Adam Gurri (@adam) - Original Work

@adam · May 18, 2023

"Since Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, liberals have adopted far too conservative a rhetorical posture towards institutional norms. Liberals should not be in favor of preserving norms per se. The norms that we ought to care about are the ones that serve the project of advancing liberal ideals."

Let’s Wreck Some Norms and Take the Court Down a Peg

It is imperative that we end judicial supremacy in America. It may be politically difficult, it may take time, but it can be done, and should be.

liberalcurrents.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Feb 27, 2023

A cancel culture post from me. Some critics of it have called for a liberal proceduralism for adopting new norms. I say that's impossible, and the goal should instead be to foster substantively liberal norms.

Speech Norms in a Rancorous But Free Society

Back to the cancel culture well

endofsafety.substack.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Jan 2, 2023

This is basically my blueprint for how to reform American institutions, under the assumption that amending the Constitution or ratifying a whole new one is off the table (at the federal level).

Liberal Democracy and the Federal System

Major reform of liberal democracy in America is possible, even in the absence of a Constitutional amendment. We should learn from our peer nations with federal systems.

liberalcurrents.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Dec 31, 2022

In America we overestimate the importance of written law over the character of legal institutions in practice.

Lawful and Unconstitutional: Rule of Law in America Today

In a constitutional democracy, constitutionality is one component of lawfulness. But Americans focus on it to the exclusion of other, much more important elements.

liberalcurrents.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Dec 30, 2022

Linking to a post of links! This is a highlight of my writing in 2022.

Some Things I Wrote in 2022

Annual review

endofsafety.substack.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Dec 28, 2022

The cancel culture debate seems to ping-pong between people who argue that facing any social sanctions for your speech is censorship, and people pretending to believe in some kind of absolute freedom of association. This essay is my attempt to create a useful framework for thinking about the impact of association and disassociation on speech. Chiefly inspired by the work of Jacob Levy.

Rationalism, Pluralism, and Fear in the Speech Debate

There is no coherent formulation of rights which renders “cancel culture” illiberal. But there are coherent characterizations of the social system as a whole which can.

liberalcurrents.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Dec 28, 2022

In this essay I develop a position I've held for some time but never quite laid out: representative democracy is not about expressing some sort of will of the people or anything so abstract as that. It's about giving the many interests in society an institutional outlet for their demands, and far from being purely more moral than non-democracies, it is also much more practical.

A Realist Defense of Legislative Supremacy

Representative democracy is not merely more moral than alternatives, it is a far more practical way to deal with the realities of the modern world.

liberalcurrents.com

Adam Gurri

@adam · Dec 28, 2022

Going to start with three things I'm proud of have written this year. I typically focus on aspects of liberal democracy, how it works, why it is superior to alternatives. In this essay, I focus on the case in the negative: arguing against the alternatives.

The Case Against Dictatorship

No practical case for dictatorship exists except for in the delusions of liberal democracy’s critics.

liberalcurrents.com