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155-580: In the United States , the practice of law is conditioned upon admission to practice of law , and specifically admission to the bar of a particular state or other territorial jurisdiction . The American Bar Association and the American Law Institute are among the organizations that are concerned with the interests of lawyers as a profession and the promulgation of uniform standards of professionalism and ethics, but regulation of

310-770: A law clerk for Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 to 1963. He then served as an attorney-advisor to Commissioner Philip Elman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); he would later argue that the FTC ought to be abolished. Posner went on to work in the Office of the Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice , under Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall . In 1968, Posner accepted

465-577: A lower house based on population; and the Senate , an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while the country's political culture promotes liberty , equality , individualism , personal autonomy , and limited government . One of the world's most developed countries , the United States has had the largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of

620-445: A poison pill provision that encouraged its machinists to take strike action if its pilots' takeover attempt succeeded. In 1991, Posner held that good faith performance is a factual question of the defendant's state of mind that must be proven at trial. In 1984, Posner wrote for the en banc circuit when it held that a consent decree regulating law enforcement Red Squads did not apply to FBI terrorism investigations, over

775-580: A " Special Relationship " with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada , Australia , New Zealand , the Philippines , Japan , South Korea , Israel , and several European Union countries ( France , Italy , Germany , Spain , and Poland ). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through

930-588: A claim by an Illinois dentist who slipped and fell in Acapulco , Mexico. In 2003, Posner affirmed a punitive damages award of 37.2 times the compensatory damages guests won from a bedbug infested Motel 6 . In 2003, Posner found that co-workers who did not prevent a hypoglycemic diabetic's fatal attempt to drive himself home violated no duty to rescue . In Morin Building Products Co. v. Baystone Construction, Inc. (1983), Posner held that

1085-542: A coordinated, continent-wide military effort. Finally, deteriorating relations between the British military establishment and the colonists, relations that were already less than positive, set the stage for further distrust and dislike of British troops. Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance ; one of

1240-412: A debate with the philosopher Peter Singer in 2001 at Slate magazine . He agrees that "gratuitous cruelty to and neglect of animals is wrong and that some costs should be incurred to reduce the suffering of animals raised for food or other human purposes or subjected to medical or other testing and experimentation," but rejects grounding this view in an ethic of strong animal rights, contending that such

1395-534: A decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida . The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which

1550-532: A decision that held that late term abortion was constitutionally protected in some circumstances. In November 2015, Posner authored a decision in Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. Schimel striking down regulations on abortion clinics in Wisconsin. He rejected the state's argument that the laws were written to protect the health of women and not to make abortion more difficult to obtain. Accusing

1705-407: A few prominent industrialists , largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad , petroleum , and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry . These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality , slum conditions , and social unrest , creating

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1860-638: A founding member of the World Bank , Organization of American States , NATO , and the United Nations , as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council . The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan , a Continental Army aide to General George Washington , wrote to Joseph Reed , Washington's aide-de-camp , seeking to go "with full and ample powers from

2015-521: A fraction of the drug laws that we have. I think it's really absurd to be criminalizing possession or use or distribution of marijuana." At the Cybercrime 2020: The Future of Online Crime and Investigations conference held at Georgetown University Law Center on November 20, 2014, Posner, in addition to further reinforcing his views on privacy being over-rated, stated that "If the NSA wants to vacuum all

2170-878: A given jurisdiction." The Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers notes: The definitions and tests employed by courts to delineate unauthorized practice by non-lawyers have been vague or conclusory, while jurisdictions have differed significantly in describing what constitutes unauthorized practice in particular areas. Certain activities, such as the representation of another person in litigation, are generally proscribed. Even in that area, many jurisdictions recognize exceptions for such matters as small-claims and landlord-tenant tribunals and certain proceedings in administrative agencies. Moreover, many jurisdictions have authorized law students and others not locally admitted to represent indigent persons or others as part of clinical legal education programs. ... What

2325-465: A legally constituted court in a legal proceeding to represent clients (particularly for a fee) is considered to be unauthorized practice of law. But other variations are subject to interpretation and conflicting regulation, particularly as to the scope and breadth of the prohibition. Black's Law Dictionary defines unauthorized practice of law as "The practice of law by a person, typically a nonlawyer, who has not been licensed or admitted to practice law in

