A colleague recently asked me if I approved of Big Tech censoring political and cultural voices on their platforms. My colleague believes — as do I — in natural rights, minimal government and that owners of private property can use it as they see fit. We both condemned the Big Tech censorship. Then he asked if the government could regulate these platforms. I offered that it could not.
These questions arose from the reported efforts by Facebook to bar from its platforms those who wish to offer scientific, political or cultural arguments against mass vaccinations. Many of these arguments are. . .
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." — Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently announced his determination to use his powers as the chief executive of the federal government to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms. This is a profound violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution.
It also perpetuates an attitude about the Second Amendment that was prevalent in state and federal officeholders in both major. . .
"Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or three thousand tyrants one mile away?" — Rev. Mather Blyes (1706-1788)
Does it really matter if the instrument curtailing liberty is a monarch or a popularly elected legislature? This conundrum, along with the witty version of it put to a Boston crowd in 1775 by the little-known colonial-era preacher with the famous uncle — Cotton Mather, addresses the age-old question of whether liberty can survive in a democracy.
Blyes was a loyalist, who, along with about one-third of. . .
What if liberty and democracy are opposites? What if the principle underlying liberty is to restrain the government to maximize individual autonomy? What if the principle underlying democracy is to unleash the government to give the people whatever they want?
What if personal liberty is an individual birthright because we are created in the image and likeness of God? What if just as God is perfectly free, we are perfectly free? What if our personal liberties are integral to our humanity? What if personal freedom — which we are free to abuse — is God's greatest gift, after. . .
When Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked at his confirmation hearings earlier this month what his priorities would be if confirmed, he responded immediately that it would be a vigorous pursuit of domestic terrorism. He did not say he would lead vigorous prosecutions, just vigorous pursuits.
This is dangerous business for the Department of Justice because it transforms its role from prosecuting crimes after they happen to predicting who would commit crimes that never happen.
How could the feds predict crimes? They would attempt to do so by a serious uptick in domestic surveillance of broad categories of people based. . .
Two weeks ago, while the House of Representatives was finalizing its 700-page legislation authorizing the Treasury to borrow and spend $1.9 trillion in the next six months, and the Senate was attempting to confirm more of President Joseph R. Biden's cabinet nominees, Biden secretly ordered the Pentagon to bomb militias in Syria.
The United States is not at war with Syria. It is not at war with the militias that were bombed, and it didn't seek or have the permission of the Syrian government to enter its air space and engage in deadly military. . .
"In short, we do not need good laws to restrain bad men. We need good men to restrain bad laws." — G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
Why do people in power try to silence speech with which they disagree?
Last week produced news about the suppression of speech on university campuses. There, the suppression usually occurs through the power of intimidation before the speech is given. Yet, most public lectures on college campuses are public accommodations, meaning the landowner — the university — cannot bar the entry of audience members because of their political views, nor can it. . .
After listening to Dr. Anthony Fauci suggest last weekend that we should expect to be wearing two masks on our faces everywhere we go until the end of 2022, I began thinking again about first principles.
Fauci is entitled to express his opinions. Yet, because he is the president's chief adviser on COVID-related medical matters, I cringed when I heard what he said. Was this a trial balloon or did he mean it literally? Are these suggestions or will they become commands with the purported force of law?
Because the Constitution is the supreme law of the. . .
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, thus, all government behavior must conform to it. It is, of course, notwithstanding its supremacy, an imperfect document. Its original iteration in 1789 — and even after the addition of the Bill of Rights in 1791 — implicitly recognized slavery, permitted the states to limit voters to adult white landowning men and did not require the states to protect personal liberty.
Under the Constitution, impeachment — a charge accusing a present or former federal officeholder of paramount wrongdoing — can only be had if the charge is for a criminal act. . .
Amid arguments in the Senate over whether the impeachment of former President Donald Trump is constitutional, and in the House over whether $1.9 trillion is enough money to borrow and distribute to select taxpayers and institutions, there have been rumblings among Democrats to make it more difficult for the Supreme Court to invalidate or permit states to gnaw away at Roe v. Wade.
Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that essentially establishes — within the privacy of the patient-physician relationship — the right to choose to abort a baby in the womb. The opinion holds. . .