trainer-remarkable-self-study-self-driven/dp/0989081508/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1457253799&sr=8-3&keywords=LSAT

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1937707784?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1937707776?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0990718697?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0986045543?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0986086231?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

I'll bite, friend.

Implementation of either system leads to inequality and genocide. History is straightforward on this. When human beings implement Capitalism, you get imperialism and, to name an example, the exploitation and killing of the Native peoples of America. Or Africa. When communism is implemented by human beings, the result always leads to some form of State Capitalism, and goals to be attained through the power of centralization lead to unintended consequences, the most popular being starvation. Communist regimes definitely rock the starvation numbers. Also, you give absolute power to a small group of people, which allows them to kill anyone they don't like. The most famous examples can be found here.

Communism attempts to force equality (a paradox), but universal equality doesn't exist in the real world. No matter the system, somebody has to be in charge, and they all get there and stay there the same way. A great book to read on the identical patterns of attaining and keeping political power is The Dictator's Handbook which brings up Selectorate Theory. Basically, whether you're the leader of a Communist regime, a Capitalist nation, a large private business, or any organization of a large group of people, the rules and tools of governance stay the same.

The ideology of Communism appears to come from a place of charity and mutual benefit, and that certainly is admirable. The pursuit of helping your neighbor is a high virtue. However, there are many people who do not hold charity as a virtue, or do not possess the constitution to act upon that charity beyond their own self-preservation. And this is why pure Communism stays in the vacuum of books and the imaginations of the literate peasant, and falls short of its high demands whenever it is attempted. One way or another, the good nature of Socialist doctrine is corrupted by greed and sociopathy (in the highest ranks) and, most importantly, laziness. Laziness really is the key here. Reading the long-winded Marx literature, then reading the revisionist literature, then reading the counterargument literature, then reading all the amateur Marxist campus-count literature, is exhausting (to say the least). Most people hate reading. If you're still reading this, I commend you. Then those people have to live it, and embody an ideal that doesn't form naturally. The only people with the energy to do it must possess a most fervent ambition, and and a towering mental capacity beyond your average human being. Those people are more often than not motivated by pure hatred for the existing system and the people who defend it. Which is fair. Capitalism in a vacuum would be a meritocracy, but in the real world only leads to a sort of "singularity" of accumulation of wealth and exploitation of the masses. Nobody wants that (unless you're the guy/gal on top). However, some issues arise when your entire belief system (one of charity towards fellow man) is fueled by hatred and rage. When I see these hardcore Communists who spend their days ripping apart the agents of Capitalism (a genocidal machine) and touting the benefits of Communism (another genocidal machine), I'm seeing someone who, if given absolute power, would absolutely become a dictator. Someone who personally wishes to harm those who they perceive as harmful. Someone who would take their turn at utilizing oppression in the name of the oppressed, and for oppression's sake.

My final thought is this: Our world is complicated, unpredictable, and chaotic. We think we have a rough idea on how our day is going to be when we wake up in the morning. We all have skills and natural talents to help us make this life more manageable, to give us a modicum of control. However, we are all subject to the void. We are pulled along by forces beyond our comprehension, and are motivated by desires both base and divine. "Capitalism" and "Communism" and its many, many derivatives are nothing more than labels, identified patterns, and projections of possibilities that could be accomplished with the uniformity of masses of individuals. Individuals are not perfect, and so the systems are not perfect. You are technically capable of getting a healthy amount of sleep every day, exercising regularly, eating vegetables every day, never drinking or abusing substances, being a good listener to your loved ones and your neighbor, and attaining the highest quality of living in the process. But you won't.

TL;DR Both systems lead to inequality and mass murder. No system can be foolproof against tools like you guys, or me for that matter.

Alright, if you're going to make blanket statements about my motivation to post this, I'll bite.

For one, I'm not left. I'll also note tell you who I voted for but it wasn't the liberals. I'm more in support of the democratic idea that when more people vote, it makes the system less easy to corrupt and also keeps the leaders in check.

If you want to read a book about democratic processes and why you should vote when you can, and encourage others too, "The Dictators Handbook" is great and it's only like 22 bucks.

As u/blex mentioned, of course I'm not unbias as no one is. But if your problem with a post encouraging people to vote is that "liberals do it," it implies you support parties who want as fewer people to vote, which are often more corrupt parties or parties that are only acting democratically, and not truely are (see Russia and see the book I linked).

I hope you learned a little bit on why it's important to vote, and why you should encourage others to.

> My lsat was pretty good (175) but my gpa was only a 3.37, which makes me a splitter for most of the top schools. Do you think that's the sort of thing that comes up during interviews? Or is it something I should bring up myself to address? I don't have any real excuse, since my general academic performance was consistent throughout college as opposed to me falling ill or having a bad first semester or something.

Kudos on the high LSAT score! I honestly think you could see some serious scholarship money with that. I wouldn't bother bringing up the low GPA unless you're directly asked about it. What schools are you applying to?

> This is gonna be a bit of an odder one, but what is the number one thing you wish you had done before going to law school? I've got a solid 10 months or so before I trade all me free time to become a lawyer, and I definitely want to make the most of it.

Honestly, I think the best thing you could do is relax as much as possible. If you want to do something law-related to beef up your resume a little, you may want to consider doing some volunteer work at Christian Legal Clinics of Philadelphia or another legal clinic over the summer. When you begin applying to post-1L internship opportunities, every little bit helps. If you also have the time for some light reading, consider checking out Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams. Although I've personally never gotten around to reading it, I know other people who have raved about it.

Hey, first of, congrats on getting into college! Second, breathe! You got time.

Now, to answer your questions:

First Question

If you are asking about what's the best school to attend in order to go to law school, I don't have any advice there. I went to UCLA and got into law school but I have heard of people going to community colleges, transferring to UCLA, and then going to Harvard Law School. So I don't know.

But if you are asking about which major you should choose in order to go to law school, my advice is that you don't need to a specific major (i.e. political science) to get in law school.

Case in point: I was a political science major during my first 2 years in college and I was miserable. I kept hanging in there because I thought that's what I needed to get into law school. Lies! I switched to a major I seriously enjoyed and graduated with a decent GPA but which could have been higher had I not spent time doubting myself.

Lesson: just do well. That's the only requirement you have during undergrad. Do well. Get a high GPA and study for your LSAT - those two will give you options when you start applying to law schools.

Second Question

You will learn all of the skills that you will need to succeed in law school in law school. But it doesn't hurt to get a head start the summer prior to law school. But to get a head start, you need to know the skills they are going to teach you in law school. Below are some of the skills they should teach you or you should learn in law school:

(a) How to read cases - sorry, I don't have a book to recommend for this one

(b) How to write case briefs - sorry, no resources here either

(c) How to cite cases and other sources - https://masteringthebluebook.com/ is what I would suggest. Law schools don't expect you to know how to cite anything when you start law school. Buuttt, I honestly wish I knew about this resource during my first year (1L year). Knowing how to cite cases, secondary sources, e.t.c. is a must. So why not get a head start? : ) You might end up impressing your legal writing teacher and getting on law review. (But no pressure).

(d) How to write memorandums in which you (1) state what the legal issue is; (2) provide your client's facts; (3) state the relevant legal rule (which you should have gotten from reading cases); and (4) analyze and then make an argument about how that legal rule applies to your client's situation

So the above is a list of some of the skills you ultimately want to have learned in law school. It is the foundation.

But what determines your grade in law school is not just the foundation but how well you can apply the law to a set of facts and under time constraints. I am talking about the exam. In law school, one exam per class is the norm though some professors may have midterms.

Law School Exams

I would recommend checking out this book --- Getting to Maybe: How to Excel in Law School Exams -- if you want to learn how to do well in law schools exams. Below is the link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890897603/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

To Summarize

(1) Choose a major you like and do well in that major and study for the LSAT!

(2) You can (if you want) get a head start before law school but you need to know what skills they will be testing you on and find resources that will help you build those skills.

The exciting thing about the Carswell defection is in 2008 he co-authored a plan where he laid out how the UK could change in the initial 12 months on leaving the EU, previously serialised as The Localist Papers which all contenders for the Conservative leadership signed with the exception of Ken Clarke. Carswell noting that whilst signed they had only been paid lip service whilst in government, a grudge he rumblingly aired on occasion whilst still a Conservative.

At 190 pages short only around a third directly, I'd hazard, relate to the EU. If that. Nevertheless these coincide with many of UKIPs expressed concerns (UKIP members have actually campaigned for Carswell before), and it's something which is difficult for Conservatives to criticise as it initially came outside UKIP and which they signed up to but didn't follow through on.

http://www.red-green.co.uk/web/plan.pdf
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Plan-Twelve-months-Britain/dp/0955979900

Picking up on a few of these points (you can find more in the index of the pdf and under 'Great Repeal Bill'):

• First off the bat the most ubiquitous change in policy from an economic perspective must lie with energy. Not only would the UK be able to offload many of the green taxes and carbon swaps holding back industry it would have a much easier time in meeting the looming energy deficit. Cheaper generation. More generation. Effects to overheads not just felt by industry but schools, hospitals, council buildings, offices, residential properties. There one additional facet worth considering. Appearing on the BBC's Question Time George Osborne has admitted that the UK cannot currently remove VAT from its energy bills whilst part of the EU which bands VAT rates under competition grounds. Leaving the EU we could remove VAT on energy for all low users and small dwellings, and provide more competitive breaks for companies and start ups.
  
  
• So we're off to a good start. Next we can immediately look at both CAP and CFP. CAP takes up almost half of the EU budget, and whilst UKIP Agriculture spokesman Stuart Agnew (a professional farmer and former farmers union representative) notes that they would still meet single farm holdings subsidy. So our own farmers won't be out of pocket, we'd just be saving on what we pay out elsewhere disproportionately in EU protectionism which doesn't actually serve our purposes. The CFP is a fraction of the EU budget, around 1%, but the UK controls (or should control) 70% of the EUs fishing stocks. UK fishing has been hamstrung by sharing its resources with the mainland continent. The EU's ability to reform the CFP, even though they have recently passed some reforms, remains 'fundamentally flawed'. We could do what New Zealand has done. Control our own waters. Extend permits at a price to limited shipping from elsewhere if and when we see fit, and replenish fishing stocks. This is what we see when we look at similar systems at their Individual Transferable Quotas.
  
  
• In conjunction with scrapping the CAP UKIP has also said that it would scrap the EUs Common External Tariff for all African states, many of which depend on their agrarian sectors to move into being developing countries. Their agriculture is different to ours. We have different produce, climates, levels of mechanisation, and soils. What it would mean, when combined with the aforementioned is that we immediately lower the cost of living further on top of energy developments.
  
  Still looking good.
  
  
• Third base. We could scrap the EUs landfill tax. Seems an innocuous enough piece of legislation at first glance. Good even. Tax all these ugly, methane guffing eyesores. The thing is it achieves little within a consumerist society. The people who pay our ourselves. They run up huge costs for councils, which increases their overheads, which have to be met, so we either go with less services or higher council taxes. We still dump stuff. We just pay more for the privilege - but there is a hidden cost. For years before last year's floods farmers and those that worked the land had been warning that the watercourse and waterway budgets had been slashed and rivers weren't being dredged. Farmers themselves used to dredge rivers by their own volition. The silt was a natural fertiliser. Even if the run off wouldn't affect their land and they had no social morality compunction, the rivers still got dredged. It was good business. The European landfill tax and dumping laws meant farmers dredging rivers had to dispose of the silt accordingly. They weren't allowed to put it back onto their crops in case, ironically, it ran back into the rivers from which they'd retrieved it. They had to take it to landfill. So instead of farmers doing a civic duty which helped them and stopped businesses in the town down river from being flooded, farmers were expected to pay an additional tax. So rivers didn't get dredged. The government cut the land management funds because they were facing overheads, but there is no saving. Worse still the EU CAP meant farmers were cutting down copses to gain as much subsidy as they could to remain competitve. If there were trees on parts of arable land the EU wouldn't subsidise. Only in rainy, hill climes in which the UK specialises those copses and treelines actually improve the land, prevent top soil run off, and help prevent soil saturation and flooding.
  
  It's just one example, but it's bureaucracy such as that that is costing the UK an additional 5-10+% of GDP annually. Peter Mandelson himself put it around the 5% figure a decade ago. It's only gone up. Last year UKIPs professor Steve Crowther revised it to now above 10%, and predicted that on leaving the EU the UK could start what would be a 10 year process in reviewing and repealing these bureaucratic wastes.
  
  
• Four. Start making things a little more concise. European Arrest Warrant. Again, sounds a nice idea in principle. Assumes all legal, judicial and police authorities and investigations are equal. They are not. People have been taken out of the country without any evidence being provided to them and kept in prison cells for months, threatening years, before going to trial. Many cases have been thrown out after months languishing. Scrap the EAW and return to extradition treaty where evidence has to be provided in the UK, and weighed, before authorities are obliged to hand any one over. The government should stand up for its people, and so should the judiciary.
  
  
• Five. Shorter still. Look at the IEAs Brexit winners and runners up. They all express a priority for the UK to be able to forge its own free trade deals tailored to the UK's somewhat unique economy, and to capitalise on its very unique cultural ties. Anglosphere aside South Korea crops up a lot, but even if they wanted to deal with the UK it becomes labyrinthian to negotiate with another 27 countries at the table all wanting something different. It's not even a UK delegation that negotiates anymore but EU that is obliged to find a one size fits all. One size does not fit all.
  
  Come out of the EU and we can negotiate our own trade deals. Digby Jones, Gordon Brown's Minister of State for Trade and Investment has even brushed aside the EU question of whether we'd be able to trade with the EU, in saying that we would have a trade deal with EU states in 24 hours of coming out. We already have a negotiation position as signatories of EFTA outside the EU, have been offered AA status by federalists in Europe, would have both Lisbon and WTO assurances.
  
  We can trade with Europe and the World.
  
  And yes, controlling immigration would mean being able to plan our services and local infrastructure, and allow us to forward plan instead of constantly being in a state of triage.

Experience doesn't necessarily make him a great writer. Still, don't let him bring you down or demoralize you. Especially since you're trying to improve your writing. It sounds like a normal control thing; in my experience, lawyers rewrite things for no reason except that it's what they learned in law school or it's just what's worked for them in the past. And lawyers hate changing their writing style—since Bryan Garner's tips from TWB are the "new" style that most practicing lawyers don't really care for, he may disagree with some of it. Ask him for recommended reading and see what he says. (I had a similar experience and I can understand how it's incredibly frustrating.)

But in the short term:

1. Keep in mind that random briefs (on random topics) for one attorney during one summer don't reflect your entire writing ability. Nor is his judgment of your writing necessarily accurate. If you can, ask someone else (friend/atty not at the office) to look at a copy of an early draft that you think is good and see what they say.
   
   
2. Figure out however he wants you to write, in whatever format, and stick to it. Don't bother trying to change his mind. (Sounds obvious, I know, but the point is that you can write how he wants you to at work, and develop your own style on your own.)
   
   Long term, I recommend these for improving brief-writing skills:
   
   
3. The best book on brief writing is Winning on Appeal by Ruggero Aldisert--a fed app judge
   
   
4. For some of the best examples, read the Solicitor General's briefs that are all available online
   
   
5. I found the no-longer-secret Supreme Court Style Guide to be helpful and interesting
   
   
6. Also, not super helpful, but interesting is the OSG Citation Manual
   
   
7. Another good resource is The Art of Advocacy
   
   
8. And Plain English for Lawyers
   
   Good luck!

If your politicians are not doing what you expect them to do, it means the group you are part of is too inconsequential for them to be significant in their acquisition or hold on power.

So the resources that would be used to win the approval of your demographical block are used to win the approval of the segment of the population critical to their success.

Since their objective is to win they have to promise this critical segments more than the competition, so everything that is spent on you is wealth that their opponents can promise to the critical segment, winning over the politician that is trying to please you.

The solution is to find a party where your support is critical to their success. This holds true whatever your personal beliefs are.

If yo want a better explanation I suggest having a look at the book the dictator's handbook or if don't have time to read a big (and honestly) fairly heavy book this video is an interesting summary.

Much of the logic required for the test is shared among sections, so studying for one helps the others. Also, each section tends to require a slow progression because you are basically changing how you think, so a lot of people recommend intertwining the three to some extent.

Logic games are usually the quickest to improve on, so a lot of people start with more of a focus there. This allows you to shape your mind to LSAT faster and can help with the other sections. It also gives you a sense of progress and accomplishment.

Reading comprehension and logical reasoning are basically how well you pay attention to what you read and how you logically connect the provided information, so how fast and to what extent you pick those sections up depends on how well you build those skills. Sometimes that takes days to see drastic improvement (I had a student go from the mid-teens to the mid-twenties on RC in a day because he changed to a more effective approach), but often it takes months (usually because one is just practicing instead of changing what he or she is doing wrong).