2480-568: A means to prevent what he views as free riding on newspaper journalism. His co-blogger Gary Becker simultaneously posted a contrasting opinion that while the Internet might hurt newspapers, it will not harm the vitality of the press, but rather embolden it. As part of a three-judge panel on the 7th Circuit weighing a challenge to the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, which bars the secret recording of conversations without

2635-572: A number of his opinions. In June 2016, Posner was criticized by right-wing media organizations for a column he wrote for Slate in which he stated, "I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation." He has called his approach to judging pragmatic. "I pay very little attention to legal rules, statutes, constitutional provisions. ... A case

2790-598: A period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations . A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson , emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country , which would be reinforced by

2945-553: A polymath would be a gross understatement. ... Judge Posner evidently writes the way other men breathe", though the economist describes the judge's grasp of economics as, "in some respects, ... precarious." In 1999, Posner was welcomed as a private mediator among the parties involved in the Microsoft antitrust case . A study published by Fred Shapiro in the University of Chicago's Journal of Legal Studies found that Posner

3100-620: A position teaching at Stanford Law School . In 1969, Posner moved to the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School , where he remains a senior lecturer. He was a founding editor of The Journal of Legal Studies in 1972. On October 27, 1981, Posner was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated by Judge Philip Willis Tone . Posner

3255-457: A premise entails conclusions inconsistent with the reality of human society and psychology. He further states that people whose opinions were changed by consideration of the philosophical arguments presented in Singer's book Animal Liberation failed to see the "radicalism of the ethical vision that powers [their] view on animals, an ethical vision that finds greater value in a healthy pig than in

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3410-430: A profoundly retarded child, that commands inflicting a lesser pain on a human being to avert a greater pain to a dog, and that, provided only that a chimpanzee has 1 percent of the mental ability of a normal human being, would require the sacrifice of the human being to save 101 chimpanzees." Posner emphasizes the importance of facts over arguments in creating social change. He states that his moral intuition says that "it

3565-488: A prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson 's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism . The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality . It also encouraged open defiance of

3720-526: A sense of manifest destiny . The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel . As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans,

3875-614: A sense of American identity as well. Men who otherwise never left their own colony now traveled across the continent to fight alongside men from decidedly different backgrounds but who were no less "American". British officers trained American officers for battle, most notably George Washington ; these officers would lend their skills and expertise to the colonists' cause during the American Revolutionary War to come. In addition, colonial legislatures and officials found it necessary to cooperate intensively in pursuit of

4030-632: A status solidified after its involvement in World War I . After Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II . Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War , during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence . Following the Soviet Union's collapse and

4185-482: A wide variety of current events including the 2000 presidential election recount controversy, Bill Clinton 's affair with Monica Lewinsky and his resulting impeachment procedure, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq . His analysis of the Lewinsky scandal cut across most party and ideological divisions. Posner's greatest influence is through his writings on law and economics; The New York Times called him "one of

4340-401: A year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in

4495-405: Is 85, a full standard deviation below the white average, and the average Hispanic IQ has been estimated recently at 89. Black children in particular often come from disordered households, which has a negative effect on ability to learn and perhaps indeed on IQ. ... Increasingly, black and Hispanic students find themselves in schools with few white or Asian students. The challenge to American education

4650-505: Is a criminal offence if an unauthorised person pretends to be a qualified lawyer or carries out any act that may be performed only by a qualified lawyer. The relevant provision is section 33 of the Legal Profession Act. The acts that may be performed only by a qualified lawyer are set out in section 33 of the Legal Profession Act and case law. United States The United States of America ( USA ), commonly known as

4805-656: Is a lawyer; (b) derives a benefit from UPL, or (c) causes an injury by UPL. In a 2015 survey by the American Bar Association, Florida had the largest budget—$ 1.8 million—nationwide for prosecuting the unauthorized practice of law. The state has interest in protecting the public from having unqualified persons hold themselves out as licensed professionals, but the existence of laws against unauthorized practice of itself does not guarantee that unlicensed professionals will be detected and those laws enforced. The American Bar Association proposed model rules regarding

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4960-438: Is arbitrary and in contrast with major traditional and contemporary philosophies (including the theology of Thomas Aquinas for one and utilitarianism for another). In addition, he points out that this basis for rights has problematic implications—including that it might soon make some computers more worthy of rights than some humans, a conclusion he calls absurd. Posner goes on to reason that granting human-like rights to animals

5115-591: Is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture , developed agriculture , architecture , and complex societies . In the post-archaic period , the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern , eastern , and southern regions, and the Algonquian in

