Overview

In this provocative book, Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton show how the law, which once shielded us from the government, has now become a powerful weapon in the hands of overzealous prosecutors and bureaucrats. Lost is the foundation upon which our freedom rests—that intricate framework of Constitutional limits that protect our property, our liberty, and our lives. Roberts and Stratton convincingly argue that this abuse of governmental power doesn’t have ideological boundaries. Indeed, conservatives and liberals alike use prosecutors, regulators, and courts to chase after their own favorite “devils,” to seek punishment over justice and expediency over freedom. The authors present harrowing accounts of people both rich and poor, of CEOs and blue-collar workers who have fallen victim to the tyranny of good intentions, who have lost possessions, careers, loved ones, and sometimes even their lives.

This book is a sobering wake-up call to reclaim that which is ours—liberty protected by the rule of law.

Praise

“A devastating indictment of our current system of justice and a call to arms to restore hard-earned protections of human freedom that are now routinely violated by government officials.”
—MILTON FREIDMAN, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“The Tyranny of Good Intentions is a bold defense of our fundamental freedoms. It demonstrates that government oppression is not a right-left issue, but rather a universal evil that should be resisted by all free people. It demonstrates why conservatives and liberals who despise tyranny must unite against statists of both the right and the left who falsely believe that partisan ends justify depravations of liberty. . . .When rights are subordinated to government power, the first steps toward tyranny are taken.”
—ALAN DERSHOWITZ, Professor of Law, Harvard University; author of The Genesis of Justice

"I went to law school to understand law’s role in society, but was taught instead that government lawyers should run society from on high with little need to comply with time-honored rules designed to keep them honest and accountable to the society. Roberts and Stratton reveal the roots of the problem. How strange it is that I, a law professor, learned so much about the law from a book whose lead author is an economist.”
—DAVID SCHOENBROD, Professor of Law, New York Law School