First, I recommend that you take a practice test. You can access June 2007 for free. This will help you to determine what needs the most work. You will eventually want to buy at least some of the official preptests (all are good, but newer is more relevant and therefore more important):

• PrepTest 77
  
• PrepTest 76
  
• PrepTest 75
  
• PrepTest 74
  
• PrepTest 73
  
• PrepTest 72
  
• PrepTests 62-71
  
• PrepTests 52-61
  
• PrepTests 29-38
  
• PrepTests 19-28
  
• PrepTests 7, 9-16, 18
  
• 10 Real LSATs Grouped by Question Type: Manhattan LSAT Practice Book
  
  Then, I suggest working with a set of prep books or online lessons. A lot of people like 7Sage, the LSAT Trainer, and PowerScore, but there are other options as well.
  
  Three pieces of advice:
  
  1.) Don't blow through all of your practice tests - even though there are 77 of them - a lot of people who start early tend to run out. That leads to:
  
  2.) Don't take a lot of practice tests early. Your job is not to practice your current (bad) habits; instead, it is to identify what aspects of your approach you are doing wrong and make a conscious effort to fix them. You will get much more out of slow, untimed, exhaustive, reflective study than out of plowing through lots of practice tests expecting something to change. If you are not improving yourself, do not just continue to take practice tests - instead:
  
  3.) Don't be afraid to look into a tutor. An experienced one can usually diagnose issues and sometimes that is more efficient and effective than working through it on your own, especially when you are stuck and struggling to improve. That can be expensive sometimes, but it can also be the reason why you get into your target school and/or the reason why you get a scholarship (my prep, many years ago, paid for itself many times over).
  
  Good luck!

Bugger. You stole my suggestion. OP, read this book. It is great.

On a simliar bent but obviously inferior, I'd recommend The Dictator's Handbook which covers more of a political science approach, and will make you reconsider 'stupid' political actions and Freakonomics which covers economics and unintended consequences.

However, the recommendation I'm going to make, in line with my flair, is The Lion and the Unicorn, a dual biography of the greatest political rivalry in British politics, between William Gladstone (the intellectual champion of classical liberalism) and Benjimin Disraeli (the cynical strategist who created the modern conservative party and massively expanded the franchise.

On the face of it, a book about 19th century British prime ministers might not be what you immediately thought of, but it has everything. Parties being created, and destroyed. Idealism against strategy, moral outrage against cynicism, Imperialism and foreign interventions against liberal internationalism, where a candidate elected on a ticket of anti-imperialism inadvertantly triggered the largest colonial expansion in world history. It covers how British politics was created, and the strategies and ideologies that were perfect then remain in place to this day, with Neoliberalism, Globalisation and 'One Nation' effectively a bastardisation of Gladstone's economic policies, Free Trade vs Imperial Preference debates, and the original One Nation Conservatism championed by Disraeli allying the industrious elite with the upper working class populace against the liberal elite (remind you of anything...)

So legitamcy, like others have said.

Then other things from the Dictator's Handbook:

1. It helps keep their supporters in line
   
2. It helps them get money
   
   2 is fairly straightforward. Current efforts to help democratize autocracies like to demand changes in governance in exchange for loans; Since giving loans / debt forgiveness without changes doesn't result in change, commonly. So an easy answer for a dictator is to just throw a sham election and say: "See? I'm all democratic n' shit". If they're sneaky enough to do the rigged election right, then they can meet the letter of the terms of the loan / debt forgiveness and immediately get themselves more money.
   
   1 is a bit of a walk, but in summary: dictators need people to rule (someone to run the police, someone to collect the taxes, etc), so they pay their supporters to keep them in line while stealing from the populace. But their supporters are also those that are most likely to work to overthrow them, so a ruler needs a way to keep them in line in addition to the rewards I mentioned. One easy way is to show that they're replaceable, you get replacements from the population that supports them. A sham election can then be used to show a wide range of support from the populace; This isn't very convincing to any thinking person, but does create uncertainty about how popular a leader really is (since there are some actual supporters in that 90%+ voting rate that the election returns) and thus how unlikely it would be to stir up a rebellion to overthrow the leader. This balance of "carrot" and "stick" helps to keep the supporters in line and off balance.
   
   Good overview by CGP grey. It doesn't cover the election per-say, but it does get you used to thinking like this.
   
   Also since I'm less than half way through the book there may be other reasons, but these were the reasons I've come accross.

Freedom and efficiency are both important.

If the consequences of endorsing complete freedom (i.e. anarchy, since all governments take away peoples' freedoms) were disastrous, then, in the name of efficiency, we should support taking away peoples' freedom and establishing a minimal state to avoid that disaster.

Fortunately, the consequences of endorsing complete freedom are far from disastrous. Anarchy need not be a Hobbesian war of all-against-all. As Michael Huemer says, "We're nowhere close to the case where government would be justified."

However, the point remains that if the consequences were bad, then taking away peoples' freedoms to avoid those consequences in the name of efficiency would seem justified. Therefore, efficiency is also important.

Now, you say that freedom is more important than efficiency. But what does this mean? There's a presumption in favor of freedom, but efficiency considerations can override that presumption depending on how inefficient and disastrous the consequences get by allowing people their freedoms.

Unless you want to argue that only a strict consequentialist believes that efficiency is more important than freedom and everyone else believes that freedom is more important, then I think the correct view is just to say that they are both important, but not that one is more important than the other. That would simplify the issue too much.

At least for Anarchists or other left-libertarians it should also be important to actually read up on some basic or even fundamental ethical texts given most political views and arguments are fundamentally rooted in morality (unless you're a orthodox Marxist or Monarchist). I'm sadly not familiar enough with applied ethics to link collections of arguments for specific ethical problems, but it's very important to know what broad system you're using to evaluate what's right or wrong to not contradict yourself.

At least a few very old texts will also be available for free somewhere on the internet like The Anarchist Library.

Some good intro books:

• The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau
  
• The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James and Stuart Rachels
  
• Ethics: A Very Short Introduction by Simon Blackburn
  
  Some foundational texts and contemporary authors of every main view within normative ethics:
  
  
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotles for Classic Virtue-Ethics. Martha Nussbaum would be a contemporary left-wing Virtue-Ethicist who has used Marx account of alienation to argue for Global Justice.
  
• Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel (or Emmanuel) Kant for Classic Deontology. Kantianism is a popular system to argue for anti-statism I believe even though Kant himself was a classical liberal. Christine Korsgaard would be an example of a contemporary Kantian.
  
• The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick for Classic Utilitarianism. People usually recommend Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, but most contemporary Ethicists believe his arguments for Utilitarianism suck. 2 other important writers have been R. M. Hare and G. E. Moore with very unique deviations from classic Utilitarianism. A contemporary writer would be Peter Singer. Utilitarianism is sometimes seemingly leading people away from Socialism, but this isn't necessarily the case.
  
• Between Facts and Norms and other works by the contemporary Critical Theorist Jürgen Habermas may be particularly interesting to Neo-Marxists.
  
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. I know Rawls is a famous liberal, but his work can still be interpreted to support further left Ideologies. In his later works like Justice as Fairness: A Restatement you can see him tending closer to Democratic Socialism.
  
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche for... Nietzsche's very odd type of Egoism. His ethical work was especially influential to Anarchists such as Max Stirner, Emma Goldman or Murray Bookchin and also Accelerationists like Jean Baudrillard.
  
• In case you think moralism and ethics is just bourgeois propaganda maybe read something on subjectivism like Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J. L. Mackie
  
• Or if you want to hear a strong defense of objective morality read Moral Realism: A Defense by Russ Shafer-Landau orc

I am more in the renly camp myself. As in I dont think he is a idiot.

> Why? Because the people of Westeros follow power, charisma and leadership

That is false. The people do not matter much. This is fudalism, not democracy. The amount of people that matter for your 'election' as king are about 1-5% of people.

Renly gained support because had a big house behind him, good relation with another big house. This much power draws more power.

These lords knew that if the where in the winning groupe the would get favers, casels, lands tax releases and so on.

Stannis expected people to follow him, not because he would grant them faver just because it is right. The simply fact is, ranly understand how feudalism works, stannis does not.

> They criticize him for being slow

I agree that the slow play was probebly a good one. A robert like stick against Kings Landing would probebly have been just as effective. I dont think that it really mattered, both the slow and the fast way would lead to victory.

> Renly's men truly loved and believed in him, Renly could make friends like no other.

That is not really importent. Its about the money. Do you think Randly Tarly like the Lord Blowfish? Do any of the Lords of the Reach like Tywin? No. Non of this really matters a huge amount.

> getting rid of men like Varys and Littlefinger who did not work for the good of the realm

Again why do so many people talk about ' the good of the realm', nobody (almost) nobody cares about 'the realm'. They care for themselfs, there power there money or some other think like LF overcomming his inferiority complex. Renly does not fight for the good of the realm, stannis does not fight for the good of the realm, and so on.

Why is it so hard to understand that in feudalism nobody cares about the cood of the common man. Its about the what the people in power want.

> knew what it took to be a King

Its called using your own power to gather a winning colition.

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Renly was a pretty good player, he had a good starting position ie. having the faver over his brother and getting storms end and beeing born one of the top 5 familiys.

Renly would have easly taken King Landing from the smash Tywin between him and Robb. He would probebly not have to fight with robb, much more lickly the would have come to terms. Renly would not have started a war with Dorne, while the Dorne and the Reach dont like each other neither renly nor doren would push for war.

Renly would probebly had governed a stable kingdom. He spending his time having fun, not fighing pointless wars. He was also not cruel, in the sence that he would hurt people for fun. I think as far as feudal kings go he would have been as good as any.


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Some might be intressted in actual analysis of dictatorships and how they can be analysed. I would higly recomend the work of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita.

Some easly understandable podcast here:
> The Political Economy of Power (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/08/the_political_e.html)
> Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on Democracies and Dictatorships (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/02/bruce_bueno_de.html)

If you are more the reading type, his most easy to read book, witch is his theory explaind for non sientists:
> The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845)

This stuff might sound borring, but I would really recomend it, if you are into the poltics part of Game of Thrones I cant belive you would not enjoy this stuff.

First year lawyer chiming in. I second the not-reading-prior-to-law-school advice, but if you're really begging for it, I think these two books might be helpful:

• A People's History Of the Supreme Court. It provides an interesting context to the politics behind some of the court's most formative decisions, and it can help jump start you into thinking about some of the more complicated issues that impact the law.
  
  
• Law School Confidential. Definitely more of a guide to how to succeed in law school. I read it on then plane when I moved for law school, around July. It provides a lot of guidance about law school that people don't usually have unless they come from a family of lawyers.
  
  Edit: While you can't really "prepare" for law school prior to experiencing it, you can somewhat increase your tolerance for reading (which is a HUGE part of the law) by reading non-fiction books. This would only be if you really lack that type of discipline, but if you already love reading, it's probably less important.

OP, I just did a timed preptest with a 173 yesterday that has been falling into a larger trend, so I'm feeling the fire and if you don't mind I'll share some of my experiences to help you. Because frankly, it's a rough world out there and we need to help each other.

1. I was going to take the test in June, but the week before the test I was only hovering low 160s. I withdrew and am applying for October, since then my average has steadily increased at a linear rate. If the week before the test you are unsure, I heartily recommend that you withdraw and redouble efforts for the next test.
   
   
2. I now keep an Excel sheet where I keep my score, raw score, and fractional breakdown of each section and a running tally of my average. The far right column I list weaknesses that kept me from doing my best on that particular score, both in terms of the test itself but also in terms of the context I took the test (for example, I have personally found that being strung out on caffeine results in a far worse drop in score than simply having not enough sleep). I strongly believe that my diligent efforts to record my progress has been responsible for my sharp increase in scores recently.
   
   
3. I have done both the PithyPike method and also simply drilling tests sequentially. I think PithyPike is a great method for a foundation to the LSAT, but the drilling of tests has been best for me. YMMV.
   
   
4. I personally think the LSAT does just test you on the LSAT, but that is really irrelevant to how you should deal with it. The reason why is it's also the biggest predictor of your career in law (out of the LSAT, your law school, or the bar exam). You really shouldn't coast at any point on your path to this career, but you simply cannot afford to coast on the LSAT or you will hamstring your career before you even start.
   
   
5. I don't know if you've ever worked a corporate job before (I have), but to just about anyone fresh out of college and hasn't had that experience, they suck and they are by nature very competitive no matter what industry you are in. I thrive on that and don't mind hard work and long hours. If you can't swing an assistant/paralegal position because you live in the middle of nowhere, then a read of The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law can be helpful as a substitute to figuring out what life in law is like.
   
   In short, you probably need to go big or go home in this field, unless you get a non-conditional free ride somewhere. Johnnymd is right, though, at this stage for you your GPA is way more important than your LSAT, because the window for altering your GPA is much smaller than your LSAT, which you can do anytime.

Interesting analysis.

Yet I'd like to challenge the fundamental argument : both authoritative and centralized states like Russia and the more pluralistic nation like the US, Canada or UK do not directly act to benefit their people. In all nations a governing elite forms as well a a civil service bureaucracy - and these two groups always act in ways that first and foremost benefit themselves.

There was a famous study of the US (by Harvard researchers iirc) that showed less than 1% of decision by US congress were consistent with what is perceived to be the public benefit or interest - rather it was shown that congress votes according to sectoral interests 99 out of 100 times.

All governing elites in all nations act with such similar selfish interests - but often enough these interests will also benefit the rest of the nation, it's not the intent but it is a byproduct. for example: big trade interests (corporations, share-holders, however you choose to define them) in the US want to keep the south-china seas open for trade because they profit billions off of it (as does the government/civil-service/bureaucracy - indirectly) - the benefit to American citizens in contrast is a secondary by-product.

Situation is similar in Russia: taking over Crimea is something Putin perceives as an interest for his regime but indirectly this is also in the interest of Russians because as you mentioned having Ukraine integrate with western economy weakens all of Russia - thereby worsening the economic situation and the quality of life for all Russians.

Now I am not claiming there are no difference between the western democracies and the Russian democracy (and I believe it is some type of democracy or pseudo-democracy - even if different than the "western" models) - but at the end of the day the fundamental core difference is how big the beneficiary elite is - in Russia it's tiny and in the west it's much bigger.

I believe the book "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" does a good job explaining this idea - that ultimately the difference between a centralized/pseudo-totalitarian state and less-centralized democracies is only the relative size of the ruling elite - that's still a big difference but it's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one - as we might like to think.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita : The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
>For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to.
This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.


This book explains so much in such a minimal amount of time it is scary. Every complete piece of idiocy corruption good and bad deed, why capitalism or socialism or communism or liberalism or anarchism in any political system. It was written before the current political climate but makes mention to our current major players. I wonder why? If anything just watch CGP's video. Morals have nothing to do with much of anything important.

> “Simply the best book on politics written…. Every citizen should read this book.”

-CGP Grey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

> "In this fascinating book Bueno de Mesquita and Smith spin out their view of governance: that all successful leaders, dictators and democrats, can best be understood as almost entirely driven by their own political survival—a view they characterize as 'cynical, but we fear accurate.' Yet as we follow the authors through their brilliant historical assessments of leaders' choices—from Caesar to Tammany Hall and the Green Bay Packers—we gradually realize that their brand of cynicism yields extremely realistic guidance about spreading the rule of law, decent government, and democracy. James Madison would have loved this book."

-R. James Woolsey Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-1995, and Chairman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, July, 2011

At the outset, please note that this topic is exceedingly slippery. I am convinced that the most efficient way to understand these issues is through the study of philosophy of ethics.

> Where do atheists get their [sense of] morality?

Nature, nurture, and the phenomenological self-model.

> What defines the "good" and "bad" that has
permeated much of human society?

Easy: notice that personal definitions of morality between individuals immersed in the same culture tend to strongly overlap (e.g., most moderns consider rape to be "bad").

From this considerable volume of data, it is fairly simple to construct principles that adequately generalize these working definitions, such as "promote happiness", and "mitigate pain".

> [If you're not caught, why not murder? Why donate to charity? Does might make right?]

These questions appear to have both practical and intuitive solutions.

What are you trying to understand?

> How do atheists tend to reconcile moral relativism?

What do you mean?

> Barring the above deconstructions, how do atheists account for morality?

Moral theories largely attempt to bridge the gap between descriptive facts and normative commands:

• Kant argued that norms are not discovered via our senses, but are simply axiomatic principles.
  
• Rawls argued that norms are the product of a hypothetical agreement in which all ideally rational humans would affirm certain values (Social Contract) if they didn't know their fate in advance (Veil Of Ignorance).
  
• Mill argued that norms are best expressed through the need to increase pleasure and decrease pain.
  
• Parfit argued that these three approaches don't really contradict one another.
  
• Nietzsche argued that norms and artistic tastes are the same.
  