5270-538: Is faulty to impose uniform educational standards on all schools. His view in this regard is undergirded by his view that different races differ in intelligence. (However, Posner says that he thinks it is "highly unlikely" that these differences are rooted in genetics, rather than environment.) In a blog post, Posner wrote, "I suggest that the only worthwhile reforms of teacher compensation are raising teacher wages uniformly, providing recognition and modest bonuses for outstanding teachers, and increasing hiring standards." In

5425-574: Is fraught with implications which could radically disrupt or devalue the rights of human beings. He alludes to Hitler's zoophilia as evidence that respect for animals and humaneness toward human beings are not necessarily associated. Arguing that the analogy of animal rights to the civil rights movement lacks imagination and is not very apt, Posner posits that animal welfare might be better protected by other legal models, one example of which would be stronger laws making animals property, since, he asserts, people tend to protect what they own. Posner engaged in

5580-520: Is just a dispute. The first thing you do is ask yourself—forget about the law—what is a sensible resolution of this dispute? The next thing ... is to see if a recent Supreme Court precedent or some other legal obstacle stood in the way of ruling in favor of that sensible resolution. And the answer is that's actually rarely the case. When you have a Supreme Court case or something similar, they're often extremely easy to get around." Posner has written several opinions sympathetic to abortion rights , including

5735-498: Is known as the presidential system , in contrast to the parliamentary system , where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States , especially in the Americas. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then,

5890-717: Is known for his scholarly range and for writing on topics outside of law. In his various writings and books, he has addressed animal rights , feminism , drug prohibition , same-sex marriage , Keynesian economics , law and literature , and academic moral philosophy , among other subjects. Posner is the author of nearly 40 books on jurisprudence , economics, and several other topics, including Economic Analysis of Law , The Economics of Justice , The Problems of Jurisprudence , Sex and Reason , Law, Pragmatism and Democracy , and The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy . Posner has generally been identified as being politically conservative; in recent years, however, he has distanced himself from

6045-435: Is more controversial is out-of-court activities, particularly drafting of documents and giving advice, and whether that is considered to be unauthorized practice of law. Some states have defined the "practice of law" to include those who appear as a representative in arbitration or act as arbitrators in disputes. For example, there is a growing conflict between the multijurisdictional practice of law in arbitration proceedings in

6200-438: Is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through

6355-552: Is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues . The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act . The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 34th among 180 countries in

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6510-476: Is the most-cited legal scholar of all time by a considerable margin, as Posner's work has generated 7,981 cites compared to the runner-up Ronald Dworkin 's 4,488 cites. In 2021, Shapiro found that Posner maintained his position as the most cited legal scholar and grew his lead, generating 48,852 cites to runner-up Cass Sunstein 's 35,584. Aside from the sheer volume of his output, Posner's opinions enjoy great respect from other judges, based on citations, and within

6665-408: Is the organized bar's preferred method. In Florida, the unauthorized practice of law is a third degree felony, which is punishable by up to six months in prison and $ 5000 in fines. New Jersey has a law which makes it a " disorderly persons offense" to knowingly to engage in the unauthorized practice of law, and a "crime in the fourth degree" to commit UPL if one (a) creates a false impression that one

6820-423: Is to provide a useful education to the large number of Americans who are unlikely to benefit from a college education or from high school courses aimed at preparing students for college." In September 2014, Posner authored the opinions in the consolidated cases of Wolf v. Walker and Baskin v. Bogan challenging Wisconsin and Indiana's state level same-sex marriage bans. The opinion of the three-judge panel on

6975-403: Is wrong to give as much weight to a dog's pain as to an infant's pain," and that "[this] is a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it." Instead, Posner claims that "[expanding and invigorating] the laws that protect animals will require not philosophical arguments for reducing human beings to the level of

7130-603: The Allies of World War I , helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers . In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage . During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression , which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with

7285-553: The Atlantic slave trade . The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain , and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners . The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for

7440-596: The Austrian Empire . After high school, Posner studied English literature at Yale University , graduating in 1959 with a B.A. , summa cum laude , and membership in Phi Beta Kappa . He then attended Harvard Law School , where he was president of the Harvard Law Review . He graduated in 1962 ranked first in his class with an LL.B. , magna cum laude . After law school, Posner was

