A recent column in The Economist magazine asking if America is dictator-proof got me to thinking if our constitutional guarantees are secure. Stated differently: Can the custodians of our constitutional norms be trusted to restrain a deliberate attempt to ignore, diminish or evade the Constitution? The short answer is: NO.
The history of what I will charitably call constitutional indifference is long and tortuous. It goes back to the earliest days of the republic when, in a period of eight years, Congress enacted and Presidents George Washington and. . .
A recent column in The Economist magazine asking if America is dictator-proof got me to thinking if our constitutional guarantees are secure. Stated differently: Can the custodians of our constitutional…
“Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?” — Rev. Mather Byles (1706-1788) Does it really…
Can an idea be dangerous? Can a dangerous idea be expressed? Can the governmentpunish ideas it deems to be dangerous? These are not questions one regularly asks in America because…
“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” — Thomas Jefferson…
When James Madison was a member of Congress in 1791 and charged with drafting the Bill of Rights, he made two grammatical demands. One was that the word “the” precede…
In the last days of East Germany, when government officials detected that their power was unraveling, they ratcheted up enforcement of the nation’s reporting laws. The reporting laws made it…
Last week, the Supreme Court effectively abolished the right to assembly in three Southern states. By refusing to hear an appeal of a speaker accused of being liable for what…
Americans need to be aware of the unbridled propensity of federal intelligence agencies to spy on all of us without search warrants as required by the Fourth Amendment to the…
“That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event — Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) When American colonists were oppressed by British…
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” –First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution When James Madison set about to draft the Bill of Rights — the…