• Mackie argued that norms are human inventions that include social welfare considerations.
  
  

There's a book specifically on this subject that you might find interesting - "Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism". The author is Nima Sanandaji, a Swedish-Iranian/Kurdish author, and the president of the think tank European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for the Study of Market Reform of Education, both in London. He is a co-founder of the Stockholm-based think tank Captus, which he headed as CEO for several years until 2011. He has conducted research at Chalmers University of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology and Cambridge University, and holds a PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (in polymer engineering). His earlier work, "Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism", also deals with the topic.


The book is partially an examination of, and a response to, the discussions regarding the possibility and desirability of implementing the Nordic model of democratic socialism, as popularized and propagated by Bernie Sanders and his supporters during the presidential election, elsewhere, including the United States. The gist of the book's argument is that what American liberals like about Nordic societies is not a product of socialism, but rather has more to do with their unique culture—and free markets—than with their welfare state policies.


He argues that the culture in place in Scandinavia allowed it to achieve the bulk of its current prosperity and equality early on, before the introduction of third-wave socialist policies and the expansion of the welfare state in the second half of the 20th century. According to his data, everything that Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and other leading Democrats admire about Nordic countries already existed in the middle of the twentieth century, when these societies had small public sectors and low taxes. In fact, and I think this is one of the most interesting aspects of the book's argument, these outcomes seemingly can be found in the United States, too, among a specific group of people: Americans with Nordic ancestry. According to the book, today, measured by GDP per capita, Danish Americans’ living standards are 55 percent higher than those of Danes; living standards of Swedish Americans are 53 percent higher than those of Swedes; and Finnish Americans’ living standards are 59 percent higher than the Finns’. Even for Norwegian Americans, who lack the oil wealth of Norway, living standards outpace those of the Norwegians by three percent, which the author presents as an argument in favour of his thesis that the prosperity of the Nordics is not a product of their policies.

The overall line of argumentation the author presents along this and his other works is that there is nothing magical about the Nordics which, like most other countries, have thrived economically in periods of free market reforms and have stagnated when taxes and government involvement in the economy have increased.

Personally, I do not have a very strong opinion as I find the argument over whether this approach would benefit a country like the United States to be strictly academical, but I do find Sanandaji's writing and research to be rather convincing.

>Explain that. Even the US of A couldnt run away from corruption.

We don't need a perfect system. We only need a system that makes it incredibly inconvenient and difficult to abuse.

No nation is corruption free. However, the US's system is far better than Malaysia's when it comes to curbing government power. To get any new law done at all you need to go through 4 stages of checks (House, Senate, White House, Supreme Court).

Remember Trump's Muslim ban? Overturned by the courts. Not even the President who controls the most powerful military in the world can do anything about it. It's why TIMES magazine named Putin the most powerful man in the world, not Obama at that time. Putin can do anything, Obama has to beg the House, Senate and Supreme Court for everything.

On top of all that you have 50 state governments. All of which has their own armed forces (National Guard and State Reserve system), and have the right to ignore Federal law and protect their own state. It's how marijuana can be illegal on the Federal level, but if you go to Colorado you can smoke until you syok.

Compare it to Malaysia's system, where somehow you had a PM who is also Finance Minister, and almost ended up with the PM holding absolute power. Power is highly centralized in the hands of the Federal government, and thus the PM.

>As for lack of natural resources as a reason for failure, I disagree. There is this theory called "resource curse". Its the contries with a lot of natural resources who are doomed. They get susceptible to colonisation and corruption.

This one my theory is based on The Dictator's Handbook and CGP Grey's The Rules For Rulers (also based on the same Handbook):

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

The summary is that all government power is based on the distribution of Treasure since no man rules alone.

In a resource rich nation, the Treasure is said resources, and if the government is able to keep the extraction of resources going, and makes enough Treasure to keep everyone happy, it will be stable.

In a human rich nation, the Treasure is the talents of those humans. The Treasure is based on increasing the amount of Treasure those humans generate (tax dollars). If the government keeps the humans happy, and get a lot of Treasure from it, it will be stable.

Malaysia is neither one or the other. And it falls into a valley where revolution and bloodshed is cyclical once it starts.

Sorry for the cut and paste below. I typed it in response to another person's question regarding the same issue, but that person deleted their post before I could post my reply:
**

There are many officers who get it right the first time, and put in the hard work to get through a marriage. I know know all three of them (joke).

There is a slightly higher prevalence of divorce statistically among officers. IIRC it's even higher among correctional officers. I'm now happily married, and I don't forsee that changing.

I think your desire to stay married has a far greater impact on your divorce potential than does a career in law enforcement. If you read through my response earlier, it certainly wasn't my ex-wife's fault that I changed. Does your current wife support you having a law enforcement career? Are you open with her about the very real changes that can occur in you?

Read and have her read Emotional Survival in Law Enforcement. I found it to be an excellent help, and addresses some of the psychological issues at hand.

So I'm by no means an expert on this, but a while back I read a book called The Dictator's Handbook that goes into why executives and monarchs do this to their companies/counties.

A condensed version of the book can be seen by watching this CGP Grey video.

The TL;DW version of this:

Nobody rules alone. Executives have to answer to their board of directors, who in turn have other people they have to answer to and so on and so forth. These people have the power to throw you out if you don't please them.

How do you please people best? Bribe them. Give them incentives to keep you as top dog. How do you get the resources to bribe? Pillage your country/company for wealth.

You shower your immediate underlings with gifts and benefits and they won't oust you. Partially because they're in a good situation from it. Partially because if they do there is a risk that they'll get culled in a change of power (fewer people = more wealth for each person).

As a result top executives who find that they cannot get the resources to give to their underlings by improving the company will instead just grapple for anything they can get a hold of to keep their position.

This is of course a simplified explanation and the book goes into it way better.

There are three books I'd like to add as suggestions:

• Development as Freedom, by Amartya Sen. 285 pages, 5 hour and a half read without pauses.
  
  
• The Dictator's Handbook, by Bruce B. de Mesquita and Alistair Smith. 300 pages, 5 hour read without pauses.
  
  
• Making Globalization Work, by Joseph Stiglitz. 5 hour, fifteen minute read without pauses.
  
  For reference, the site I used says World Order by Henry Kissinger, the book we read previously, takes 6 hours to read. So these books a bit shorter.
  
  Development as Freedom:
  
  This book proposes a relatively new theory for public policy based on free agency. Amartya Sen's thesis is that the objective of governing and developing a country is to provide freedom to its citizens. He does a pretty good analysis of how a country works policy-wise and he makes a proposal to reach this free agency goal. I think this book would broaden perspectives on how to view a government's labor, on what development is, and what it should be.
  
  The Dictator's Handbook:
  
  In this book, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alistair Smith decompose multiple historical situations both in governing and in private enterprises in order to define the universal dynamics of power. It is a great book and it explains, with sufficient evidence, what a leader needs to capture and retain power in any system imaginable by redefining how we view government systems.
  
  Making Globalization Work:
  
  I have read a bit of the previous books, but only a single chapter of this one, so instead I'm going to quote a review on amazon:
  
  > Three years ago, I was a little freshman economics student at a small college. My World Politics professor assigned me this book to read halfway through the semester, and I am quite happy that I read it. Stiglitz is blessed with both brains and writing ability, something that too many economists do not have [...] Stiglitz does an exceptional job of summarizing much of the baggage that international policy makers carry from their past mistakes.
  
  >The largest criticism that people have of the book is that much of what he says has been said by other people. This is true. But those other people can't write and aren't remotely as accessible as Stiglitz is. If you're looking for a good jump-in, read this book.
  
  

> I still think she legitimately cares about the country and wanted to make people's lives better.

I'd hate to burst your bubble, but I doubt that she actually cares about people. She clearly cares about some things. However, this doesn't mean that she cares about you even in the abstract, because - let's be honest over here - power doesn't work this way. Here's a quick guide on how it works. Enjoy. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Edit: Those down voting me should really read the book CGP Grey references and the classics as well. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again;

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845
https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Niccolo-Machiavelli/dp/0140444289

> You can't say Trump doing it is okay because Bush did.

Don't put words in mouth that aren't there: it isn't good for an elected official to have conflicts of interest. I think both candidates in 2016 offered differing conflicts of interest, but that's a different story.

> I think maybe a better question is when did this sort of behavior become acceptable?

Glenn Greenwald argues in his book "With Liberty and Justice for Some" that American Democracy and government fundamentally changed when Richard Nixon was pardoned. I think that's part of the answer - since that event we've really viewed the elected officials as a ruling class; thus exempt from moral and ethical conditions we apply to ourselves.

But there's also an ideological root to all the acceptance of this; core to the belief of Ayn Rand and some libertarians is that business leaders should make the best public leaders. So, if you've been successful in private business you ought to have influence in public policy as well.

With the rise of H.W. Bush (Sr.) as Vice President of Ronald Reagan, this ideology had become fully embraced by the Republicans. H.W. Bush was known as an oil tycoon, and it was expected that he could level out the oil prices through his inside knowledge.

----

But then we also need to backup and realize that this isn't a problem exclusive to the White House; the "revolving door" of public appointments and private business has been documented for about 100 years. This isn't a new thing, and in some ways it makes sense to have people familiar with the industry making decisions about an industry. That's a whole other topic though. Anyways, we shouldn't pretend that Trump is an unprecedented nefarious evil about to doom America because he has some business interests. The reality is that a fuckton of politicians at all levels have business interests - many would argue that's not a bad thing.

One way to measure societal health is through the level of inequality, usually quantified through the Gini coefficient. In general, societies that have a very wide inequality gap seem to develop sociological pathologies that are bad for both those who have amassed a measure of wealth, and those who have not. For instance, the haves become increasingly afraid that the have nots are going to kick in the gates of their suburbs and mess with their stereo knobs and then burn the place down. They come to see themselves as a rightful superior ruling class and infer that their position of power and privilege is 'the natural order of things' instead of the result of a great many variables and historical power dynamics, accident of birth, etc.

As the wealthy have the means to organize and hire professional help to push their share of the taxation burden downmarket, this increases the burden on the less wealthy, and as socially constructed services begin to decline, the wealthy end up spending a far far greater % of their personal income hiring private services that do the same thing, individually, and this atomized pricing costs all of the wealthy a great deal more in aggregate. Since the wealthy are most likely paying those with far less to provide these services, and they are already worried about 'the barbarians at the gates' so to speak, they end up with money and power and a near total fear of everyone outside their economic class, therefore ending up in gilded prisons of their own creation, all the while paranoid that their nannies are robbing them and their security forces are just waiting for the chance to sell them out to the highest bidder.

As for the have nots, as these basic services decay and they lose easy access to healthcare, vacation time, decent workplace treatment and safeguards, they begin to morph into a permanent underclass, and since all of the money and power is being concentrated into fewer hands, a form of neofeudalism or serfdom develops where 'meritocracy' becomes replaced with 'catering to the manners, whims, fashions, and fleeting desires of the upper class' which means that their skillsets and livelihoods are constantly under threat, after all, if you make really nice Large Hats for Rich Women, and then hats go out of vogue, you just got 'made redundant' and will need to find a new way to derive an income by pleasing the people where all that potential income resides.

As the have nots get priced out of markets for things necessary to human life (clean water, food that does not blow out your insulin regulation system and kill you in 20 years time, healthcare) by the inflationary nature of the ultra wealthy bidding up the prices of these services with their discretionary income, they come to see the wealthier members of society as living in a safe bubble of stability that they could only dream of, and I don't mean dreaming of sports cars and caviar, I mean dreams of 'wow, it must be nice to know that if you need your wisdom teeth pulled, or you get a week long cold, you aren't going to get charged more than you make in a month for medical care while simultaneously losing your job for missing a few days in a flexible labor economy where some other barely surviving person will jump at the chance to replace you.'

This sort of instability for hierarchy of needs things, and social standing things make people lose their minds and consider extreme actions just to survive day to day which creates even more net losses for society; it is way easier to be criminally indifferent to other people when you are certain that society at large couldn't give a shit if you and yours life with dignity or die in a gutter. In essence, the rich enclose themselves and become further isolated from the experiences of their less prestigious fellow citizens, and the not rich get ground underfoot while a huge ocean of resentment builds up at watching the comparatively carefree and decadent sphere the comfortable move in (try and avoid watching the court dramas of the well heeled in any modern society, and see how it goes for you when you go to the grocery store or look at any glowing screen).

Also, it is very likely that the merely wealthy are being predated upon far more by the extremely wealthy than the poor when it comes to their taxation burden, as the extremely wealthy enlist elite services to push their potential tax burden down on to them; the guy with a million in assets (half of which are probably a residence) goes to H&R block and they find you some tax breaks, while the oligarch drops 7 figures on a tax opinion letter from a white shoe firm that explains to the government how all of their tax dodges are perfectly legal. Subsidizing the costs of living for the entire society and ensuring that no one falls into privation and misery most likely has a smaller price tag than the losses to societies from the tax dodging of the super elite, much less the cost of the negative externalizes that develop in a regressive taxation regime where those with the most have the most deploy-able tools to pay the least.

This does not speak to the actions of government when it comes to decisions about how taxes are spent, nor the way that currency is created in the modern financial world, nor the merits of productive vs unproductive asset accumulation and occupations, nor to corporate welfare subsidies, nor the question of if markets exist without government and vice versa. Only that in a society where basic needs are met for everyone without all of the poor-punching, everyone will generally be happier, have more of what they need and less of what they don't, and have a greater standard of living and mental health, even if nominally the well off have a lower number left in their accounts at the end of the day.

Also, you shouldn't have to work as hard as you to do get by or be comfortable. No one should, we have gone through an automation and productivity boom the likes of which the world has never seen in the past 40 years or so, however the fruits of that boom have been distributed in a manner that belongs buried in the 1600's. I am sure some of these ideas will be considered fairly radical by some or most.

Some sources relating to the formation of this opinion https://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/the-plutonomy-reports/ (blog post because the actual internal reports have gotten harder and harder to find online)
http://www.amazon.com/Oligarchy-Jeffrey-A-Winters/dp/0521182980/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375142202&sr=8-1&keywords=oligarchy Marvelous book when it comes to understanding the world we live in presently
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
There are others, but I don't have links readily available.

EDIT: Semi Serious paragraphs. (which then made the formatting even worse, which I hope I fixed in edit 2 )

A friend of mine's mom did this when my friend and her sister were little (perhaps 4 and 6, I don't remember exactly--this is a lifelong friend I'm talking about). The mom graduated, got a job in local government (lawyer for some agency), and became solvent, confident, and financially stable. She had a good, decades-long legal career.

Oh, and this friend's mom was a single mom when she went back to school!!!!

So yes, it can be done.

BTW I am a lawyer and I HIGHLY recommend this book. It was a massive help to me when I started law school:

https://www.amazon.com/Law-School-Confidential-Complete-Experience/dp/0312605110

I totally concur with OP, supplements are supplements, not replacements. Read the case book, then read the relevant chapter from the supplement to ensure you got everything you were supposed to get out of it. Once you are getting everything out of the casebook in the first pass, you can discard supplements entirely if you like.

Best supplements, in my opinion:

• Introduction to Civil Procedure by Richard Freer
  
  
• Understanding Contracts by Richard Ferriell
  
  
• Understanding Property by John Sprankling
  
  
• Constitutional Law by Erwin Chemerinsky
  
  
• Understanding Criminal Law by Joshua Dressler
  
  
• E&E for Torts
  
  You can quibble on some, but any law student worth his salt will recognize Dressler on crim and Chemerinsky on con law as the best. Freer on Civ Pro is very well recognized as well. I like the Understanding series for contracts and property because they are still succinct yet more in-depth than the E&E's. I like the E&E for torts because the Understanding book for that class isn't especially good.
  
  If you don't like any of the above, the respective E&E would be my second choice.

Perhaps! But, I do hope you find a way to succeed on your own terms. Listen, I read a few books that really helped me shape my law school experience in school and beyond.

Here's Law School Confidential. It helped me with classes etc., interviews, and defining my initial career trajectory.

If you're looking to do commercial BigLaw, this book gave me some good perspective.

If you're more interested in something like public defense, Brian Stevenson's book Just Mercy was incredibly powerful.

Anyways, I do hope that you find something that works for you. It can be cold out there, and it's hard to get traction sometimes. Best of luck.

It's not quite unregulated. It's actually heavily regulated, but the regulations are just stacked against normal citizens.

Take "A corporation is a person". That's a legal concept that is maintained by the government.

Take "I can copyright something". That's a monopoly on ideas which is defended by the government.

Take "You can't photograph my mass farming". Another heavy regulation.

Or take, of course, the bail-outs themselves -- that's a perfect example of government not letting capitalism go its way, but rather, stepping in.

(An interesting book on the subject: The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. On a related note, by Glenn Greenwald: With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful.)

