Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

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Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe (1989). Pure pop perfection.

To the Editor:

Re “How to Raise a Creative Child” (Sunday Review, Jan. 31):

What Adam Grant says about the relationship between freedom and creativity is so true. But now I fear that the tiger moms and dads will decide that they can mass-produce creative children merely by cutting back on rules and letting their children follow their hearts. I would argue that the sources of creativity are deeper than that: Creative children tend to have creative parents who encourage and value creativity in their offspring.

And if a child does become creative, what then? Not everyone has the gifts or good fortune to achieve success in a creative field. How many bands actually hit the charts? How many novels become best sellers, or are even published? I have seen creative friends struggle for years to break into a field against astronomical odds; most ended up with day jobs.

The truth is, unless he’s one of a handful of stars, and often even then, the creative person will be punished for his creativity at every stage of his life. School rewards students for completing simple exercises according to schedule. At work, most of the profit and frequently the credit for art and invention accrue to others. Create something too sophisticated, and it won’t be understood. Create something uninspiring, and it will be condemned.

Creativity and talent are intrinsically fulfilling, but they are cruel taskmasters: Modern society offers the creative person few opportunities, and fewer rewards.

JOSHUA P. HILL

New London, Conn.

We saw a cannon firing at Fort Mackinac. Click to enlarge.

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[M]oral systems are an informal analogue of public law, with the difference that each person has the responsibility of deciding for himself what set of laws he will follow in his conduct and advocate for others.

(Richard B. Brandt, Ethical Theory: The Problems of Normative and Critical Ethics, Prentice-Hall Philosophy Series, ed. Arthur E. Murphy [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959], 263)

To the Editor:

Re “The Need for a Financial Trading Tax” (editorial, Jan. 28):

Congress needs to pass a small tax on financial transactions. It will provide revenue to rebuild our infrastructure without causing any pain. The millionaire traders won’t miss a few pennies, and the low-income earners won’t be penalized with another regressive tax.

This tax already works in Britain, South Korea, Hong Kong and Switzerland. And as you note, 10 countries belonging to the European Union will also impose a financial transaction tax.

But of course the Republicans and their fat-cat Wall Street patrons will oppose any tax.

TOM MINNERICK

Elgin, Ill.

The U.S. Constitution is famous for its “Madisonian system” of structural constraints on the central government's powers. More than two hundred years of experience with the system gives us a pretty good perspective on both its strengths and its limitations. The major structural constraints are: (1) the doctrine of the general government as a government of delegated and enumerated, and therefore limited, powers; (2) the dual sovereignty of the general government and the states—with the states functioning as governments of general jurisdiction exercising generalized police powers (a kind of plenary authority), limited under the national constitution only by specific prohibitions or by grants of power to the general government; (3) the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers within the national government, creating a system of “checks and balances” that limits the power of any one branch and, it is hoped, improves the quality of government by making the legislative and policy-making processes more challenging, slower, and more deliberative; and (4) the practice (nowhere expressly authorized in the text of the Constitution, but lay that aside for now) of constitutional judicial review by the federal courts.

(Robert P. George, Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism, American Ideals and Institutions Series, ed. Robert P. George [Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2013], 15)

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