Tag: America
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Stopped
I have been stopped by the police a number of times in my life. Once, it was because I was actually speeding. Once, I was jaywalking. Once, I made an illegal turn when I was new to town and couldn’t see the “no U-turn” sign in the twilight. Once, it was because somebody didn’t renew…
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9.11.2001 – Reflections
Like so many people today, I’m reflecting on the events of that awful day 17 years ago when so many innocent people died, and so many more felt the world had turned upside down. Every American who was old enough to remember that day will probably be processing their reactions to those events for the…
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Experience and Reason
The following is Madison’s summary of a truly excellent speech by John Dickenson, a delegate from Delaware to the Constitutional Convention: Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not Reason that discovered the singular & admirable mechanism of the English Constitution. It was not Reason that discovered or ever could…
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A Lesson in Constitutional Interpretation
In light of the current debate on Capitol Hill, the quotation of the day comes from the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in D.C. v. Heller: Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional…
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Post-Mortem, Episode II
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” “A Republic, if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787 I do not want to say much about the election today, but I do want to share a few thoughts. I will begin by referring the reader to…