The Dictator's Handbook does a great job of explaining why this doesn't happen (this is a book written by some political scientists).

All of the members of the winning coalition (the 'inner circle' of the autocratic leader) absolutely do not want anyone else taking over. They've already cultivated close ties to that autocratic leader. If someone were to replace that autocratic leader, it is very likely that they will no longer be part of that inner circle. Any leader that would replace Kim, would likely replace Kim's old 'inner circle' (for reasons too long to fully explain here). So the inner circle of Kim all works together, to keep their leader in power, while simultaneously making sure that any threats to their autocratic leader's presence are squashed. In return, the autocratic leader keeps everyone in his inner circle very highly rewarded for their service (aka: those military leaders you are talking about, are rich beyond reason, compared those on the outside of Kim's inner circle).

The only time that military coups happen, is when the autocratic leader runs out of resources with which to buy the loyalty of their inner circle (or is a moron, and just neglects to do so). Kim is part of a dynasty, and has been well trained in this regard, I'd bet.

The book also covers how leaders at the end of their lives make sure that their power structures do not fall into disrepair. You'll note that before Kim Jung Un became the Supreme Leader, he was a "4-Star General" (with zero actual military experience). He was nominated to that post, by his father Kim Jung-Il. Why? Because Jung-Il, in failing health, wanted to make it absolutely crystal clear to his inner circle, that his rule would be continued by his son, and that they could count on his son to continue paying for their loyalty. (There's a good reason that family based dynasties work so well - because they make the inner circles of autocracies (which are essential to the operation of the state, and where the autocratic leader's power really comes from) confident that each member's position in the inner circle will be continued, despite the death of the leading figure of the regime.

> In the state of nature we have the right to do so, wouldn't you agree?

No. Certainly you can define a concept of rights and justice which holds that to be true, but there are alternative conceptions which hold that it is not just or right for one person to murder another. You've simply assumed that a 'social contract' is the only way to avoid the problems created by the conception of rights you're using.

Here's one alternative some people use: Justice and rights are defined in terms of who may use or exclude others from what rivalrous goods. Those definitions are called 'property rights'. These definitions don't say anything about what kind of society will develop or how disputes would be resolved in practice. It's only a standard for determining what is or isn't 'just'.

Under this conception of justice what is or isn't just is invariant and does not change based on some collectively decided 'social contract.' What social institutions evolve and whether they promote or retard justice is irrelevant to the basic definition of justice.

---

> You know that is how it would be structured; it is like an insurance plan. You pay for certain coverage. The more money you have, the more coverage you can get. By that definition, the homeless could just be outright murdered in the street without repercussion. Jails would not exist.

You might be interested in reading some materials on historical examples of how well various things have worked. For example The not so Wild, Wild West, and David Friedman's Legal Systems Very Different From Ours (Draft) (It's not about a bunch of libertarian systems, but it provides a bit of perspective on different systems).

> My dystopia would be one where different laws apply do different people, and your ability to receive protection depends on your ability to pay.

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

LEO spouse here.

My advice to you: read " emotional survival for law enforcement." Get a good understanding of hypervigilance. Understand that even when he's off duty he'll still be eagle eyed and spot things you wouldn't have noticed. Get used to sitting with your back facing the room when you go out to eat. Also, you may have to stop eating at your favourite pub because he's arrested half the kitchen staff.

When my spouse was on shift (he's a detective now), he enjoyed bringing in my cooking and his shift reported enjoying eating it. Give him some time to get settled into his shift and become more familiar with the force's operating procedures and his shift mates.

You can't go wrong with communication and that may be hard for him. There are going to be times where he doesn't want to, or he simply can't talk about what happened on shift. Also, it isn't your responsibility to carry the burden of those things and he probably won't want to unburden himself to you. Seriously though, reading the book can help a lot.
http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-survival-law-enforcement-officers/dp/0971725403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421116153&sr=8-1&keywords=Emotional+intelligence+for+law+enforcement

My spouse says that is is important for him to maintain friendships outside of law enforcement. That gets more and more difficult as he becomes immersed in the "brotherhood." He won't work the same hours as other people and it might be difficult to schedule those social times. But those the importance of those friendships is that they remind him that he is not just a cop. If you don't work to maintain those friendships, pretty soon you'll find that the only friends you have are other LEO's and their spouses. While the LEO family ( and trust me, it will be your family) is great, it doesn't give your spouse a chance to put 'put down his badge.' He needs that kind of break for his own well being and your's too.

Yes, good threads. Was away taking son to a pre collage event, and only had a chance to respond now.

Agree with you that there are perhaps degrees of socialism. Some favor strict definitions in which the government owns or controls the means of production. I like a more operative definition in which need is the basis for reward. A society for which from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs largely holds is intrinsically Marxist. So say we have Sweden with a 70% tax rate, in which your government controls a greater share of your earnings than you do, and has program after program that falls under from ability to needs, that society would be more Socialist/Marxist than capitalist. A society in which you, the individual, control the bulk of what you earn is capitalist. Progressive taxation throws a huge monkey wrench into the mix, because it applies a Marxist standard to the rich, and a capitalist standard to the poor.

You rightfully point to the intrinsic difficulty in testing out approaches, when you question how relevant is comparing the US to Germany. One can see trends, and study those trends over many societies over time, and my personal experience is the trend of socialism is to impoverish nations.

The answer to the Scandinavian people question is to contrast prosperity prior to socialism to that after, and I think we do see a decline in standard of living, which indicates for that population set the people are worse off. What socialists like to do is highlight the central abuses prior to socialism and gloss over the comparison of before and after. The essays I have read on this topic have convinced me that things got worse. This NR piece, and the book that goes into greater depth on the subject considers how socialism impacted Scandinavians. I heard the author on the radio going into this at length and it was well documented.

I found two books, one is basically a book for everyone, https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511082631&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dictator%27s+handbook and the second is the book that proves the logic of the first with a rather long table of statistics and formal math and even more historical examples, https://www.amazon.ca/Logic-Political-Survival-Bruce-Mesquita/dp/0262524406/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511082675&sr=1-1&keywords=the+logic+of+political+survival.

The logic is sound and consistent. It also importantly for anarchists, affects also other hierarchies like corporations, and even can go into a lot of the discussion on racism, sexism, and similar.

I also like the book for some of the suggestions it offers. It clearly explains that the more liberty, the better, with nearly no limits on how much better the world is when more people contribute, a strong counterargument to claims of say a strong and central state is needed to consolidate something. It also talks about corporations and private institutions, and while he doesn't directly call them co-ops, he does say that democratic companies where the profits are distributed based on a formula or on a public basis improve the world and their own internal governance. And it explains why the more democratic something is, the harder it is to overwhelm it via a coup.

It also gives some ideas on how to fix the whole kaboodle, such as social networking making the profits of executives limited if the average puny shareholder has a platform to discuss and directly vote, escrow account lending and foreign aid, higher education in authoritarian countries, cell phones, and amnesties to those who cede power.

Thoughts?

You have to have the right attitude to watch the show. If you're a little child and someone tells you Santa doesn't exist it's depressing. However, there's eventually a satisfaction to growing up.

HoC is just a show but it is (IMO) a more sophisticated type of media than just a Disney movie with cartoonishly obvious good and bad. Hopefully it grows your palette as a consumer of media and if nothing else expands the healthy scepticism you hold towards politicians and authority figures in our society.

My view of politicians is that they are all manipulative little Underwoods, whether they are on your side or the oppositions. Underwoods are always the ones that rise to high office. The reason why the free countries like the US are lucky is that their system does a reasonable job of aligning the interests of the people with those of the selfish, monstrous leaders. I recommend this book if you want to read more. There's no important difference between US leaders and Saddam or Gaddafi. It's the system and society that surrounds them that leads to such different societies.

First: you've already taken a huge step by recognizing the problem. Some people are so bad at this stuff that they don't even recognize that they're bad at it. That's an almost hopeless position to be in. Especially people in the sciences often have a false sense of confidence about this stuff.


Second: it's damn hard and there's no easy route to getting better. You might get a CT textbook, but, honestly, most of them aren't very good/helpful.

I teach CT at the university level, and, though it's a freshman-level class, It's one of the hardest classes Iv'e ever taught. I've wasted way, way more time and energy trying to figure out how to do it well than I should have.

Honestly, I'd have a hard time giving manageable bits of advice, but here's a go at it:

[1] Get a copy of a collection of old LSATs and work through a few problems every day/week/whatever. Like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/10-Actual-Official-LSAT-PrepTests/dp/0986045519/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1483462117&sr=8-2&keywords=lsat

These are really good little problems. They're better than the exercises in most college-level CT texts. Yes, they're multiple-choice, and short, and a bit cartoonish in a certain respect...but they're very well-crafted, and you can check the answers.

It's the so-called logical reasoning problems that are really most helpful--i.e. not the reading comprehension problems or the analytic puzzles (ten monkeys sitting around a table; first monkey passes a block to the third monkey blah blah blah)--though those are also helpful.

[2] Find and follow some people who are good reasoners. I'm mostly sort of a centrist liberal, so my recommendations will be a bit skewed, but off the top of my head:
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones
Fareed Zacharia at CNN
Jonathan Chait at various places

[3] Most importantly, strive for honesty and fair-mindedness. Don't be dragged into the cesspool of rhetoric and debate. Just honestly ask yourself: what are some reasons for the thesis? what are some reasons against it? Are there any obvious problems with any of those reasons? Most people err in one of two ways: (a) they just aren't curious and don't care, or (b) they care...and so they end up getting committed to one side of the disagreement...and start consciously or unconsciously cheating.


[4] Also, PM me if you like, and I can send you some stuff and talk more about this stuff. I'm actually way better than average as a CT instructor...which means, IMO, that I still suck at it...but not as much as most.

There's no magic bullet--but you can get yourself on a trajectory toward improvement.

[p.s.: I kinda sorta disagree with chriswrightmusic, because I think that the fallacies are often of limited value, especially if not handled correctly...but I don't completely disagree with him.]

Seconding those, and I'd also suggest William Rehnquist's history of the court. It's less of what you're looking for than the books VIJoe suggested, but it provides some interesting contexts and gives a clearer idea of the nitty-gritty of how the court works than most anything else. For obvious reasons, it doesn't cover much in the way of specific cases during his tenure on the court, and has a few problems with bias but it's an interesting read nonetheless. (If you want a good supplement for much of the Rehnquist era, Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine is an entertaining read that gives good context. Some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's worth a glance.)

I haven't read it yet and can't speak to how well it fits the OP's criteria, but I hear very good things about John Paul Stevens's recently-published memoir.

If you want to go really in-depth and particularly technical with this sort of thing, I'd recommend picking up a few of the Examples & Explanations books that law students use as study aids. They're a hell of a lot more dry than any of these recommendations, and they'll include a wider range of cases than you're looking for, but you might find them interesting.

However, note that important legal cases that lead to serious revisions of legal principles are often more boring than painting grass and watching it dry as it grows.

> a vendetta against us [rural voters] because of Trump

Given the electoral college system and the lopsided weighting of small rural states against larger populous ones, you have to admit there are legitimate grounds for many people to be (at the very least) irked.

If we interpret Trumpism as a "fuck you" from rural America toward the leaders who forgot about them, then I think it will backfire. It's become more clear that Trump is not really looking to maximize public good and broaden the inclusiveness of our economy. That is to say, it's unlikely he's going to address the deeper concerns facing rural America, certainly not as much as he's going to enrich himself and his winning coalition. Selectorate theory is predicated on the concept of a "winning coalition". And Trump's winning coalition was smaller than most--given his tenuous relationships with party leaders, penchant for insularity and nepotism, political hamfistedness, antagonism with the intelligence community, and possible intrigue with unsavory figures like Manafort and Russian oligarchs. From the aforementioned Wikipedia entry:

> When the winning coalition is small, as in autocracies, the leader will tend to use private goods to satisfy the coalition. When the winning coalition is large, as in democracies, the leader will tend to use public goods to satisfy the coalition.

Trump, if he's to remain in power, is going to have to make sure his "essentials" are satisfied/enriched. You can look through his appointments, budget, and policy proposals to read between the lines there. You think naming the CEO of Exxon as the Sec. of State was designed to help you? Probably not. Likewise, cutting or gutting the agriculture department, the EPA, forest service, department of the interior, department of education, etc are all very unlikely to improve rural life or bring jobs back. Climate change denialism seems a pretty bad policy too for rural Americans. Who do you think is going to be hurt the most when water is scarce, fertile areas become deserts, food becomes more expensive, and society destabilizes? You'd be better off supporting taxes on robots, universal basic income and anything but fossil fuels.

Anyway... I'm not even sure the premise of this whole comment is correct (that Trump is a "fuck you" from rural America). A hard shift to the right against globalism seems to be happening across the world. We'll see what happens. I'm certainly not optimistic either way.

In the mean time--since I referenced Selectorate Theory--you may enjoy The Dictator's Handbook as a framework from which to understand political survival in uncertain times. Don't let the title fool you, it talks a lot about democracies and draws many parallels to corporate dynamics as well. It's a very thought provoking set of concepts that I wish more people knew about.

Cheers.

Actually, the main focus of my blog (The Graveyard Shift) is for writers of mystery, thriller, suspense, and some romance. But everyone is welcome. Students use the site as a research tool, and some people are simply curious about police procedure and forensics. You're right, though, the information doesn't apply to every genre.

By the way, here's a book that might be useful. It's not the one mentioned below but it features the same and similar topics.

http://www.amazon.com/Police-Procedure-Investigation-Writers-Howdunit/dp/1582974551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305388238&sr=1-1

Thanks for visiting the site. I hope you find something there that's useful to your writing. Also, please let me know if I can help with research, etc.

The Southern states got lucky - they don't have natural resources. Everyone thinks that having natural resources means you'll get wealthy but it's the exact opposite. It is the surest way for a poor region to stay poor.

Here's how it works in a place like Jhakhand. The rights for the minerals are sold to the lowest bidder with the highest bribes. The politicians in power depend entirely on these bribes. Once they're in power, they only need to keep the businessmen happy. They don't need to invest in schooling, healthcare or anything else that improves the lives of their people because the money from the minerals continues to flow into their pockets. In fact, investing in schooling in such a state is bad idea for the politicians because once folks is educated they will realise the scam that the politicians are perpetrating and disrupt the flow of money. Since no one is educated and the state is run by the mineral mafia, no businesses will invest because they have no one to employ and don't want to be extorted by the mafia.

Whereas in a state like TN that is blessed with a lack of natural resources, the politicians need to up their game to stay in power. This means freebies, but also measurable improvements in literally every sphere of life - secondary education, higher education, healthcare. Police has to be less corrupt because otherwise businesses won't invest. TN was bending over backwards to attract manufacturing and IT before it was cool in Gujarat. This is a virtuous cycle that leads to more benefits - because everyone was already educated, most women were already having fewer children decades ago.. Fewer children meant more resources poured into those children, making them more likely to succeed. Educated productive citizens working in IT and manufacturing generate more income for the state government than unskilled labourers. In TN, that income is used to develop the state. In Bihar, it's used on fodder scams.

But it's so simple then! We can fix Bihar and Jharkhand! We just need to elect a politician who won't take bribes, will use the money generated from the natural resources to educate the population, on healthcare, on roads, on electricity etc. Yeah ... that's not happening. Because a person who starts this shit in Bihar will have their legs broken by the people who like the status quo and want it to continue. The goondas who break your legs have their salaries paid for by the bribes you hate so much. Gtfo if you like having two functional legs.

Don't listen to hogwash that "south indian culture" is somehow superior. I'm south Indian and I've lived in all parts of India. It's not true, and it's just racist BS. To blame people in Bihar and Jharkhand for not being educated because of "culture" is basically victim blaming.

If you'd like to learn more about why natural resources are a curse, please read The Dicatator's Handbook or watch this 20 minute trailer - Rules for Rulers. If nothing else, it'll cure you of the thinking that you could do a better job if you were in power.

Book wise: The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law https://www.amazon.com/dp/1590316762/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_7NK6Bb635GG00

It was down right raw. Some funny parts. I’m not a lawyer. Short read.

From my experience:
Always learn to create and build something. Not just operate it. You are valuable when you know how to build. It can be anything, build a building, a computer, a program, a team, a business. Anything.

Make your curiosity ample and wide. Specialize a bit but not too much. This makes you marketable.

Stay positive. Avoid nay sayers. Avoid negative people. They tend to hold you back.

Stay in good communication with those that are good at their craft. They will become something one day. You never know when you will need them.

At the office, recognize when someone is using you to make themselves look good. Find a way to get the recognition.

Aim for the office. The salary will follow.

Stay practicing your craft. It so true, while you are sleeping someone else is grinding and hustling to out perform you. Stay hungry!

Find a way for companies to pay for your trips. Like conferences etc. Keep your money.