7595-549: The Environmental Performance Index . The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016 and has many other environmental commitments. The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions . The U.S. is

7750-500: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights , national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts ' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions . There is no unified "criminal justice system" in

7905-720: The Great Lakes , Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico . British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what

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8060-719: The Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard , while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest . Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California . France established its own settlements along

8215-596: The Midwest . At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England . During the Great Migration , millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics . African Americans endured

8370-688: The National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States . Most of this land is protected , though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy , air and water pollution , biodiversity , logging and deforestation , and climate change . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

8525-596: The New Deal , a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations . All were intended to protect against future economic depressions. Initially neutral during World War II , the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor . The U.S. developed

8680-778: The Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement . In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia , the Marshall Islands , and Palau through the Compact of Free Association . It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India , but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014,

8835-648: The Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law , rechargeable lithium-ion batteries , the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait . The September 11 attacks on

8990-591: The Spanish–American War . (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War . The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside

9145-421: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School , Posner was identified by The Journal of Legal Studies as the most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century. As of 2021, he is also the most-cited legal scholar of all time. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential legal scholars in the United States. Posner

9300-553: The Uniform Commercial Code presumes contracts impose an objective standard upon what would subjectively be illusory promises . In 1987, Posner dissented when Judge Frank H. Easterbrook , joined by Richard Dickson Cudahy , found that a stockbroker could sue his former employer under SEC Rule 10b-5 after he quit shortly before the firm's lucrative unannounced merger. In 1990, Posner found that Delaware corporate law did not permit an airline's board from adopting

9455-623: The United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a country primarily located in North America . It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the states of Alaska to the northwest and the archipelagic Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean . The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands . The country has

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9610-700: The cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites . This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America , while the other states remained in the Union . War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter . After

9765-523: The end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower , wielding significant geopolitical influence globally . The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches : legislative , executive , and judicial . It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives ,

9920-537: The fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union , which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower . The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history , a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates , and advances in technology . Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web , the evolution of

10075-400: The global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and has the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness , productivity , innovation , human rights , and higher education . Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach. The U.S. is

10230-410: The rule of law is an accidental and dispensable element of legal ideology," his argument that buying and selling children on the free market would lead to better outcomes than the present situation, government-regulated adoption , and his support for the legalization of marijuana and LSD . Posner on Posner Series Judge Posner was the focus of a "series" of posts (many Q&A interviews with

10385-406: The 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord , igniting the American Revolutionary War . At the Second Continental Congress , the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army , and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence . Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration

10540-466: The 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack , when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état . The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and

10695-424: The 2014 cases that the same-sex marriage bans were both "a tradition of hate" and "savage discrimination". Posner wrote the opinion for the unanimous panel, finding the laws unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause . The Supreme Court then denied a writ of certiorari and left Posner's ruling to stand. When reviewing Alan Dershowitz 's book, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to

10850-515: The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Indiana and Wisconsin 's bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, affirming a lower court ruling. During oral arguments, Wisconsin's attorney general cited tradition as a reason for maintaining the ban, prompting Posner to note that: "It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry—a tradition that got swept away." Though Posner argued in his 1992 book Sex and Reason that prohibitions against gay marriage were rationally justified, he held in

11005-426: The American West have an alpine climate . The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California , and oceanic in coastal Oregon , Washington , and southern Alaska . Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar . Hawaii , the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical . States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of

11160-593: The Challenge , Posner wrote in the September 2002 The New Republic , "If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square , torture should be used – and will be used – to obtain the information.... No one who doubts that this is the case should be in a position of responsibility." In 2007, Posner wrote

11315-535: The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government , with prescribed rules. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to

11470-573: The District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km ). The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest . The Mississippi River System ,

11625-573: The Elder concluded that major military resources needed to be devoted to North America to win the war against France. For the first time, the continent became one of the main theaters of what could be termed a " world war ". The British colonies' position as an integral part of the British Empire became more apparent during the war, with British military and civilian officials becoming a more significant presence in American life. The war increased

11780-683: The January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation , many freed slaves joined the Union army . The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg , and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House . The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln , Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect

11935-537: The Judge) done by University of Washington Law Professor Ronald K. L. Collins . The twelve posts—collectively titled "Posner on Posner"—began on November 24, 2014, and ended on January 5, 2015, and appeared on the Concurring Opinions blog. In Posner's youth and in the 1960s as law clerk to William J. Brennan, he was generally counted as a liberal . However, in reaction to some of the perceived excesses of

