All Posts Tagged With: "constitution"
The Preamble They Should’ve Written
If the Founding Fathers had wanted to block the drift toward big government, they should have written a preamble to the Constitution that extolled the virtue of the private sector.
27Apr2011 | James L. Payne | 54 comments | ContinuedNot All Choices Are Equal
Opponents of the freedom philosophy never run out of insipid rebuttals. The latest to have a go at it is Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. Wolf ponders the question, “What is the role of the state,” and notes that a “strand” of classical liberalism (or libertarianism) “believes the answer is to define the role [...]
24Nov2010 | Sheldon Richman | 10 comments | ContinuedIs Freedom a Radical Idea?
The good old days are not behind us but rather lie ahead.
29Oct2010 | Sheldon Richman | 22 comments | ContinuedThe Good State and the Bad State, Progressivism, Part III
Almost everyone in authority claims to revere the Constitution. However, few people in government believe they should be subject to the limitations that define the document.
14Jul2010 | William L. Anderson | 8 comments | ContinuedGuns, Privileges, and Immunities
Randy Barnett in the Wall Street Journal (subscription site) notes that while four of the Supreme Court’s five-justice majority upheld the right to keep and bear arms against the states on Fourteenth Amendment due-process grounds, Justice Clarence Thomas’s “concurring opinion rested solely on the Privileges or Immunities Clause. While agreeing ‘with the Court that the [...]
29Jun2010 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedAntifederalists Vindicated
If the Antifederalists were still on the scene today, they might be saying — as they would have been saying right along — “Told you so.”
21May2010 | Sheldon Richman | 15 comments | ContinuedApril Fool’s: Census Day
Did you mail your census form in? You can be fined up to $5,000 for not doing so and for refusing to cooperate when you are visited by a deputy of the U.S. government, who will come to your home to get the answers out of you if you happen to lose your form. Fined? [...]
1Apr2010 | Sheldon Richman | 4 comments | ContinuedHamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution–and What It Means for Americans Today
The more historical research I read and the more I contrast what economists write with what non-economists write, the more I am convinced that the bulk of history and biography should be redone. Thomas DiLorenzo, an economics professor at Loyola College in Maryland, explains why: “Most historians are not educated in the field of economics, [...]
24Feb2010 | Art Carden | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Census: Vehicle for Social Engineering
The census in a welfare state creates a dynamic in which the exercise of one person’s rights ostensibly damages the interests others.
23Feb2010 | Wendy McElroy | 9 comments | ContinuedScott Horton, Lysander Spooner, and Me
Scott Horton interviewed me on Antiwar Radio the other day. The subject: Lysander Spooner and his relevance to our times. Here it is.
21Jan2010 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedHealth Care Deal Constitutionality Challenged
“The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina’s attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington [...]
23Dec2009 | Mike Van Winkle | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Power to Tax is the Power
The authority for forcing us to buy health insurance is said to be the Commerce Clause and the taxing power. TGIF looks at these claims.Read TGIF here.
27Nov2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Power to Tax Is the Power
It would be nice if we could count on the court, at the very least, to forbid Congress from achieving a goal by means that violate freedom if means are available that do not. But let’s hold our breath.
27Nov2009 | Sheldon Richman | 7 comments | ContinuedThe Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush
Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo count as founding fathers of the much-debated unitary executive theory (UET), which they named in 1992. In this large book they argue that every American president has subscribed to the theory, and that along with constitutional text and structure, this continuous presidential practice makes the law. Briefly, UET [...]
18Nov2009 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Great Writ Then and Now
The Great Writ Then and Now by Wendy McElroy Wendy McElroy (wendy@wendymcelroy.com) is an author, the editor of ifeminists.com, and a research fellow for the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. Habeas corpus is a rarely invoked legal writ, or document, widely considered to be the cornerstone of individual liberty. Also known as The Great Writ, [...]
23Oct2009 | Wendy McElroy | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Founders, the Constitution, and the Historians
How could Charles Beard have erred so badly in arguing that the Constitution was written mainly to serve the signers’ economic interests? In part Beard missed the mark because he was trying to hit something else—a Progressive agenda for reform, the excuse to transfer wealth from the haves to the have-nots. If the Founders were merely protecting their economic interests, Beard and his progressive friends were justified in supporting the redistribution of wealth.
11Jun2009 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 17 comments | ContinuedThe Rule of Lore
“This is a nation of laws not of men (and women).” With the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, we will be hearing that a lot in the coming weeks. The nomination of a Supreme Court justice occasions much public debate over exactly what judges are supposed to do—and not do. Thus [...]
29May2009 | Sheldon Richman | 3 comments | Continued-
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