Be acutely aware that most companies see new grads as cheap labor. You are hungry and have lots of time with no responsibilities. Means you can work long hours for cheap. Meanwhile most bosses go home. So do the math, your salary divided by your hours worked.

Follow most of this and you will be making very good money soon. Ignore it and you will be making someone else good money.

I make ridiculous good money at 40hr weeks. I enjoy my work. I have made mistakes and my suggestions avoid those mistakes.

Good luck!

>giving Glenn Greenwald a megaphone to spout his baseless venom however, is wildly unprofessional.

What specifically do you mean by 'baseless venom'?

I've watched his lectures at colleges, his debates on TV amongst the different news stations across the globe and read With Liberty and Justice for Some and not once have I ever thought his arguments were 'baseless' because he provides facts and empirical evidence that can be looked up and verified.

More recently the message he usually conveys is that he wants to shed light on what powerful people are doing in the dark. i.e. The NSA constructing a world wide, indiscriminate spy network that can be used against anyone at the whim of those who control it. Something that was considered wild conspiracy theory only 4 months ago.

How is this a bad thing? To want to inform the public of what powerful people are doing in the dark? To promote the ideal that investigative journalism is one of the main checks to power that we have?

Additionally his book "With Liberty and Justice for Some" gives quite a few examples about how there is a very real two tiered justice system dominant in the US. On one side you have the very rich who do not suffer for their crimes against humanity (Cheney/Bush & their false Iraq War, HSBC Laundering Billions for Drug Cartles, etc) and the full weight of the law coming down on petty drug offenses.

I can, however, understand how one would consider the words coming from Greenwald's mouth 'venemous'. His penchant for the truth and his debate skill usually cuts to the bone. Not once have I ever seen him lose a debate. Not once. And while that in and of itself is no indicator of the truthfulness of one's words ( this scene from Thank You For Smoking comes to mind ) it does merit a degree of respect. Especially when you do look up the things he has to say and find out they are rooted in truth.

Compare that with say, someone like Rush Limbaugh or Bill'O'Reily, who seem like divisive demagouges that appear to truly spout baseless venom. Many times when you look up what they have to say it's often half-truth or an outright lie. Twisted words for twisted people with twisted agendas.

Rush and Bill seem to feed off of and appeal to the very worst in humanity - fear, xenophobia, selfishness, greed - I don't see Glenn Greenwald doing the same kinds of things.

For MBE: Strategies & Tactics for the MBE (Emanuel Bar Review) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1454873124/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Ah0XDb3NXPZHR

For essays: https://www.gabaradmissions.org/essay-and-mpt-questions-and-selected-answers

Lots of practice! The way I approached it was to answer an essay question as best I could from memory (usually just writing a quick outline of issues + facts), then go look up the rules for any issue I noticed, but didn't know the rule for, and amend/correct my outline with that, then go to the model answers and amend/correct my outline with anything else I missed. I should try to get a picture of one of these, they are all 3 colors and covered in checks and scratch outs and :| faces. Anyway, I think this multi-step approach really helps to solidify both rules and issue spotting skills. It requires a lot of active thinking about the rules and how they apply, vs just ticking off a list of what you got right or missed. I'm not sure if it will help or hurt you that you get 3 sample answers instead if a single "model" answer written by the NCBE that covers every issue, but make sure you look at all the sample answers, unless you grow confident that every one addresses every possible issue (most passing, and even "good" answers miss an issue or two). Also, I don't think it's worth writing out full essay answers until you've gotten decent at issue spotting, and read a fair number of sample answers. Use the sample answers as models for your own. No need to figure it out from scratch!

The bar prep materials I used had two indexes for the essays and answers, one organized by year, and the other by topic. I found this extremely useful, and I suggest you make yourself a topic index. I would study my con law outline, do con law flash cards, do con law MBE questions, and then do con law essays. Everything reinforces each other.

You'll also obviously want to do some mixed sets -- I would probably do the essays, writing out full answers, not just outlines, from 4 or 5 exams under timed conditions.

You want to do IRAC (issue, rule, analysis, conclusion) for every issue. Even better, imo, is CIRAC--use topic/sub-topic headings that include your conclusion. You should be citing at least one fact from the problem in your analysis for every issue, and you should be citing every major fact in the question at some point in the answer (if not, you are probably missing an issue -- at least that's the case with the MEE).

I am really big on practice questions, and I would do, at a minimum, every essay given since 2012. Because hey, once you've done 60 essays, what's another 4, right?

Did you get back your essays with any comments? If so, I would pay special attention to the weakness they identified and figure out how to improve in those areas. If you aren't clear on what the comments are getting at / how to fix them, I think it's ok to show them to other people and ask for help with that??

I made a huge post during July study time about essay strategies that I'll C/P below, too. It's specifically for MEE, but lots of it should still apply.

The Dictators Handbook: It definitely made me more cynical but realistic about politics. CGP Grey did a video based on the book so check it out if you’re curious.

The thesis of the book is basically all rulers/politicians can only survive by being selfish and paying off those who support them. In dictatorships, these are generals, businessmen and bureaucrats. In a democracy those are the constituents who elect you. Those who do not vote do not matter which is why in the US politicians cater to the whims of the Boomers rather than Millennials. Boomers vote, Millennials don’t. Doing something for millennials is something not done for boomers (aka the people who put you in power) and makes it more likely that boomers will elect someone who has their interests at heart. If you want a better explanation check out that video! It’s fantastic and I’ve watched it countless times.

Also Millenials, please go vote! If you’re dissatisfied with politics this is the only way to change things!

Yes, I do actually, because compromise would be forced as the norm and obstruction would be incredibly difficult. It also breaks up the power within congressional districts, because fewer powerful entities directly affect the voting populace.

It's about restricting the ability of congressional leaders to consolidate power within their districts, and having it come down to money.

Look at it this way, each congressperson current represents about 700,000 people (if i remember correctly). For what is considered a "local representative", that's not very "local". It makes it too easy for monied interests to convince the populace at-large of how this effective stranger thinks about xyz issues.

Break this number down to 150-200k each, and it seems a little more reasonable that community groups could have a real chance at having their voices heard. A union representing 1000 people is suddenly 1% of the vote, if 50% of people vote. That same union is a fraction of a % in a 700k district.

This results in a) more level headed politicians who can actually get to know the entirety of their district and not just rely on the big money havers, and b) better democratic representation.

TL;DR: Increasing the number of reps actually dilutes the power of an individual rep, such that they become more beholden to their voters.

edit: credit where credit is due - this book is amazing and explains in detail why a system that increases the number of reps leads to better representation. But to keep it simple - the first thing dictators do is consolidate power by getting rid of as many "key people" as possible, and when a representative represents 1 million people, the "key people" are people with the money to run ads, not community representatives.

Anthony De Jasay is one the most smartest yet underappreciated libertarians I guess. Just look up on his books. Besides that Edward Stringham and Peter Leeson are important figures. I always liked Bruce Benson's works. You should also read his article enforcement of property rights in primitive societies

This article on wild west is excellent. It's based on their book Not So Wild, Wild West

I mentioned Peter Leeson, his article on pirates An-Arrgh-Chy is a different perspective on organization outside the state, his book on same subject, The Invisible Hook is a must read. Also his article on Somalia, Better off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse is perfect.

And this is another article on law and justice by Bruce Benson.

this article:
http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/corruption/oil-gas-and-mining/cambodia

Mentions KR as active in logging and the start of that but their role in that ended pretty much in '98. Goes on to talk about Vietnam and its role in the resources of Cambodia.

In that article is also a link: http://www.globalwitness.org/rubberbarons/

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's work as a general framing for small-coalition governance and why it's good foreign policy for countries to support autocrats, in layman's terms and a quick read version: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845 . It has a few mentions specifically of cambodia and also a short discussion of western bilateral and multilateral foreign aid in the country.

Can't find a primary source right now for the bit about the political system because i have to go to a meeting shortly. But basically every major political position is appointed rather than directly elected. This means power flows down from the party rather than up from the people, and accountability of positions is upwards into the party. Every position has to be paid for by the appointee, mainly by 'donations' to the Cambodian Red Cross (owned and run by Hun Sen's wife). Which also means the appointees have to recoup the cost, and I think there is also an annual quota they have to pass up. Essentially similar to the old Roman tax farming system. Gotta run, can elaborate more if you have further questions.

Can anyone read the article?

North and South don't care about the prize. Boon said we don't need a gold star we want peace. Give the gold star to trump.

Ugh. This comment section reads like:

hur dur dur dur. Trump is great and helped.

Trump did shit all nothing except a twitter war.
If you have any clue about politics and the times lines and events that happened under kim you would understand better.
Here watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
or you could read the dictators hand book. You can buy it here: https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Read up on some of what has happened under Kim.

Kim was western educated.

He comes into power after his fathers death.

He has to then solidify his power or he will be disposed of, plain and simple. He has a brother you know.

This means he has to play the game. Continue with the old way forward.

But he has a plan. Kill brother. Kill Generals that would stop him. Continue with nukes to make sure no one can stop him and save face. Spout off rhetoric just like his father.

I can almost guarantee he wants to move NK to be more like China. There is huge GDP to the south and huge GDP to the west. He wants in on it. This will make him more rich and his loyal generals. Not only that it will pull the nation out of poverty and starvation.

NK is literally one really bad growing season away from millions dying, this is bad for any regime. The only thing that NK really has for export is rare earth elements and everyone needs those. Those require huge investment and know how to acquire.

Going forward after the deal is signed, you will see China coming in and helping build infrastructure to help with transportation and moving goods around faster to build up faster. The reason why China would be the one to do this; for several reasons. They don't want to become a democracy. They don't want those ideals. Also China has always been worried about the fall of NK, millions of people coming into China would be a disaster for them. The south will help with financing.

If anyone deserves a nobel peace prize it would be Dennis Rodman.

Molyneux borrows ideas in that book and gives no credit to his influences. The book is not TERRIBLE (it's also not great), but your time would be better spent with another work imo. Stick with Rothbard and Friedman for intro texts.

I'd also recommend The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson: http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447

If this is all totally new to you, this video by Robert Murphy is a really great introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0_Jd_MzGCw

I've had a lot of fun with Diplomacy, though it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

If you're interesting in more realpolitik, CGP Grey's video "Rules for Rulers" (which you may well have already seen) and the book that inspired it, The Dictator's Handbook both view politics from the perspective of power. They're very useful for both understanding real world power politics and developing a setting driven by poewr politics.

Mostly, you can find them on amazon for pretty cheap -

Like this one from PT62-71

This one goes to PT71 which is Dec 2013 (I believe). For even newer ones, you can buy them off of any test prep company like Manhattan for around 6-8 dollars per test.

Also, for finding answers and explanations, you can find them through 7sage online for free.

Let me know if you need any additional help finding any! Best of luck.

I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Maybe-Excel-School-Exams/dp/0890897603

It was like a security blanket for me when I was a 1L. Also, I found it helpful to draft the “Rule” portion of the IRAC essay and add it to my outlines. So the first page of a topic had a box full of “rules.” Drafting that portion of an essay really helped score easy points on exams and saves time when you have an open-note exam! It also helps you solidify your understanding of the law.

Happy studies!

I am sorry I cannot help you more. But, just as a heads up the idea of "legal speak" is being pushed out of the legal industry. The book Plain English for Lawyers could help your writing potentially if that is something you are wanting to improve. Legal writing is less about using terms such as "henceforth, therefore, notwithstanding, etc." and more focused on being concise and clear in your writing. Best of luck to you.

The classic, age-old question. Money or fulfillment. For me, I balanced the two, chasing the money but at the same time finding fulfillment by looking adjacent to what I was doing to see who had a 'better' job in my industry/company.

One caution. Police officer is a very tough job, and it's not for everyone. In particular, if you have a lot of compassion for people and feel the things you experience deeply, my advice is look elsewhere for ways to help people.

Here's a great book on surviving as a first-responder. It's absolutely worth your time to read it and talk with some other officers - particularly those who are still on the beat and have been in-role for 10+ years.

You can probably find it somewhere but honestly just pay the money and buy the books.

http://www.amazon.com/10-Actual-Official-LSAT-PrepTests/dp/0986045519/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463626813&sr=8-1&keywords=lsat+practice+tests

Less than $20 and they're all printed out and easy to write on and take.

I was once in your position and fucked around with PDFs for a long time... and it's ok to an extent... but I think it's worth it to just fork over $15-20 and buy it. Law school is hundreds of thousands in tuition, living expenses, lost wages, and years of your life, if $15 improves your score even by 1 point and gives you a better chance at a good school or more scholarship money then it was worth it.

LOL, you will be ahead of the poli sci and history majors without doing anything. Those undergrad programs do not prepare you for law school in any special or helpful way. Whatever your "quantitative major" is, you will be better equipped to succeed in law school because you have more experience with thinking logically and confidently, consistently, and rigorously applying rules to a set of facts/inputs.

If you really want a recommendation for how to prep for law school as a 0L, read Getting to Maybe in the summer before you start.

The question of desert is central to considerations on justice. Two easy places to get an introduction online are the SEP’s entry and the IEP’s entry.

If you’re looking for particular texts, as far as the contemporary liberal tradition is concerned I recommend the contrast you can find between Walzer’s Spheres of Justice and Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.

In short, for Walzer desert and distribution should be considered based on a plurality of standards which he refers to as complex equality. Thus, ideas such as the right to vote and health care, as distinctly different social goods, should not be considered under the same ideas of desert and distributed according to the same principles. Whereas, by most readings, Rawls takes the route of making desert largely (or completely) inapplicable to matters of distributive justice, which is an interesting and ongoing debate in political philosophy on just how, if at all, desert matters for Rawls.

(Edit for type-o’s.)

I could go through this line by line with responses, but I don't really have the energy, and it's not really why I posted the video anyway--his treatment of horseshoe theory is less important than the concept's illustration (even though I think your particular treatment isn't completely fair-handed). I'll just throw in a couple of reactions, with the caveat that you can probably ignore them and take, "He uses shortcuts for concepts he's built up elsewhere that make sense in context" as my point and leave it there.

The first point to throw out is that Coffin himself uses "thought leader" as a particular shortcut for "person who exists to popularize concepts in trade for social currency", and continually recognizes the hypocrisy of also being someone who is popularizing concepts in trade for social currency (just not in this video). We do all exist in capitalism, after all, so pointing this out is just as (in-)valid as calling out someone who hates the free market for buying food at a grocery store.

Specifically at: "Millions of people died in communist revolutions and communist regimes." If you paid attention to those, they... really weren't movements of the left. You certainly have a point that movements spawned from ideas from the left can be co-opted by fascists, but that doesn't make those fascists leftists, it just means co-option is easy.

This is why violent revolution is contraindicated, by the way, at least, if you're trying to achieve a democratic result. I recommend a treatment of the topic here by CGP Grey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs), which is itself a distillation of this book by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845), but the major point is that if you want to bypass Democracy while co-opting a populist idea, backing your movement with the military is a great way to do it (as in, the precise tactic of pretty much any government with the Communist label that has achieved majority power to date).

Congrats!

Success in biglaw is so much more than doing great work. Find a partner in a strong practice area who can be your advocate at the firm. Seek out cases with him/her. Let him/her run interference with other partners who may not care if you burn out after one year. Also, learn how to say no to work. Hint: don't say "no."

Pick up a copy of The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law. It's an excellent book about firm life that contains a lot of invaluable advice for new lawyers.

The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics By Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith

1. 
   
   For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to.
   
   This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.
   
   This is essentially any public choice economics class you'll ever take. It's a great break down on the real incentives of rulers and how that influences their rule, even more so it goes into detail how these incentives shape economies, policies, wars, business, and much more.
   
   2.
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845
   
   
   *3.
   
   Nonfiction- Political Science/Public Choice theory
   
   

The majority of the advice you'll get from this sub is different versions of "BE FREE, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER."

That being said, definitely enjoy yourself. When August rolls around, its time to start looking at syllabuses and getting your life together. But you should spend the time you have doing whatever makes you happy.

I read Getting to Maybe, I liked it. Not sure how useful it is, but... might be worth checking out.

The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law is a good one. Amusing and practical, and very on point. I received it as a gift from one of my mentors early on in my career and thought it was a wonderful aid.

I would also look at templates and examples of court documents on Practical Law's "Standard Documents" portion of its website (along with the website in general). Very, very good baseline materials and law on several important topic areas for the modern practitioner.

The Five Types of Legal Argument is a good primer on what types of arguments are used in the courts that generate case law. Chemerinsky's Constitutional Law is an excellent resource for constitutional law, which is some of the more interesting stuff. The Nine is an easy read and a good introduction to the personalities and major decisions of the Rehnquist court and early Roberts court. Dressler's Understanding Criminal Law is another good one; it explains the general architecture of criminal law and its development. Those might be available at libraries near you. If there's a law library in your area, you can always grab a legal encyclopedia (like American Jurisprudence 2d. or Corpus Juris Secondum) and a Black's Law Dictionary and flip around until you find something interesting. And as others have mentioned, BarBri is a good resource.

