"But when it constrains action, you have to think again".
Drawing on voluminous research in German, British, and French archives, the author reconstructs the debates over military decision making and clarifies the role played by law where it constrained action, where it was manipulated to serve military need, where it was simply ignored, and how it developed in the crucible of combat.
How motor processes are affected by internal versus external foci is explained through the constrained action hypothesis.
It constrains actions in important ways but provides opportunities in others.
That function constrains actions in a manner that rarely gives pause to a straightforward entrepreneur.
It is unfair to compare the lofty ideals of one side with the missteps, gaffes, and constrained actions of the other.
Moreover, as Balkin argued, the fact that the Internet allows widely dispersed people with extreme views to find each other and talk is not a failure for the liberal public sphere, though it may present new challenges for the liberal state in constraining extreme action.
A weak state albeit, in effect, a one-party one; a constitution that constrains action abroad; and a cultural cringe from American dominance in post-war relations: all prevented Japan from becoming, in his words, a "normal" nation.
Though the two cases are different, we should notice that Lee, like McLean, intends to highlight considerations that legally constrain action (interference in one case, arrest in the other ) in the face of an assault on an African American.