12090-524: The Republican Party started becoming goofy." Among Posner's judicial influences are the American jurists Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Learned Hand ; he has written that "Holmes is the greatest jurist ... because the sum of his ideas, metaphors, decisions, dissents and other contributions exceeds the sum of contributions of any other jurist of modern times", and he has applied the Hand formula in

12245-611: The Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera , is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian , the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid . Many mountainous areas of

12400-420: The Seventh Circuit over treatment of pro se litigants. Posner is a pragmatist in philosophy and an economist in legal methodology . He has written many articles and books on a wide range of topics including law and economics, law and literature, the federal judiciary, moral theory , intellectual property , antitrust law , public intellectuals, and legal history . He is also well known for writing on

12555-647: The U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine ; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion . The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . The Department of Defense , which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of

12710-661: The U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons , state prisons , local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities . Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under

12865-464: The United States and the peaceful transfer of power , respectively. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained , leading to the War of 1812 , which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward , many with

13020-714: The United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs . The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race , which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth , urbanization , and population growth following World War II . The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming

13175-666: The United States has operated as a de facto two-party system , though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican . The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative . In the American federal system , sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in

13330-593: The United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror , and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq . The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession , the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in

13485-656: The United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette , on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence . The Second Continental Congress adopted

13640-593: The United States, despite the usage of "the Americas " as the totality of North and South America. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture , which appeared around 11,000 BC,

13795-624: The United States, except Iran , North Korea , and Bhutan . Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has

13950-408: The United States. Posner is "one of the founding fathers of Bluebook abolitionism, having advocated it for almost twenty-five years, ever since his 1986 University of Chicago Law Review article on the subject." In a 2011 Yale Law Journal article, he wrote: The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation exemplifies hypertrophy in the anthropological sense. It is a monstrous growth, remote from

14105-509: The United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems [held] almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons , civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in

14260-528: The appendix is about 2–3 pages long, and he says the entire manual is about 1% as long as the Bluebook. Posner opposes the U.S. " War on Drugs " and called it " quixotic ". In a 2003 CNBC interview he discussed the difficulty of enforcing criminal marijuana laws, and asserted that it is hard to justify the criminalization of marijuana when compared to other substances. In a talk at Elmhurst College in 2012, Posner said that "I don't think that we should have

14415-563: The consent of all the parties to the conversation, Posner was to deliver another memorable quote. At issue was the constitutionality of the Illinois wiretapping law, which makes it illegal to record someone without consent even when filming public acts like arrests in public. Posner interrupted the ACLU after just 14 words, stating, "Yeah, I know. But I'm not interested, really, in what you want to do with these recordings of peoples' encounters with

14570-457: The contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands , and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in

14725-556: The country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons —the second-largest share after Russia. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces . The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under

14880-469: The country's territory would expand with the admission of new states , rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances . George Washington

15035-713: The development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening , a series of Christian revivals , fueled colonial interest in religious liberty . For a century, the American colonists had been providing their own troops and materiel in conflicts with indigenous peoples allied with Britain's colonial rivals , especially France, and the Americans had begun to develop a sense of self-defense and self-reliance separate from Britain. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) took on new significance for all North American colonists after Parliament under William Pitt

15190-414: The dispossession of native inhabitants . As more states were admitted , a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America , which fought states remaining in the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War . With the victory and preservation of the United States, slavery was abolished nationally . By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power ,

15345-516: The dissent of Judge Richard Dickson Cudahy . In January 2001, Posner loosened that consent decree to allow the Chicago Police Department to conduct counterterrorism operations. In United States v. Marshall (1990), Posner dissented when Frank H. Easterbrook , writing for the en banc circuit, held that the punishment for possession of LSD is determined by the weight of the carrier it is found within. The circuit's judgment

15500-580: The environment for labor unions to begin to flourish . This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era , which was characterized by significant reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy ; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico , the Philippines , and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in

15655-538: The essential end goal of any antitrust policy. Posner's and Bork's theories on antitrust evolved into the prevailing view in academia and at the Justice Department in the George H. W. Bush administration; they have remained the consensus view in both the Justice Department and among legal academics of antitrust. The Bluebook is the style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in

15810-541: The federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation . The Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas

15965-731: The financial service industry and state regulation of lawyers. With a few exceptions, the general rule is that an appearance at an arbitration does not constitute the practice of law. The United States bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Tennessee has held that "providing clients with explanations or definitions of such legal terms of art ... is, by itself, giving legal advice." The North Carolina State Bar has held that "definition of lien law terms, warnings regarding time requirements, and reminders about sending out preliminary notices within five to ten days of beginning work, when combined with its preparation of legal documents [in

16120-606: The first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the " Four Policemen " who met to plan the post-war world , alongside the United Kingdom , Soviet Union , and China . The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence . After World War II,

16275-745: The first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution , with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War , the country continued to expand westward across North America , resulting in

16430-418: The functional need for legal citation forms, that serves obscure needs of the legal culture and its student subculture. He describes those needs as unrelated to practical legal activity but instead as social and political. In the same article, Posner gives an excerpt of the entire citation style guide included (as an appendix) in the short manual he gives his own law clerks (whom he describes as "very smart");

16585-463: The integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state , and federal agencies such as

16740-447: The late 1960s, Posner developed a strongly conservative bent. He encountered Chicago School economists Aaron Director and George Stigler while a professor at Stanford . Posner summarized his views on law and economics in his 1973 book The Economic Analysis of Law . Today, although generally viewed as to the right in academia, Posner's pragmatism , his qualified moral relativism and moral skepticism , and his affection for

16895-505: The legal academy, where his opinions are taught in many foundational law courses. In his decision in the 1997 case State Oil Co. v. Khan , Posner wrote that a ruling 1968 antitrust precedent set by the Supreme Court was "moth-eaten", "wobbly", and "unsound". Nevertheless, he abided by the previous decision in his ruling. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and overturned the 1968 ruling unanimously; Sandra Day O'Connor wrote

17050-602: The majority opinion upholding Indiana's photo identification law in the Crawford v. Marion County Election Board case. He wrote that "absence of prosecutions" for voter fraud is explained in part by "the extreme difficulty of apprehending a voter impersonator," and that such impersonators are "almost impossible to catch without a voter ID requirement". The law was subsequently upheld at the United States Supreme Court . In 2013, Posner disavowed support for

17205-537: The manner described], constitute providing legal advice." Texas law generally prohibits a person who is not an attorney from representing a client in a personal injury or property damage matter, and punishes a violation as a misdemeanor. Some states also criminalize the separate behavior of falsely claiming to be lawyer (in Texas, for example, this is a felony if done to obtain economic benefit). Criminal laws and enforcement of "Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL)" statutes

17360-482: The military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw

17515-410: The moral irrelevance of species membership). He recognizes the philosophical force of arguments for strong animal rights, but maintains that human intuition about the paramount value of human life makes it impossible to accommodate an ethic of strong animal rights. Posner, a self-avowed moral anti-realist, does not present his critique of strong animal rights as a deductive proof. Instead, he highlights

17670-612: The most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species : about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians , and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks , and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas , managed by

17825-465: The most important antitrust scholars of the past half-century." In December 2004, Posner started a joint blog with Nobel Prize -winning economist Gary Becker , titled simply "The Becker-Posner Blog". Both men contributed to the blog until shortly before Becker's death in May 2014, after which Posner announced that the blog was being discontinued. He also had a blog at The Atlantic , where he discussed

17980-662: The most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created. During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies , though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. States in the North enacted abolition laws , though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states , as inventions such as

18135-533: The old statute in State Bar v. Arizona Land Title & Trust Co. , 90 Ariz. 76 (1961). This ruling imposed sanctions on a title and realty company engaged in drafting contracts. Rose says, "Throughout the country, various jurisdictions have developed numerous tests for defining the practice of law. But none is broader nor more all-encompassing than that articulated in Arizona Title ." In the United States,

18290-464: The opinion and spoke positively of both Posner's criticism and his decision to abide by the ruling until the Court decided to change it. In U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Jadranska Slobodna Plovidba , 683 F.2d 1022 (7th Cir. 1982), Posner revived Learned Hand's economic efficiency theory of negligence law . In Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co. (1990), Posner lowered

18445-485: The optimal patent protection for an inventor. When patent protection is too strongly in favor of the inventor, market efficiency is decreased. He illustrates his argument by comparing the pharmaceutical industry (where the cost of invention is high) with the software industry (where the cost of invention is relatively low). However, Posner suggested that strengthening copyright law, including a possible bar on linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials, may be necessary as

