Other people will no doubt have a plethora of reactions to this rather heated debate over the Patriot Act between U.Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone and Professor-Judge Richard Posner. I’m afraid that my initial reaction was that I think I’d really like Chicago (a law school which I’ve only ever visited once, and then only too briefly to get a feel for the place).
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Indeed, interesting debate, including the “heat” in it. Unlike other cases of online exchange regarding highly sensitive legal issues, at the end of this one I have the impression that, while keeping up the interest by throwing around some truly poisonous darts (at the end, to say that Judge Posner advocated for “selling babies” is, in my opinion, pushing it a bit too much; the moderation of his response is, on the other hand, a touch of great class), both parties have gone into a lot of technical detail – more than average, considering the context.
Example of the contrary, in the field of economics, where a member of the academia goes way over the top and, in doing so, kills the debate (note that this “open letter” was first read live, in the addressee’s face -a nobel prize, no less-, in front of several hundred colleagues of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank): http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2002/070202.htm