Sacado del libro The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

> Autocrats aim for the rate that maximizes revenue. They want as much money as possible for themselves and their cronies. In contrast, good governance dictates that taxes should only be taken to pay for things that the market is poor at providing, such as national defense and large infrastructure projects. Taking relatively little in taxes therefore encourages the people to lead more productive lives, creating a bigger pie. Democrats are closer to this good governance ideal than autocrats, but they too overtax. The centerpiece of Reaganomics, the economic plan of US president Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), was that US taxes were actually higher than this revenue maximizing level. By reducing taxes, he argued, people would do so much extra work that government revenue would actually go up. That is, a smaller share of a bigger pie would be larger than the bigger share of a smaller pie. Such a win-win policy proved popular, which is why similar appeals are again in vogue. Of course, it did not quite work out this way in fact.

> To a certain extent, Reagan was right: lower taxes encouraged people to work and so the pie grew. However, crucially, in democracies it is the coalition’s willingness to bear taxes that is the true constraint on the tax level. Since taxes had not been so high as to squash entrepreneurial zeal in the first place, there wasn’t much appreciable change as a result of Reagan’s tax cuts. The pie grew a little, but not by so much that revenues went up.

Leo wife here! We have a sub that I can send over to you. It's not very active but it's good for support when you need it. If you're in my state, I'll send you a link to our group (where they will verify you).

So here's the thing, academy is fucking awful and so is your FTO period (ours was about 12 months but they recently upped it to 18 months). One thing I HIGHLY suggest is purchasing this book. It will help you understand what is happening to him and how to not fall into the situation you described. Depending on your department, your guy will have to swap shifts a few times so you'll be thrown upside down a few times over the next two years. There's benefits and cons to each one.

My advice for now? Just survive. Do what you can to keep your lives together but get through it with as little resentment as you can. It'll be over and once he's on his own, it will be so much better because he's not having to follow the exact process of whomever is educating him ex: one trainer expected you to be out of the car before him but wouldn't tell you that. Another wouldn't let Dude use the online system the entire 10 weeks because sometimes it went offline, which has happened twice in the last few years. There will be times he will want to quit and you will have (if you've agreed to do so) to keep him invested and going. There is a high rate of divorce in our community but I've also seen a lot of really successful relationships too. It's all about making yourselves come together as a family and not losing sight of it or prioritizing it lower. The ones I see splitting are the ones spitting, "she knew what she got into. This job is my life! She has to work around ME forever." Nah. This is a one way ticket to trouble. There's gotta be respect.

For holidays and events, do them on his off day. Don't start living totally separate lives. It's so easy to do and sometimes you will just have to go to events anyway but make sure you can get him to some of them. Keep as many non first responder friends as you can. Nobody will get your situation like other LEO families but it can be easy for them all to start getting negative about work or becoming an echo chamber. My husband's personality has changed and he has become more rigid because he sees so many awful things. Having "regular" friends reminds him that WoW, metal concerts, family dinners, soccer - they're all still part of who he is.

There are things you can't drive yourself crazy about and that's women who specifically creep on guys with a badge, females on shift either on his beat or dispatch, where he is at all times, mandatory overtime (it'll happen, and I tell people we will arrive an hour late to an event just in case), and sometimes when he needs space. Too much space is bad but it's shit like, today my husband had to (TW GORE/MISCARRIAGE) dig through a shopping bag of human tissue because homeless woman miscarried in a stairwell. And that's not even the worst or weirdest thing he's seen this month. You will have to decide as a team if you want to talk about that stuff or not (we do). Some wives also pretend there isn't a real threat to life (yet two guys almost got killed on shift in the last 2 months) and some pretend every call is going to be the end (though statistically chances are small and Dude went a very long time before he ever had to pull any weapon on anyone). You'll have to find a balance. We did talk about what happens if he is injured or killed in action and what our expectations were.

Anyway. I could go on forever. Feel free to PM me anytime though!

>Ugh. I'm good thanks. I've had more than enough cringe watching his humans need not apply video

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Read that instead then - Also great you judge people on one piece of their work - he has done many other videos on many other subjects - but ok.

>Why do you think the liberals hate scientists themselves though?

Tacit Consent.

They pull funding from STEM fields and in-turn people like the OP are finding it harder to find work in Aus - we have a major brain drain with people leaving Australia to find work in their field.

So while individually they might not even care about scientists one way or the other - by their actions or inactions they consent to a permeating culture of scientific regression in Australia from the Liberal party and its supporters.

I think a model that takes a few variables into account could perform pretty well over time and space. Central in this model would be history of being occupied. Also important is harshness of environment encouraging cooperation. Another aspect would be whether or not a Dictator's Handbook scenario is in effect. Often this takes the form of a local leader allowing a foreign power to provide skilled labor and capital equipment to help the country extract resources. In this scenario, the local government's primary job is to use payoffs and/or threats to prevent the local population from interfering or demanding a cut.

Both direct occupation and DH quasi-occupation would create a conflict between the best interests of the citizenry and the best interest of its rulers. Any increase in power of the government could result in decreases of leverage of the population. In this scenario, paying taxes, cooperating with onerous regulations, and providing information to the government could be legitimately seen as a betrayal. This would explain Seoul's unusually high anti-social punishment rate (Japanese Occupation).

I would be very curious how 1760 Boston would have scored on this test. The Boston Tea Party sometimes confuses children because it is a stark example of authorities praising anti-social punishment. Also note Greece's 20th century hardships and Omman's precarious sovereignty given Iran and SA's machinations in the area.

From wikipedia on the ongoing Qatar diplomatic crisis:

> Trump's public support for Saudi Arabia emboldened the kingdom and sent a chill through other Gulf states, including Oman and Kuwait, that fear that any country that defies the Saudis or the United Arab Emirates could face ostracism as Qatar has.

The Dictator's Handbook is a fantastic political science book. Not just about the politics of dictatorships, but the politics of democracies, small municipalities, and businesses as well. Super cynical, but provides tonnes of really great examples and case studies.

On of my favourite books period.

https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Yes, I'm Swedish.

Their are 8 major parties competing for power. Two blocks and one outsider.


There is the "red-green" block consisting of the Social democrats, The green party and the Left party (formerly the communist party) These currently hold power with a minority of the vote, supported by the "opposition".

Then there is the "Alliance" made out of the Liberal party, The Moderates, The Center party and the Christian Democrats.

Then there is the third option, the Swedish Democrats, whom have been isolated due to being labled a "nazi alt-right" party by the state controlled media (they want to limited immigration and have fiscal responsibility) Currently polling at 20-30% of the vote, depending on who ordered the poll.


I'm guessing that the Swedish Democrats will be the biggest party after the 2018 election, with about 30% of the vote. This will breakup the "alliance" and create a new left-center block consisting of the:
Social Democrats, Green party and Center party. Basically paving the way to hell with good intentions.

The future looks bleak.


If you're interested in modern Swedish political history I recommend reading this book:
Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism

What's up dude. Took the LSAT in June. Went from a cold diagnostic of 154 to a 167. (Retaking in Sept for a 170+). Books I used/recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/LSAT-Trainer-remarkable-self-study-self-driven/dp/0989081508/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469539064&sr=8-1&keywords=lsat+trainer

https://www.amazon.com/PowerScore-Logic-Games-Powerscore-Preparation/dp/0988758660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469539126&sr=8-1&keywords=powerscore+logic+game+bible

https://www.amazon.com/PowerScore-LSAT-Logical-Reasoning-Bible/dp/0991299221/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469539163&sr=8-1&keywords=powerscore+logic+reasoning+bible


Books I used but don't recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerScore-LSAT-Reading-Comprehension-Bible/dp/099129923X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469539188&sr=8-1&keywords=powerscore+reading+comprehension

Get your practice tests here (seriously, do 20+ under timed conditions while filling out LSAT bubble sheets):

https://www.amazon.com/10-Actual-Official-LSAT-PrepTests/dp/0986045519/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469539233&sr=8-1&keywords=10+lsat+preptests

https://www.amazon.com/Actual-Official-PrepTests-Comparative-Reading/dp/0984636005/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1469539233&sr=8-3&keywords=10+lsat+preptests

Also, use https://7sage.com/

Sign up for a free account, and use their logic game explanations. They also have analytics that will track your progress and spit out analysis concerning where your weak areas are.

Good luck!

> Ord har betydelser.

Lyft näsan från ordboken nu.

> Om ord tillskrivs vilken betydelse som helst av vem som helst blir konversation, meningsutbyte och utveckling i det närmaste omöjligt.

Reductio ad absurdum, sluta larva dig

> Jag vet att du inte vet vad planekonomin innebar eller att planekonomi och den långa raden av politiska utrensningar som skakade hela det ryska samhället inte är samma sak men än en gång, ord betyder saker. Planekonomin handlade i första hand om produktionsmål för tackjärn, järnmalm och kol, kritiskt viktiga resurser för industrialisering och sedermera kriget mot Tyskland. För det ändamålet var planekonomin effektiv.

Är du på riktigt?

Det är trivialt: Planekonomin i sig var slaveri, repression och massmord. Du kan inte stoppa dom sakerna i olika små fack och låtsas som att dom inte hör ihop även om det står på olika ställen i ordboken.

Det är skillnad på vad ordboken säger och vad utfallet blev.

Saxat rakt från wikipedia sidan om din fina femårsplan:

> the collectivization created a large-scale famine in the Soviet Union in which many millions died.

Vi pratar alltså om miljoner människor som helt enkelt dog som en del av planekonomin.

Men visst, "planekonomi" är ett ord som du kan rabbla fram. Grattis.

Här har du alltså egentligen diskvalificerat dig ur en seriös diskussion eftersom du inte har koll på grundläggande fakta i det du skriver och dessutom förringar du folkmord.

Nu är vi dock lustigt nog tillbaka till mitt ursprungliga inlägg där du har bevisat mig rätt på fler än ett sätt:

Det är precis samma mekanism bakom svälten i Ukraina 1932/1933, miljoner döda som försäkringskassans slöseri med skattepengar i dagens Sverige:

Folk tar helt enkelt dåliga beslut i kollektivistiska system. Dessutom leder det troligtvis till passiv och självgod dumhet ...

Sen vill du ha en separat diskussion huruvida den svenska utjämningspolitiken har skapat ekonomisk tillväxt. Det är nog en diskussion som är lite för komplex för dig med tanke på att du spyr ur dig kommunistisk propaganda från 1930-talet.

> jag kanske har en bakgrund inom ekonomisk historia?

Argument from authority, mera trams från självgode dig

Det är ju extra lustigt eftersom du dels inte kan din historia ordentligt och dels inte förstår grundläggande koncept som korrelation/kausalitet eller statistisk analys eftersom du skriver:

> Det jag däremot hittar är att de stater i USA som har högst andel människor med skandinaviskt ursprung är lite mer välbeställda än genomsnittet, dock har de fortfarande en genomsnittligt lägre hushållsinkomst än den i Sverige.

Jag pratade om en grupp (svenska invandrare i USA), då kan du inte börja jämföra hela stater.

Det här är ju pinsamt eftersom det var en av få konkreta saker som du har sagt men dessutom har du fel i sak eftersom enbart delstaten Minnesota (där flest svenskättlingar finns enligt denna karta) har en högre BNP/capita än Sverige. Dom andra relevanta staterna har ännu högre BNP/capita (North Dakota, Delaware, osv) ....

Här är en annan ganska bra artikel som också jämför just inkomster mellan Sverige och olika amerikanska stater som visar samma sak.

Hur var det med faktan nu? ; )

Det här är faktiskt ganska grundläggande saker ...

Jag orkar inte lista alla fel som du rabblar upp ...

> [Citation needed] - Jag tror du hittade på det här rakt av

Återigen bevisar du mitt första inlägg om tillit i samhället: "En tjuv tror att alla andra är tjuvar. En lögnare tror att alla andra är lögnare. Och agerar därefter."

För en djupare analys av just svensk tillväxt i relation till ekonomisk utjämning kan du läsa en bok (inte en ordbok alltså utan en bok som faktiskt har med ämnet att göra).

(Jag hittade också en förenklad online resurs här)
[https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Sweden%20Paper.pdf]

[Citat]:(https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Sweden%20Paper.pdf)

> If Americans with Swedish ancestry were to form their own country, their per capita GDP would be $56,900, more than $10,000 above the income of the average American. This is also far above Swedish GDP per capita, at $36,600. Swedes living in the USA are thus approximately 53 per cent more wealthy than Swedes (excluding immigrants) in their native country (OECD, 2009; US Census database).

[Citat]:(https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Sweden%20Paper.pdf)

> Rather than being the cause of Sweden’s social strengths, the high-tax welfare state might instead have been made possible by the hard-won Swedish stock of social capital. It was well before the welfare state, when hard work paid off, that a culture with a strong work ethic and strong trust and social cohesion developed. As discussed above, the modern system has eroded some of these norms.

Jag tänker inte ta upp upp allt här men i princip hela boken går ut på att bevisa att ditt påstående är kategoriskt felaktigt:

> Traditionellt har vår ekonomiska utjämningspolitik varit den enskilt största faktorn till Sveriges ekonomiska styrka.

Nej, det är helt enkelt inte sant.

Citat igen:

> Another popular notion is that Sweden´s phenomenal growth rate is closely tied to a period dominated by Social Democratic party rule and high taxes. In fact, between 1870 and 1936, the start of the social democratic era, Sweden had the highest growth rate in the industrialised world. Between 1936 and 2008, however, the growth rate was only ranked 18th out of 28 industrialised nations (Maddison, 2010).

Citat:

> The rapid growth of the state in the late 1960s and 1970s led to a large decline in Sweden’s relative economic performance. In 1975, Sweden was the 4th richest industrialised country in terms of GDP per head. By 1993, it had fallen to 14th.

Citat:

> Sweden developed state welfare provision during the first half of the 20th century, but the welfare institutions were financed by relatively low taxes. As noted previously, tax revenues were still only around 21 per cent of GDP in 1950 (Ekonomifakta, n. d.). Interestingly enough, the impressive social outcomes of Swedish society were evident already during this period. For example, in 1950, long before the high-tax welfare state, Swedes lived 2.6 years longer than Americans. Today the difference is 2.7 years (SCB database; US Department of Health and Human Services, 2009). It is also interesting that the relatively even income distribution in Sweden pre-dates the expansion of the welfare state.

Citat:

> A comparison of historical rates of income inequality in Sweden, the USA, Canada, France and Netherlands shows interesting results. Already by 1920, well before the existence of a welfare state, Sweden had amongst the lowest levels of inequality within this group of countries. Roine and Waldenström (2008)

Du försöker förenkla saker genom att säga:

> När socialismen rotade sig på allvar i Sverige (dvs senare hälften av 1800-talet [...]

Du kan inte bara rabbla saker ur ordboken om när arbetarepartiet grundades (1881) utan du måste jämföra deras faktiska politik (staten/skatterna/"utjämningen" växte rejält först efter WW2 och var som störst på 1970-talet) med vad utfallet blev vid det tillfället, dvs. det gick gradvis åt helvete ekonomiskt ju mer staten växte, såpass att sossarna runt 1980-1990 själva började montera ned stora delar. I början (1800-talet) var sossarna ute efter andra saker som allmän rösträtt och kunde inte påverka ekonomin i stort. Dessutom påvisar jag tillväxt innan partiet ens grundades!

Till och med socialdemokraterna övergav själva sin egen socialistiska ideologi (dvs. dom gav slutligen upp sin lilla dröm om att äga produktionsmedlen) på 1980-talet( Kanslihushögern) eftersom statens svällande storlek med höga skatter och omfördelningspolitik dämpade just ekonomisk tillväxt. Så hur kan det vara den största faktorn till "ekonomisk styrka"? Trams!

Svensk kultur och hårt arbete byggde Sverige! Folkhemmet var en acceptabel kostnad (fram tills nu när andra ska åka snålskjuts).

När man nu ska förstöra den svenska demografin och kulturen som gjorde Sverige framgångsrikt så kommer det gå som det går helt enkelt.

Dom andra sakerna som du tar upp (bostadsmarkad, "klyftor", osv) är småpotatis jämfört med det. Precis som tackjärn är småpotatis i relation till folkmord.

Till skillnad från postmoderna historieförfalskare så förstod socialdemokraterna själva precis vad det handlade om:

Citat, Tage Erlander i Valfrihetens samhälle (Tiden 1962), s. 82

> Därför kan vi angripa arbetslöshetsproblemen på ett helt annat sätt, i medvetande om att det vi gör är en sak som i varje fall inte influeras av skiljaktigheter i hudfärg eller religion utan att våra insatser får sin motivering uteslutande med tanke på arbetslöshetsfrågan själv. Därför bör vi måhända vara litet mera ödmjuka när vi nalkas det här problemet än vad vi många gånger kanske är.