18600-449: The other animals but facts, facts that will stimulate a greater empathetic response to animal suffering and facts that will alleviate concern about the human costs of further measures to reduce animal suffering." Along with Robert Bork , Posner helped shape the antitrust policy changes of the 1970s through his idea that 1960s antitrust laws were in fact making prices higher for the consumer rather than lower, while he viewed lower prices as

18755-622: The police. ..." Posner continued: "Once all this stuff can be recorded, there's going to be a lot more of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers. ... I'm always suspicious when the civil liberties people start telling the police how to do their business." The 7th Circuit upheld the challenge, 2–1, striking down the Eavesdropping Act, but Posner wrote a dissenting opinion. In a dissent from an earlier ruling by his protégé Frank Easterbrook , Posner wrote that Easterbrook's decision that female guards could watch male prisoners while in

18910-408: The policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation . An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries , allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by

19065-573: The positions of the Republican Party, authoring more liberal rulings involving same-sex marriage and abortion . In A Failure of Capitalism , he writes that the 2007–2008 financial crisis caused him to question the rational-choice , laissez-faire economic model that lies at the heart of his law and economics theory. Posner was born on January 11, 1939, in New York City . His father's family were of Romanian Jewish descent, and his mother's family were Ashkenazi Jews from Galicia in

19220-762: The power of the state to limit entry." The practice of law was not formally regulated in Arizona for a time. However, the Arizona Supreme Court found independent inherent authority to regulate the practice of law. Arizona's statute criminalizing unauthorized practice of law was allowed to lapse from a sunset law in 1985. Rose suggests that legislative proposals to recriminalize the unauthorized practice of law have heretofore failed because of anti-lawyer sentiment in Arizona politics. Moreover, Rose asserts that resentment lingers from an unpopular interpretation of

19375-457: The practical importance of intuition and emotion over abstract argument. In a 2000 Yale Law Journal book review on the title "Rattling the Cage" by Steven M. Wise , Posner again criticized the legal notion of animal rights. In the review, Posner argues that Wise's approach, using the cognitive ability of animals compared to that of very young normal human beings as a basis for rights-worthiness,

19530-433: The practice of law is left to the individual states, and their definitions vary. "Unauthorized practice of law" (UPL) is an act sometimes prohibited by statute , regulation , or court rules. The definition of "unauthorized practice of law" is variable, and is often conclusory and tautological , i.e. , it is the doing of a lawyer's or counselor 's work by a non-lawyer for money. There is some agreement that appearing in

19685-574: The primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen , particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them . To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association , a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in

19840-515: The rights of African Americans . National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads , spurred growth in the American frontier . From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City , and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish , Irish , and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to

19995-614: The rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua , Sonoran , and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona , carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon , a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast . The lowest and highest points in

20150-465: The rules of professional conduct generally prohibit an attorney from assisting a non-attorney from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. An attorney therefore may not partner with or split fees with a non-attorney in the performance of any sort of legal work. Furthermore, an attorney may not employ a disbarred or suspended attorney in a legal practice where former clients of the disbarred or suspended attorney will be represented. In Singapore , it

20305-682: The ruling due to concerns about voter suppression caused by the law. He stated that judges "weren’t given the information that would enable that balance to be struck" between preventing fraud and protecting voters’ rights. In 2014, Posner wrote a 30-page dissent opposing the upholding of a Wisconsin voter ID law. Posner is one of the most prolific legal writers, through both the number and topical breadth of his opinions, to say nothing of his scholarly and popular writings. Unlike many other judges, he writes all his own opinions. Nobel Laureate economist Robert Solow says that Posner "is an apparently inexhaustible writer on ... nearly everything. To call him

20460-508: The same post, he wrote, "I am not clear what we should think the problem of American education (below the college level) is. Most children of middle-class ... Americans are white or Asian and attend good public or private schools, usually predominantly white. The average white IQ is of course 100 and the Asian (like the Jewish) almost one standard deviation higher, that is, 115. The average black IQ

20615-431: The shower or bathroom must stem from a belief that prisoners are "members of a different species, indeed as a type of vermin , devoid of human dignity and entitled to no respect. ... I do not myself consider the 1.5 million inmates of American prisons and jails in that light." Posner's views of public education policy are informed by his view that groups of students differ in intellectual ability, and therefore, that it

