The Bob Zadek Show Bob Zadek

Today's guest, renowned civil liberties attorney and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, raises the bar and exceeds the highest standards. Professor Dershowitz has published over a thousand articles and 50 books, including several national bestsellers. His autobiography Taking the Stand was a New York Times bestseller. Other notable books include The Trials of Zion, Rights From Wrongs, The Case for Israel, and Chutzpah.

His forthcoming book Dershowitz on Killing examines the complex issue of determining rules regarding life and death decisions. Following the principles that have guided his long, distinguished career, he argues these rules should reflect the irreversibility of death.

In this episode, Dershowitz explains how he became unfairly "canceled" for adhering to his principles, and what upholding these principles has cost him.

His most recent book, The Price of Principle: Why Integrity Is Worth the Consequences (July 2022), takes a broad stance against the dangerous trend of cancellations—both of specific people as well as the very idea of neutral justice. It’s not only right-wingers provocateurs being cancelled on college campuses anymore. Liberal ideas, including some of the most cherished principles of American government, are now being cast aside.

Take the presumption of innocence. It’s the bedrock of our adversarial legal system. We all pay lip service to the idea that everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense. Yet the principle seems to go out the window whenever the person being defended is unpopular, as when Dershowitz pointed out the shaky legal grounds for impeaching former President Trump.

In recent years, Dershowitz himself has suffered the ‘price of principle’ as the latest victim of cancel culture. Former friends like Larry David refuse to talk to him; he’s been shunned from events at which he used to be top-billed speaker. And his principled defenses of unpopular figures like Trump have been used against him in the court of public opinion.

Unlike most celebrities whom the “cancelists” go after, Alan was exonerated. Still, Dershowitz has found few defenders. He has had to defend himself.

Furthermore, he writes that principles have taken a backseat to partisan identity politics. Partisan Democrats forget that his defense of Trump was based on the same principles he had used to defend Clinton against partisan attacks. He argues that too many people abandon their principles in favor of whatever stance benefits their political party or social group,...

Californians enjoy abundant choice when it comes to cuisine, entertainment and leisure activities. Yet in the political arena, we are stuck with just one choice.

The Democrats have effectively had One Party Rule here for the last two decades. Since 1996, Democrats have continuously held a majority in the State Assembly and currently hold a dominant 62-18 supermajority in the 80-seat chamber.

Most forget what happened in the 1990s that permanently changed the balance of power. In 1994, Proposition 187 passed by referendum, with strong support from then-Governor Pete Wilson. The law banned undocumented immigrants from accessing non-emergency healthcare, public schools, and other services in California. Since then, Hispanic voters have largely voted as a bloc for Democrats, leaving Republicans all but irrelevant.

Tom Campbell served five terms in the US Congress, and one two-year term in the State Senate. He created the Common Sense Party to combine fiscal responsibility with inclusivity to appeal to the wide swath of voters who want more choice in their political candidates. Sounds a lot like libertarianism, without all the baggage that the word carries.

Is it too much to ask for an independent-minded politician who is neither bought and paid for by the public sector unions, nor an anti-immigrant fanatic?

The California Common Sense Party has aligned with Andrew Yang’s “Forward” Party movement – trying to break the “two-party doom loop,” and find common sense solutions. Tom Campbell joins me this Sunday to break the latest news about their plans to disrupt California politics.

Back in early 2021, Cato Institute senior fellow Ted Galen Carpenter urged Washington "to abandon its efforts to torpedo Nord Stream 2." His warnings have been proven prescient by Seymour Hersh's recent revelations, which seem to confirm the US government's involvement in the destruction of the pipeline. Many journalists admit behind closed doors that they believe in the US's involvement, yet the media remains silent out of fear of provoking a response from Russia.

In his new book Unreliable Watchdog, Ted Galen Carpenter argues that the news media has become a tool for propaganda rather than a watchdog for the American people, leading to a distorted view of U.S. foreign policy and a “garrison state” mentality.

He examines the media's willingness to accept official accounts and policy justifications without skepticism, particularly in regards to the Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, the Balkans, Iraq War, Libya and Syria civil wars, and post–Cold War relations with Russia and China.

He questions why journalists and social media platforms collaborate with government officials in pushing an activist foreign policy, even when results are questionable or disastrous.

Are we repeating the same mistakes with Ukraine as the media cheerleads the escalation of another unwinnable war?

George Will calls it the year's "most-needed book on public affairs"—Philip K. Howard's Not Accountable tackles public sector unions head-on, arguing that they're not only dangerous, but unconstitutional. Not Accountable is a non-partisan vision for fixing the biggest flaw in government. Consider a few data points: Public sector membership in the United States is around 7 million. 4.6 million teachers. 1.3 million service employees. California, with 300,000 teachers, is only able to terminate two or three per year for poor performance. 40,000 Californian retirees receive over $100,000 in pension salary. In the end, who pays? Our children do—both in lost learning outcomes, future taxes, and less money in state and federal budgets for other services. Howard, the founder of the Common Good organization, joins me Sunday to make the case for a legal solution – not a democratic one – for fixing the broken system. Progressives, libertarians, and conservatives alike should be up in arms about the lack of accountability for police officers, teachers, and all those who are supposed to serve the public good. What can we do about it? Find out this Sunday on the show of ideas.

Images of illegal crossings are disturbingly chaotic and make it clear that there is indeed an immigration crisis. People perceive that chaos means we need government to exercise even more control, even when government is to blame for the chaos (as in the case of immigration). And so we get the vicious cycle that ends with our broken immigration system. Alex Nowrasteh, the director of economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, returns to the show Sunday to lay out pragmatic solutions for alleviating the chaos at the border.It starts with simplifying the system, and allowing more opportunities for immigrants to live and work here legally.

Alex is the director of economic and social policy studies. His popular publications have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, and most other major publications in the United States.He is the coauthor (with Benjamin Powell) of the book Wretched Refuse? The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which is the first book on how economic institutions in receiving countries adjust to immigration. He is also the coauthor (with Mark S. Krikorian) of the booklet Open Immigration: Yea and Nay (Encounter Broadsides, 2014) and has contributed numerous book chapters about immigration to various edited volumes.Our own immigration series “Let Them All In” has answered 5 of the main populist objections to open immigration. The series will conclude with an essay on policy solutions - the topic for our show this week.

People, and families in particular, are fleeing California in droves. Last year, the population shrank for the second year in a row, in large part because of the lack of new housing and exorbitant prices of the dwindling existing stock. Politicians love to talk about “affordable housing,” but the plans to allow more development go out the window as soon as their talking points are pitted against the agendas of powerful lobbying groups. The infamous NIMBY’s of California have found allies in unions, who have together weaponized an environmental “super-statute” that effectively blocks any new construction if it can be shown to increase carbon emissions.

Christian Britschgi is an associate editor at Reason Magazine who has written extensively about housing policy. His work shines a light on the root causes of the housing crisis, and why the patchwork of solutions coming from California’s legislative houses has failed to significantly ameliorate the problem.

Christian will join the show of ideas to explain how the California Environmental Quality Act makes the approval of new housing nearly impossible.What will it take to break through the thicket of regulations when the most powerful lobbies have an interest in keeping them in place?