Ödmjukhet ... kanske vore något för självgode dig som silar mygg och sväljer kameler?

Ridå.

THIS helped me tremendously. It's super short and super useful. I recommend it.

> How do you square that description with his support for Trump policies that clearly clashed with his principles?

That's easy to answer, it's rule 4 of the excellent Dictator's Handbook, which is Pay your key supporters just enough to keep them loyal. The Republican Party depends heavily on the financial donations of 3 ultra-rich families to run elections and stay in power. These families despise Trump's personality, but love his policies (for the obvious reason these policies enrich them). It's not even a stretch to say that Ryan was told by the GOP leadership to support Trump to ensure the financial donations continued. I think resigning is probably the only principled action Ryan has ever taken.

Yeah I'm researching now, and I've forgotten that of course what's needed is a combination of tort AND contract law.

I think I've found what I'm looking for, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State - Bruce L. Benson

I'll be going over this article as well by Kinsella: A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability

I only used book 1. Can’t speak for book 2 but I’m sure it’s a great help too.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1454873124/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Why do you sound so surprised? It's similar in America. Once you stop talking about "the little people" (i.e. at least 99% of us reading this) it happens frequently.

It's just easier to see it going wrong somewhere else, because all the flag-waving and "for the good of the nation" crap is more transparently-absurd when it isn't your own flag and nation.

• Here in the US, we have politicians who admit (in interviews and memoirs) to behavior which are federal felonies... and also war-crimes (under multiple ratified treaties), yet our political class always just says "It's time to look forward, not back"[2] and sweeps it all under the rug. Virtually every US presidency in the last four decades (including the current one) has vigorously protected the members of the previous one from investigations or prosecutions, anything on the scale from outright pardons to refusal to prosecute to back-room (but still documented) lobbying efforts.
  
  
• Even outside political offices... A wealthy hedge fund manager slams into a bicyclist with his car, and flees the scene, eventually stopping to call for a tow-truck from a Pizza Hut parking lot so that he can get his car secretly repaired. The cyclist, on the other hand, ends up being rushed to the hospital with internal bleeding, spinal injuries that need surgery, and eventually plastic surgery for the scars to his face and body. The manager, meanwhile gets caught by the police, but gets off with a misdemeanor[1] because, in the words of the prosecutor, "felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in [his] profession".
  
  
• Example: Conversely, while that rich guy gets off light (because prosecuting him might interfere with Rich People's Money) there's an unarmed homeless man, who non-violently robbed a bank (with his hand in his pocket to suggest a gun) and who refused to take more than a single $100 bill, giving the rest back to the cashier. He turns himself in the next day and confesses to stealing so he could stay at the detox center, and gets a minimum of 15 years (!) of prison. He'll probably die in there from old age before he gets out, because mandatory minimum sentencing laws prevents the courts from doing much else.
  
  And that's not even touching what the US does to whistle-blowers who try to expose possible criminality within the government.
  
  For a more in-depth investigation of recent examples (and who benefitted from pardoning who, who was punished for whistleblowing,etc.) try: With Liberty and Justice for Some.
  
  ___
  
  [1] For those unfamiliar with US law, most crimes are separated into either misdemeanors (minor crimes of misbehavior, like littering or parking your car where you shouldn't) versus felonies (things which are either "evil" or at least incredibly reckless, like stealing or killing). The distinction between the categories can matter quite a lot in certain situations.
  
  [2] Another variation is "We're not here to seek revenge, we need to focus on keeping it from happening again... like we said last time... and the time before that... and the time before that...."

Depends on your definition of a real thing. When a country has laws that incorporate their treaties into their own law, that's pretty real, in terms of the letter of the law.

It's just that we allow our leaders (or they allow themselves) to break the law, in general, when it suits them. (See With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald [2011]).

Economist here! A common definition of a government/state is a "legal monopoly of coercion." Anarchy is simply a situation where that is absent. And just as some governments have been awful and others benevolent and good, anarchy per se is neither. The real question is whether anarchy can allow a flourishing and peaceful society to exist? Of course there are also important normative questions: is a radically decentralized system of power likely to be better or worse than one with fairly centralized authority?

A great place to start is Bruce Benson. There are people who write about "Anarcho-Capitalism" mostly from the Austrian economics enthusiasts, and as fringe as these folks are, there's something to it. Benson attacks an important part of the problem by asking about the workings of the legal system in a state setting and in non-state settings.

A book I haven't read, but that I've heard good things about is The Invisible Hook. Ask yourself this: where do you least expect social cooperation with decentralized authority? Maybe a place filled with short-sighted, uneducated, criminals. An 18th century pirate ship is just such a place. And yet it turns out pirates were among the first to establish checks on central authorities with constitutions.

Another hard case is the case of prisons. And yet the prison economy is flourishing with drugs, cell phones, and other contraband changing hands in a market dependent on trade and cooperation. This happens in spite of a central authority outlawing this activity. Think Soviet black markets in music, except instead of innocent Russians you've got some pretty un-peaceful dudes.

All of these situations shed important light on the possibility of anarchy. They show that some of our basic assumptions about the role of government rest on shakier foundations than we might have thought. People can, and probably will cooperate. Just as surely, they will try to rip each other off. But of course that's true in government too.

I'm reading a book, The Dictator's Handbook, which does an excellent job answering exactly that question. Basically, all the people who were in a position to kill him were benefiting from keeping him in power. They knew it, and Shaka knew it. They wouldn't turn on him unless the rewards*%success of supporting someone else made for a more attractive offer.

Really a fascinating piece of work. Doesn't simply divide up history into "democracies" and "dictatorships", but argues that it's all a question of how many people's support are necessary for a ruler to stay in power. With democracies, obviously you need a lot of voters, though just how many can vary wildly from 51% down to just a few percent. With autocrats like this, it's usually little more than a couple military leaders and control over a few financial instruments. The population in general can go hang itself for all they care. Indeed, for modern autocracies whose money comes mostly from selling off natural resources to foreign corporations, the people actually populating the ruler's own country are often totally dispensable and little more than an occasional source of trouble.

I really like Andreas antonopoulos’ The Internet of Money Series. I support him on patreon too and have learned a ton there. https://www.patreon.com/aantonop
Jimmy Song’s programming bitcoin just came out and is good!
I also used Pamela Morgan’s cryptoasset inheritance planning to make sure my crypto is secure and my family will get it if something happens to me.

• Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt
  
  
• The Law, by Frederic Bastiat
  
  
• A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
  
  
• Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises
  
  
• The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard
  
  
• The Free Market Reader: Essay in the Economics of Liberty, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, ed.
  
  
• Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman
  
  
• Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
  
  
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
  
  
• The Constitution of Liberty, by F. A. Hayek
  
  
• Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, by Thomas Sowell
  
  
• Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville
  
  
• Anthem, by Ayn Rand
  
  
• A Nation of Sheep, by Andrew P. Napolitano
  
  
• Meltdown, by Thomas E. Woods
  
  
• Liberalism, by Ludwig von Mises
  
  
• A Foreign Policy of Freedom, by Ron Paul
  
  
• Rules for Radicals, by Saul Salinsky
  
  
• Blowback, by Chalmers Johnson
  
  
• Liberty Defined, by Ron Paul
  
  
• With Liberty and Justice for Some, by Glenn Greenwald
  
  
• We Who Dared to Say No to War, by Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods, Eds.

Glenn Greenwald's 2011 book With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful is a very good history of how elites have increasingly escaped the justice reservered for the rest of us.

I recommend The Dictators Handbook

For something to take the twinkle out of your eye when it comes to local government. I don't disagree with your sentiment, but I'm just tempering your sparkle for local government.

Another example would be China, where the "Federal" government is much more highly trusted then the local branches which have corruption leaking from every angle and no recourse from the locals except to make a trip to Beijing and implore the Party to come to their aid.

>That is, I don't plan on practicing law, but rather I'd look to study civil rights law and constitutional history so as to improve my prospects as a professor of political theory

Go buy this book, read it cover to cover, and save yourself the 150k of debt you'd need to go into just to take a semester/year long class in Con law.

Getting a JD will do nothing at all for your career prospects after your PhD unless you want to become an actual attorney.

I did the Kaplan prep course and it was really helpful when I went into the LSAT. Recommended. You can probably get an old one cheap.

I also really recommend the book "Getting to Maybe," which will give you a really good idea of what law school is going to be like, particularly law school exams.

Really appreciate the thorough response, and thanks for the encouragement. I really think I'll end up incorporating a lot of this.

If I can ask a couple questions about your resources: Were your custom LeanSheets just two/three-pagers you boiled down from bigger resources?

Also I'm the same way when it comes to learning from getting questions wrong and just continuing to drill. I've considered investing in the Emanuel MBE alongside having some old BarBri resources from a friend, but wasn't sure if there were some MBE resources you liked beyond BarBri's.

Again, thanks a lot for the response.

Well before the United States even existed, there were several examples of law, justice and accountability systems being provided on a societal scale without government involvement. As a matter of fact, some of western law today derives from some of these systems. Merchant law is a prime example.

So the idea that government is the only, or even the best method of holding companies (or even individuals) accountable ought to be very seriously challenged.

Asking how would the marketplace provide accountability without government is impossible to answer definitively as is any future theoretical concept. Many theoretical answers could be given and if you search diligently enough on the internet you'll find many scholarly writings from reputable sources. If you really want to know, Reddit probably isn't your greatest source. Here's a great book on the subject. And here's a free eBook that deals with this subject as well.

However, we don't need to know how problems in society could theoretically be solved in order to advocate for the end of immoral behavior (the government usurping power from the people and failing to perform). Did the people of the 19th century need to know that tractors and complex machinery would be invented to harvest and process the food we eat to advocate for the end of the chattel slave labor that was being used at that time to harvest food?

Glenn Greenwald examined this problem very extensively in his latest book, With Liberty and Justice for Some. Basically, he traces this modern-day erosion of the rule of law and two-tier justice system to when Ford pardoned Nixon.

He also outlined the major insights of his book in a 2011 interview with Harper's.

> The social contract is a book by Jean-Jaques Rousseau.

Holy fuck. Seriously? So whenever some humanist says to you "well we should move society forward because of the social contract" you thought they were talking about some book written a couple hundred years ago? Jesus, I'm sorry.

Maybe do some reading and catch up on what's happened in the past 250 years:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism-contemporary/

http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/#H3

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism/

http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Justice-John-Rawls/dp/0674000781/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408065363&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Theory+of+Justice

>Secular humanists believe we have a duty to help all humans improve their lives, correct?

Sure, but this in no way entails that human life has a purpose. That some moral claims are true doesn't alone entail that any teleological claims are true.

Glenn Greenwald actually wrote a book about this topic, entitled "With Liberty and Justice for Some". Great title..

> The Obama Administration would be prosecuting the Bush Administration for what were essentially public policy decisions. That sets a precedent nobody wants.

Glenn Greenwald did a great job of breaking down this situation in his book, "With Liberty and Justice for Some." link

Imagining you don't have time to read full books amidst your other 1L reading, try Wikipedia (seriously). Obviously, be wary of the source, but for an article as researched and clicked-on as the "United States Constitution," you'd be hard-pressed to find any fundamental errors.

Also try Wikipedia pages like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_(1776–89)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_(1789–1849)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison

Also, most, if not all, of the cases you will read in ConLaw will have Wikipedia pages, since we are talking about some of the landmark cases of all time. Most of the pages are well-researched, and it is usually easy to tell when they are not (by lack of citation, grammatical/spelling errors, etc). Before reading a case, go to Wikipedia to get background information that will put everything in context. It will make the cases easier to remember, they will make more sense from a legal standpoint, and you will know more than most of your classmates. (But I am a history buff, so maybe other people don't care).

For a supplement, I cannot recommend Chemerinsky's "Principles and Policies" enough. It will be invaluable throughout law school and beyond. At over 1400 pages, it is not meant to be a beginning-to-end page turner, but rather is an immensely helpful resource on individual topics as you go along.

> Scandinavian countries is pretty socialist

Absolutely not.

>but we are still doing pretty good.

I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Utopia-Exposing-Nordic-Socialism/dp/1944229396/

and listening to this podcast:

http://tomwoods.com/ep-717-debunking-utopia-exposing-the-myth-of-nordic-socialism/

It's not complex, it's very simple: the powerful and rich have gotten away with crimes for the past decades (to just cover recent history). Here's a great read on the subject.

Two things popped into my head right off the bat:

• The Dictator's Handbook - it doesn't specifically cover the process of decay and decline, but it's an excellent study on realpolitik, and its look into the behavior of people with power would probably be very helpful for constructing a failing government.
  
  
• The other one I thought of was Dan Carlin's Death Throes of the Republic. It's an audio book, and probably not as detailed as Gibbon's, but it's still excellent, especially if you want something in a different format.

Four good ones:

The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump & Tony Schwartz
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glen Greenwald

Two shitty ones (edit: yet still important to read):

The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens
The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens

> It's a view defended by Princeton political scientists

It is not.

/u/LouDorchen should listen to this too because I'll cover both of your points.

"US is an oligarchy, not a democracy" is the title given to it by the BBC blog section, "Echo Chambers" (subtitled, "Blogging global opinion, clearly"). The actual title of the study is "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens", and "oligarchy" is only mentioned three times in the entire text, and only as a comparison made by Jeffrey Winters in his book, Oligarchy:

> Most recently, Jeffrey Winters has posited a comparative theory of “Oligarchy,” in which the wealthiest citizens—even in a “civil oligarchy” like the United States—dominate policy concerning crucial issues of wealth and income protection.^1

As I replied here, a bad system is not an "oligarchy", and calling it an "oligarchy", as in, "we're screwed because the rich rule" is what's being edgy.

Source:

Cambridge link cited by the BBC article

Full study text

"Oligarchy" by Jeffrey Winters on Amazon

People such as Noam Chomsky have described the modern politician as essentially a middle manager. That is the interests of the majority actually has no influence on decisions made. Using the U.S as example:

" The report, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" (PDF), used extensive policy data collected between 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the U.S. political system.

After sifting through nearly 1,800 U.S. policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile), and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the U.S. is dominated by its economic elite. " The same study found that the majority had 0 impact on political decisions.

Here from that bastion of left wing'ism /s Business insider:http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4

Another important point, democracies are not necessarily different that autocracies in how leadership maintains power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1098&v=rStL7niR7gs

20 min video. Enlightening , based on this book: https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

I also hope automod doesn't harass me for linking here, but you might also really enjoy a book called The Enterprise of Law, which is dedicated to this topic, and perhaps To Serve and Protect, another work by the same author (Law Professor Bruce L Benson).

I had to pay $200,000 for my law degree. Not educating you for free. If you're honestly interested in con law, here is a good starting point. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0735598975?pc_redir=1396454528&robot_redir=1

>Would this also bring up the case as to. Wether or not we have two different systems of justice in the United States: one for the regular common folk and another for the wealthy elite.

Award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald actually recently published a book on this subject, titled With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful.

I've been working on these issues for a few years now and I've published a book: Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: a simple guide for owners. It's available all around the world on amazon in paperback, kindle, and soon audiobook. https://www.amazon.com/Cryptoasset-Inheritance-Planning-Simple-Owners/dp/1947910116/

I've also published a bunch of free how-to guides that might interest you: http://medium.com/@pamelawjd or https://empoweredlaw.com/

Hope this helps!

To go in a direction other than the "don't go to lawl school!!!!" and super-serious commenters, if you want something accessible to give you some exposure to legal issues, I would absolutely recommend The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin. It's an easy read and a good mix of law and institutional politics.

I haven't read it, but seeing this book mentioned in a very positive light in the bitcoin space, which might be helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Cryptoasset-Inheritance-Planning-Simple-Owners/dp/1947910116/

I love it! Been hardcore fan of BBdM & Smith for so long now, it's good to see someone do a video on their work!

For anyone else, read: The Dictator's Handbook

The three trustworthy LSAT prep are 7Sage, PowerScore, and LSAT Trainer.

I recommend learning logical reasoning (LR) for LSAT Trainer, logic games (LG) from the PowerScore logic games bible. Use 7Sage for their free LG explanations for when you move on to the prep tests.

So, for the self studying LSAT student, purchase:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0988758660/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501893820&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=powerscore&dpPl=1&dpID=51OJB5MwfNL&ref=plSrch

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0989081532/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501893890&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=lsat+trainer&dpPl=1&dpID=41XYSgqXD6L&ref=plSrch

And as many of these as you can: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0986045519/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501893927&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=lsat+preptest&dpPl=1&dpID=41nM%2BRt7N9L&ref=plSrch

And here's 7Sage: https://7sage.com/

I'm posting on my phone, so I'm sorry for the format of all this

I'm reading a couple of great books. The Dictator's handbook (https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845) and Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark (very good book to read right now- sigh)

Now that is good. For $11 I’ll give it a go.

https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Inside-Secret-World-Supreme/dp/1400096790

Surprisingly more expensive on kindle, so paperback it is. Looks like a decent book. Thanks man!