20770-573: The six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army , Marine Corps , Navy , Air Force , and Space Force . The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. The United States spent $ 916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country , making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of

20925-545: The sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor . They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933 , which created the Guard and provides for

21080-498: The standard of legal liability a railroad faced for a hazardous waste spill. The case became a staple of first year torts courses taught in American law schools , where the case is used to address the question of when it is better to use negligence liability or strict liability . In 1999, Posner applied the lex loci delicti commissi rule on choice of law rather than the Restatement of Torts, Second when rejecting

21235-405: The state of indirectly trying to ban abortions in the state Posner wrote, "They [Wisconsin] may do this in the name of protecting the health of women who have abortions, yet as in this case the specific measures they support may do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion." Posner rejects an ethic of strong animal rights on pragmatic grounds (where such an ethic posits

21390-543: The states are also represented by local elected governments , which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents , and further divided into municipalities . The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. . The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations . The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has

21545-510: The structure and responsibilities of the national federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest national constitution still in effect (from March 4, 1789). Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances . The three-branch system

21700-512: The then-current Great Recession . Posner was mentioned in 2005 as a potential nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor because of his prominence as a scholar and an appellate judge. Robert S. Boynton wrote in The Washington Post that he believed Posner would never sit on the Supreme Court because despite his "obvious brilliance," he would be criticized for his occasionally "outrageous conclusions," such as his contention "that

21855-425: The thought of Friedrich Nietzsche set him apart from most American conservatives. As a judge, with the exception of his rulings with respect to the sentencing guidelines and the recording of police actions, Posner's judicial votes have always placed him on the moderate-to-liberal wing of the Republican Party, where he has become more isolated over time. In July 2012, Posner stated, "I've become less conservative since

22010-414: The thought that a company would be permitted to manufacture an electronic product that the government would not be able to search" he said. Posner has expressed concerns, on the blog he contributed to with Gary Becker, that both patent and copyright protection, though particularly the former, may be excessive. He argues that the cost of inventing must be compared to the cost of copying in order to determine

22165-563: The trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that's fine. ... Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct," Posner added. "Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you." Posner also criticized mobile OS companies for enabling end-to-end encryption in their newest software. "I'm shocked at

22320-464: The unauthorized practice of law, which Judge Richard Posner characterized as an attempt to perpetuate a monopoly to the disadvantage of consumers. The judge observed that the legal profession is "a cartel of providers of services relating to society's laws" which cartel's focus is to restrict entry. "Modern economists call it ' rent seeking ', but throughout recorded history, skilled crafts and professions have tried to raise their members' incomes by using

22475-582: The world's fourth-longest river system , runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains , west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado . Farther west are

22630-449: The world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024 . It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council , and home to the United Nations headquarters . The United States is a member of the G7 , G20 , and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with

22785-461: The world's third-largest land area , largest exclusive economic zone , and third-largest population , exceeding 334 million. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago , and its three most populous states are California , Texas , and Florida . Paleo-Indians migrated across the Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies . British colonization led to

22940-444: The world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization . It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law ". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document , also establishing

23095-423: The world's tornadoes occur in the country , mainly in Tornado Alley . Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest , droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as

23250-456: The world, with almost 2 million people incarcerated . An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher". Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner ( / ˈ p oʊ z n ər / ; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired federal judge who served on

23405-458: Was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest . Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest . The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of

23560-703: Was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty , inalienable individual rights ; and the sovereignty of the people ; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy , aristocracy , and all hereditary political power; civic virtue ; and vilification of political corruption . The Founding Fathers of the United States , who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams , Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , John Jay , James Madison , Thomas Paine , and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman , Renaissance , and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 and established

23715-446: Was affirmed, under the name Chapman v. United States (1991), by the Supreme Court of the United States . In 1995, Posner, joined by Judge Walter J. Cummings Jr. , affirmed an injunction blocking Illinois from closing schools on Good Friday as a violation of the Establishment Clause , over the dissent of Judge Daniel Anthony Manion . In 2000, Posner found that partners at a big law firm could be considered employees with regard to

23870-443: Was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 24, 1981, and received his commission on December 1, 1981. He served as Chief Judge of that court from 1993 to 2000 but remained a part-time professor at the University of Chicago . Judge Posner retired from the federal bench on September 2, 2017. Posner stated that he had originally planned to retire at the age of 80, but instead retired at 78 due to disputes with other judges on

24025-404: Was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in

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