
Life Without Lawyers
Restoring Responsibility in America
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Narrated by:
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Richard Allen
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By:
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Philip K. Howard
About this listen
How to restore the can-do spirit that made America great, from the author of the best-selling The Death of Common Sense.
Americans are losing the freedom to make sense of daily choices - teachers can't maintain order in the classroom, managers are trained to avoid candor, schools ban tag, and companies plaster inane warnings on everything: "Remove Baby Before Folding Stroller".
Philip K. Howard’s urgent argument is full of examples, often darkly humorous. He describes the historical and cultural forces that led to this mess and lays out the basic shift in approach needed to fix it. Today we are flooded with legal threats that prevent us from taking responsibility. We must rebuild boundaries of law that protect an open field of freedom. The voices here will ring true to every listener. The analysis is powerful, and the solution unavoidable. What’s at stake, Howard explains in this seminal book, is the vitality of American culture.
©2009 Philip K. Howard (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.
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Amazing!
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Overall
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Performance
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This book is about the great moral issues underlying many of the headline-making political controversies of our times. It is not a comforting book but a book about disturbing and dangerous trends. The Quest for Cosmic Justice shows how confused conceptions of justice end up promoting injustice, how confused conceptions of equality end up promoting inequality, and how the tyranny of social visions prevents many people from confronting the actual consequences of their own beliefs and policies.
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These wide-ranging essays - on many individual political, economic, cultural, and legal issues - have as a recurring, underlying theme the decline of the values and institutions that have sustained and advanced American society for more than two centuries. This decline has been more than erosion. It has, in many cases, been a deliberate dismantling of American values and institutions by people convinced that their superior wisdom and virtue must override both the traditions of the country and the will of the people.
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Texas governor and rising star in the Republican Party - one of the first prominent politicians to govern from a wheelchair since Franklin D. Roosevelt - Governor Greg Abbott pens his deeply personal and inspiring life story and proposes a plan to restore America to greatness in what Newt Gingrich calls a "bold and compelling" read. Texas Governor Greg Abbott lost his ability to walk when a huge oak tree crashed down on his back, fracturing vertebrae into his spinal cord, leaving him forever paralyzed.
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I enjoyed this book
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Overall
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Performance
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Justice Gorsuch draws on his 30-year career as a lawyer, teacher, judge, and justice to explore essential aspects our Constitution, its separation of powers, and the liberties it is designed to protect. He discusses the role of the judge in our constitutional order, and why he believes that originalism and textualism are the surest guides to interpreting our nation’s founding documents and protecting our freedoms. He explains, too, the importance of affordable access to the courts in realizing the promise of equal justice under law.
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In present political climate crucially important!
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The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!
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Completely revised and updated to tackle today’s issues, the 10th Anniversary Edition not only explains what framing is and how it works but also reveals why, after a brief stint of winning the framing wars in the 2008 elections, the Democrats have gone back to losing them, and what can be done about it. In this powerful new volume, George Lakoff delves into the issues that will dominate the midterm elections in 2014, the coming presidential elections, and beyond.
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Nice book, shitty narrator voice
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One Nation
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Story
In February 2013 I gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Standing a few feet from President Obama, I warned my fellow citizens of the dangers facing our country and called for a return to the principles that made America great. Many Americans heard and responded, but our nation’s decline has continued. Today the danger is greater than ever before, and I have never shared a more urgent message than I do now.
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Please lead our nation from the brink of...
- By Jonathan Love on 06-12-14
By: Candy Carson, and others
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By the People
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- Unabridged
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American freedom is being gutted. Whether we are trying to run a business, practice a vocation, raise our families, cooperate with our neighbors, or follow our religious beliefs, we run afoul of the government—not because we are doing anything wrong but because the government has decided it knows better. When we object, that government can and does tell us, “Try to fight this, and we’ll ruin you.”
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Finally, some possible solutions
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-16
By: Charles Murray
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America the Beautiful
- Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great
- By: Candy Carson, Ben Carson MD
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What is America becoming? Or, more importantly, what can she be if we reclaim a vision for the things that made her great in the first place? In America the Beautiful, Dr. Ben Carson helps us learn from our past in order to chart a better course for our future. From his personal ascent from inner-city poverty to international medical and humanitarian acclaim, Carson shares experiential insights that help us understand: What is good about America, where we have gone astray, and which fundamental beliefs have guided America from her founding into preeminence among nations.
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A must for Americans
- By Jon on 03-25-13
By: Candy Carson, and others
What listeners say about Life Without Lawyers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J
- 04-22-15
Great book , narration isn't my taste
Saw his Ted talk and his message really resonated with me.. The narration ( while I'm sure I would be terrible at it) isn't my favorite. I wish Philip Howard was doing the narration.. Despite my wife being interested in the content of the book she couldn't listen to the book because of the narration..
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- Wayne
- 04-10-23
Good but not nearly his best work
Philip K Howard's Life Without Lawyers was written and released more than a decade ago. The book makes the case that our legal system is too complex and must be simplified. He also makes the case for doing away with government employee unions and being able to fire non-performers with short, simple processes. The final (summary) chapter was poorly written. The narration is horrid.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 02-07-19
An important read for every American.
We are broken, but not beyond repair. This book provides great thoughts to start discussing and resolving many of those ills.
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