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,...
“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 matter if the instrument curtailing liberty is a monarch or a popularly elected legislature? This...
Can an idea be dangerous? Can a dangerous idea be expressed? Can the government punish ideas it deems to be dangerous? These are not questions one regularly asks in America because of our rich tradition of protecting the freedom of speech from infringement by the...
I predict future happiness for Americans,if they can prevent the government fromwasting the labors of the people underthe pretense of taking care of them.-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Last week, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward Markey of Massachusetts revealed...
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 “freedom of speech” in the First Amendment, and the other was a command in the Ninth Amendment that...
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 a felony to know of a crime and fail to report it. It was also a crime to...
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 a protester did in an audience the speaker addressed, the court exposed all protest...
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 U.S. Constitution. These agencies believe that the Fourth Amendment -- which protects the...
“I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”-- Voltaire (1694-1778) Holy Week was not a good week for personal liberty as governments throughout the United States engaged in direct and subtle attacks on free speech....
“That God, which ever lives and loves,One God, one law, one element,And one far-off divine eventTo which the whole creation moves.”-- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) When American colonists were oppressed by British governance, the word most frequently uttered in...
“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 first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution -- he was articulating what lawyers and...
I spent last week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, or PASS. PASS is an organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last week, PASS addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas...
“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion,Mankind would be no more justifiedIn silencing that one person,Than he, if he had the power,Would be justified in silencing mankind.” -- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) The world is filled with self-evident truths --...
As the pre-trial hearings in the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others who are charged with masterminding the 9/11 attacks proceed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, the government continues to stumble with its own witnesses. In hearings last week,...
“Where there is a wrong, there is a remedy." -- Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938) Last week, a New York court ordered the Trump Organization and its principals -- including the former President -- to forfeit nearly $400 million to the state government. This...
When the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead, he didn’t mean it literally, as that would have been impossible. He meant that God’s creatures have so failed to acknowledge Him and relate to Him, it is as if He decided to end His own...
Can the government prevent Big Tech from censoring political and cultural voices on their platforms? Can the government regulate these platforms to compel speech the government wants to hear and to prevent speech it believes may harm innocents? If you believe -- as I...
“The Framers ... conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.” -- Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) While we are all consumed with Joe Biden’s bumblings and Donald...
I have often thought that after Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson was our worst president. By worst is meant least faithful to the Constitution and most destructive of personal liberty. With the exception of Lincoln’s dictatorship -- during which the federal government...
Just as a fictional emperor paid his tailors a fortune for clothes that no one could see, and then marched naked in a grand public procession while his subjects roared with laughter, so, too, is President Joe Biden attempting to march clothed with the Constitution he...
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