Haha the way you write is how they specifically train us not to write in law school because it's not plain enough. This might be a useful book even for non-lawyers to make their writing simpler and more sophisticated: http://www.amazon.com/Plain-English-Lawyers-5th-Edition/dp/1594601518

>They treat parties like completely static entities.

That's really interesting criticism given CGP Grey doesn't discuss any aspects of any of the hypothetical animals running in the elections. These videos are about the voting mechanics of each system.

If you're interested in how or why politicians change their tune to reflect the electorate see Rules for Rulers which is a distillation of the book The Dictator's Handbook.

Pamela Morgan wrote a book about how to do it:

https://www.amazon.com/Cryptoasset-Inheritance-Planning-Simple-Owners/dp/1947910116

Please note that you don't ONLY have to make sure that your keys aren't lost, you also have to make sure that whoever inherits it either knows how to manage things or at least doesn't get ripped off by whoever you designate to help, and also that whoever inherits does so in a way that the law recognizes as legal.

Do be aware that tax-wise, "step up basis" is your great and wonderful friend. Your heirs won't owe any taxes as long as the amount is under whatever limit your government sets (IIRC, federally, it's five million dollars in the U.S., but that may have changed or I may be mistaken -- also note that states vary).

If you have a lot, talk to a lawyer to make sure you handle it properly. Politicians love to bloviate about how they're going to "fix the system" but the reality is that nobody pays estate taxes unless they don't ever plan on how to manage things. For example, James Gandolfini fucked up royally, never planned on croaking, and so his estate ended up paying millions in totally unnecessary taxes, all because he was stupid. If he'd set up a trust, his heirs would have paid zero in taxes.

A lot of people think this, but they don't actually understand how some of these current European systems operate and how they got their.

I encourage people to check out this book , it explains this myth that Europe's socialist tendencies have actually worked to benefit rather than hinder , the function of their economies

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1944229396/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500447244&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+myth+of+nordic&dpPl=1&dpID=51rxydIMNdL&ref=plSrch

I'm still reading this book but it is an eye opener.


CGP Grey did this video based on the book

It pretty much lays out why we're never going to see changes for the better (until the people rise up)

>don't realise that when guys like Carswell and Hannan

You should read their manifesto The Plan: Twelve months to renew Britain. Central to their idea of freedom is radical decentralised democracy. There is a lot to like in it even for the left.

1. Don't go to law school.
   
   
2. If you insist, anything by Chemerinsky is good for an overview of constitutional law. Dworkin is also interesting and pretty accessible. For an overview of the types of theory you'll learn in torts, check out Coase's The Nature of the Firm (pdf).

As Jeff Winters says in his book "Oligarchy" oligarchs are interested in the preservation of their wealth. One kind of threat to them is other oligarchs, another is masses of people, another is government that wants to take away their wealth.

As Bernie Sanders said, sitting behind Trump at the inauguration were billionaire after billionaire after billionaire. One most prominent is Sheldon Adelson who will be "directing" Trump's middle east policy. Rebecca Mercer and the Koch brothers are three behind-the-scenes oligarchs pulling the strings. Mercer is particularly involved in picking cabinet members. Look them up. And, yes, there were/are many oligarchs behind Hillary.

For a nuanced explanation analysis of oligarchy try Winters' book:

https://www.amazon.com/Oligarchy-Jeffrey-Winters/dp/0521182980

Or go to Cambridge Univ press, if you don't want to use Amazon.

Fascinating and relevant book on how people get into power and remain there.

The book argues that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters; or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with; and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth; which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.

You'll probably find a lot of things in online-newspaper-article comments that'll make you want to hang yourself too, but the rather large number of people who're pinching the bridge of their nose and wondering what the hell they ever thought they were doing voting for Tony aren't the ones commenting in those places. :-)

The whole astonishing-hatred-for-Gillard thing is, ONCE AGAIN, Australia being a pale shadow of the USA. Look at what US right-wingers say about Hillary Clinton, and bing, there you go, Julia-hatred before the carbon paper.

(Hillary's pretty god-damned horrible in objective terms, but utterly wonderful compared with more popular candidates there, at least until Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken are real presidential prospects.)

The Kevin thing was... well, OK, he really is a prissy perfectionist who's an absolute bastard to work with. That's not why he got kicked out, but it's why all of the people nearest him disliked him, and shit like that's what dooms your political career.

(The Dictator's Handbook has an interesting and highly defensible explanation of why people stay in power: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845 . Boiled down, it's the duh-quote "only the people who do what is necessary to stay in power, stay in power", but there is of course more to it than that.)

Yes, and I was responding to your idiotic post--the fact that I replied to it should have clued you in to the fact. I know the internet can be confusing and scary, but do try to keep up.

You're as good at basic logic as you are historical analysis, and as good at that as you are competent in constitutional law, which is to say not at all.

In fact, in general, [this might help] (https://www.amazon.com/Constitutional-Law-Principles-Policies-Treatise/dp/1454849479/ref=pd_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S176159B2ZPNW43TYMT2), although on second thought [this] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFroMQlKiag) might be more on your level.

If you want to veer off into the workings of the Supreme Court (a crazy bunch of individuals), there are some great nonfiction books. Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine looks at the dynamics of the Court from the Reagan administration on. Jeff Shesol's Supreme Power is about FDR's plan to pack the Court when they kept ruling his New Deal laws as unconstitutional. FDR is kind of a badass.

They have some books on Amazon that goes in depth on police procedure if you want something deeper.

I haven't read this, but it is an example of what is out there to help you and should give you better info than reddit.

https://smile.amazon.com/Police-Procedure-Investigation-Writers-Howdunit/dp/1582974551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536556585&sr=8-1&keywords=writing+police+procedure

No book will prepare you for law enforcement, it has to be touched, smelled, heard, and seen. If you're already a cop then the best thing you can do to be better is to be a well rounded human being and books can help with that.

Here's the recommended reading from some of the prior threads I was able to find in the sub.

1. On Killing
   
2. On Combat
   
3. Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement
   
4. Intro to Criminal Evidence
   
5. Blue Blood
   
6. 400 Things Cops Should Know
   
7. Cop: A True Story
   
8. [Verbal Judo] (https://www.amazon.com/Verbal-Judo-Gentle-Persuasion-Updated/dp/0062107704/)
   
9. [What Cops Know] (https://www.amazon.com/What-Cops-Know-Connie-Fletcher/dp/0671750402/)
   
10. [Into the Kill Zone] (https://www.amazon.com/Into-Kill-Zone-Deadly-Force/dp/0787986038/)
    
11. Training at the Speed of Life
    
12. Sharpening the Warrior's Edge
    
13. The Gift of Fear
    
14. Deadly Force Encounters
    
15. The Book of Five Rings
    
    I've read a good portion of the above listed. I highly recommend Emotional Survival and going to see one of Gilmartin's talks if he's in your area. Below are a few of my personal suggestions.
    
    
16. Meditations
    
17. Blink - Not sure if I buy it, but interesting to think about.
    
18. [Armor] (https://www.amazon.com/Armor-John-Steakley/dp/0886773687/)
    
19. Iron John: A Book About Men
    
20. The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
    

I liked Law School Confidential and used their suggestions regarding how to highlight cases in 5 colors to make it easier to find information later.

There are lots of blogs out there about how to succeed in law school and call out how ridiculous it is sometimes - Girls Guide to Law School, Above the Law, and Lawyerist are a few. I blogged my way through law school and here are my law school survival posts.

You can start here. Then move onto here to address what you just said. For fun you can then move onto here. Once you've got all that under your belt you can learn how politics really works by reading this.

Good luck! But I urge you not make comments like "Nazis were left wing" until you've combated your ignorance with those books! Don't do it for me, do it for yourself and your country!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1454849479/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Not for lawyers, but for law students. So it's perfect for self learning. Chemerinsky is considered a top con law scholar.

As I said, call it whatever word you want, the key aspect is consent. Here's a good resource on law in that context: The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598130447/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_44i2BbHJ4N8SJ

>Could you elaborate on how a social contract makes following laws an ethical matter?

Not on Reddit, I don't have anywhere near that kind of time.

http://smile.amazon.com/Locke-Treatises-Government-Cambridge-Political/dp/0521357306

http://smile.amazon.com/Social-Contract-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486426920

http://smile.amazon.com/Theory-Justice-John-Rawls/dp/0674000781

These three books are a great place to start. Consider me your intro to political philosophy professor.

Yes, when it involves very rich people or people who work in or own large banks. What's the saying: The easiest way to rob a bank is to own one?

Here are two books which should look good in your paper:

1. Matt Taibi:
   http://www.amazon.com/Divide-American-Injustice-Age-Wealth/dp/081299342X/ref=la_B001JRUQ4S_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411418868&sr=1-1
   
   
2. Glenn Greenwald:
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful/dp/1250013836/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411418918&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=glenn+greendwald
   
   Both books deal with how prosecutions these days are not being done if you are rich enough and powerful enough. My favorite statistic is the number of bankers that liberal Ronald Reagan's DOJ put in jail during the S and L crisis of the 80s' (thouands? 1,800?) versus Barak's prosecution of NOBODY, basically, in the large banks. And, worse, DOJ admitting, yeah, we're not prosecuting them. HSBC money launders for Al Queda and drug lords. No problem. Civil or criminal fine is enough. No jailtime for anyone.
   
   DOJ had a press conference and Holder admitted, yeah, we're not going to prosecute big banks because they're too big, we'd worry about the impact. Huh what? That's something truly new and worthy of your attention. More sources:
   
   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/eric-holder-banks-too-big_n_2821741.html
   
   http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214
   

http://law.lclark.edu/courses/catalog/law_007.php

Please note that this is not the school I attended. I have no desire to post that information. I cannot condense three years of information, or even two semesters of Con Law into a citation for you. It is not possible. Books are available on this topic. Large ones with all the illuminating case cites you desire.

http://www.amazon.com/Constitutional-Law-Principles-Policies-Treatise/dp/0735598975/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422199742&sr=1-1&pebp=1422199756757&peasin=735598975 Chemerinsky is always a good choice.

I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve been recommended this book and have heard really good things about it.

Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph.D.

Pamela Morgan wrote a fantastic book about crypto inheritance planning. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1947910116/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_1947910116

We interviewed her on The Tatiana show that I co host. List of good tips and an important subject that most don't think about.
https://youtu.be/yAE7zrIJVhA

I am not sure about the tutor thing -- but one resource I do recommend is Emmanuel's strategy and tactics for the MBE: https://www.amazon.com/Strategies-Tactics-MBE-Emanuel-Review/dp/1454873124

​

It wont substitute a substantive study or bar prep, but it is really helpful to understand how the MBE questions are designed to give you some test taking strategy.

Some in the Democratic Party call Nordic Countries socialism.. I am saying they are not socialist by definition.

So technically yes it is brainwashing to believe Nordic Countries are socialism and that is a tactic of the left today in the USA..

I DO believe socialism is inherently evil.. and we shouldn’t be making romance with the word and theory. shall I explain? The definition of socialism is: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

So if you are implying that believing socialism is evil by definition is a brainwashing then I have to strongly disagree. Its morality.. I believe in morality..

This means theft in my opinion.. theft.. I think it’s evil to steal something from someone who didn’t produce it and give it to someone who didn’t produce it..

Steven Crowder presents the argument very well in the video below.

Please watch this video because I don’t have the time to type it all... thank you.

I can not recall one true successful true socialist state.. the Nordic countries gained their wealth thorough capitalism and some one else in this thread explained it also.. about Norway’s trillion dollar energy fund.. there’s also a great book on the topic too..

Let me state one more time...
Socialism by definition is evil

https://youtu.be/xF2lFGyADtM

https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Utopia-Exposing-Nordic-Socialism/dp/1944229396

Law School Confidential: A Complete Guide to the Law School Experience: By Students, for Students https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312605110/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_lpqnDbRQRCCFB

Writing Essay Exams To Succeed in Law School: Not Just Survive, Fourth Edition (Academic Success) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1454841621/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_XpqnDb593S6GG

1l of a Ride: A Well-traveled Professor's Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School (Career Guides) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1634607899/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_qqqnDbW2K5BJC

If you're referring to previous tests administered I believe there's over 80 available now. You can get them pretty cheap used on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble. They are called the "10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests Vol. ____" . I have provided a link to one of the test books here , the used ones start at $5

I'd recommend purchasing at least the 20 most recent lsat preptest on amazon, and to take your diagnostic somewhere in the 62-71 book. They come in packs of 10 for around $40 CAD, dunno what it is in the US. I believe LSAC has a free test somewhere on their website as well but you're gonna need more anyway if you want to practice well for december.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0986045519/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1509557680&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=actual+lsat&dpPl=1&dpID=41nM%2BRt7N9L&ref=plSrch

Historians get their knowledge of ancients societies from the sources like tribes living on isolated islands. For those interested in the topic of decentralized law in history, I recommend a book The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson. The author is austrian economist. It is ancap-safe reading, doesn't trigger a reader by statist propaganda.

"With Liberty and Justice for Some"

I got sidetracked and completely forgot to say thank you for this comment, but THANK YOU, this was really helpful. (As far as the blitz attack thing, I was assuming a physical/non-sexual assault with the intent to maim.)

(Also for non-leo/crime writer folks, I came across this book that's helpful on the basics, although like most other sources it doesn't really address the investigation procedure post-crime-scene as this helpful gentleman has done.)

https://www.amazon.com/Constitutional-Law-Principles-Policies-Treatise/dp/1454849479/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527540913&sr=1-1&keywords=chemerinsky+constitutional+law

The Chemerinsky is excellent and very readable. Highly recommend.

So in college I actually didn't do a ton of extracurricular. I was part of a Fraternity (held a couple positions there), played intramural hockey, and was part of the Astrophysics Society, plus research and school. After that, I went on to get my Master's in Astrophysics, which I just got in December, but that was all I did in Grad school.

To prepare for the LSAT I bought [this] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986045519?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01) book back in December and just went through it and did all the tests. I was averaging around 170-173 so 177 was pretty unexpected!

There won't be because the point of the money is to be a bribe to be stolen. If Trudeau just came out and said he was bribing such and such dictator people would react just like they do for the sales of weapon to Saudi Arabia. Instead he says he giving charitable help and looks away as it is stolen.

If you are interested in the details there's a great chapter about it in The dictator's handbook.

Thanks for the response. For anyone reading, the books thenamestiki referenced (which both look worth a read):

• Oligarchy (Jeffrey Winters)
  
• The Enduring Debate (Canon, Coleman, Mayer)
  
  If you can explicitly identify the Princeton-or-Harvard study you mentioned, I'd also be interested in having a look at that.

Good book for dealing with a cop's life and stress is

http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-survival-law-enforcement-officers/dp/0971725403

It is also good to give to significant others or family to help them realize what you may going through.

To the best of my knowledge no manifesto says it.

Farage did however.

UKIP's first MP, Douglas Carswell, wrote an entire fucking book on privatising the NHS.

Paul Nuttall, a UKIP MEP and UKIP vice-chair, wrote on his website that, “I would argue that the very existence of the NHS stifles competition, and as competition drives quality and choice, innovation and improvements are restricted. Therefore, I believe, as long as the NHS is the ‘sacred cow’ of British politics, the longer the British people will suffer with a second-rate health service.”

And of course, your infamous 2010 Manifesto. But I'm sure that totally doesn't represent the views of the party even though Farage was the leader immediately before the election, immediately after the election and the most famous party figure throughout the election.

I've recently finished the The Dictator's Handbook. It argues that most corruption is all about maintaining power. You need to support the people that support you. In a democracy, this means helping your constituents. In a dictatorship (and even some little noticed areas of democracies like town governments) that means giving gifts to those under you who's support you need. Typically this is just free money but it could be tax breaks, cushy jobs, regulatory changes, or other positions of power.

Every form of government on this planet has to bend to the will and respond to the needs of the “Keys to Power.” If you haven’t read the book yet, you should. This CGP Grey video is quite well done and explains.

https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

Also you should remember that good leadership has existed and will exist again in this country. How about offering a fucking solution instead of regurgitating the same old speech?

I would propose we get somebody who promises to suck corporate cock, like Trump, but is secretly on the people’s side. Once they get elected they do a 180 and become the next trust buster. An education revolutionary. An energy revolutionary. Somebody to really give these fucks what-for and give the power back to the people.

The only time that happens is when the military allows the people to storm the established regime - almost always because the established regime didn't give the military leaders enough money. Typical people cannot, have not, and will never destroy a standing state army.

Relevant CGP Grey video for clarity, but honestly the book Dictator's Handbook is much more thorough.