James Iredell’s careful apologia for the American cause—a teaching which he developed in a series of essays and public letters written from 1773-1778—clearly contains a foreshadowing of what he thought should be in a constitution for the United States. James Iredell was born at Lewes, Sussex County, England. He was the eldest of the five [...]
July 4th has come and gone. So have the accompanying picnics, parades, and fireworks. That includes fireworks of more than one variety. After all, the Fourth of July can also be an occasion for hot debate well before the sun goes down. Here’s one that fits with the Fourth—and beyond: Is there such a thing [...]
There is a readiness to employ American power in its vast and lethal potential in causes that have no carefully defined or concrete “interest” or objective, where the claim to justification is an appeal to a universal or an abstract ideal such as democratization of societies not our own, world peace, security, liberty, or freedom. [...]
C.S. Lewis believed that immutable and timeless universal principles governed all persons throughout time and space. Though these principles would find manifestations particular to era, culture, and individual, the rules remained eternal. Additionally, these natural laws would always and everywhere be “self-evident.” Men might choose to ignore, distort, or mock them, but they could not [...]
Judges and politicians constantly talk of the importance of respecting precedent. But It is not unusual for the Supreme Court to overturn its own precedents. What does legal history say about the importance of precedent in modern jurisprudence? Responding to President Donald Trump’s nomination of federal appeals-court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Maine [...]
Self-governance requires that those in positions of authority emphasize the importance of treating the Constitution as a "living document," in that phrase’s best sense—not as a surrender to expediency, but as a recognition that no nation can govern itself that fails to meet the responsibility of perpetually renewing the Constitution by living its constitution... Today’s [...]
Russia is resurrected from the dead, rising from the tomb in which communism had placed it. It is emerging as a Christian country at a time when other erstwhile Christian countries seem intent on abandoning their faith in order to embrace the suicidal culture of death... Patrick Buchanan’s succinct and penetrating essay on President Trump’s [...]
He’s first to claim his faith’s a spur To politics—but in the cause of modern life As seen by a minority of folks who stir The democratic pot to greater strife, For whom the wooden spoon too oft becomes a knife; His faith’s a compass, but it’s not politic To follow it where secularism’s rife; [...]
The danger today is not that too many are selectively and dishonestly quoting Thomas Aquinas to advance their own political agenda in ways that are unfaithful to his beliefs and intentions. The real point is that Christians have fallen into an appalling habit of censoring the very voices from the past that should be helping [...]
Beginning his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump declared that U.S. relations with Russia have “never been worse.” He then added pointedly, that just changed “about four hours ago.” It certainly did. With his remarks in Helsinki and at the NATO summit in Brussels, President Trump has signaled a historic shift in [...]
If one cannot hope for an informed citizenry—and the evidence is overwhelming that such a hope is futile—one must hope for something else: a formed citizenry. For the remedy for thoughtlessness is not information; it is thought, thought about what man is, what the good man is, what the good society is, what virtues and [...]
While Athenian individualism was a far cry from the individualism of modern liberal societies, its brief existence and quick demise teach an important lesson about the fragility of any social order willing to emphasize or tolerate the idea that an individual has dignity in his own right and not merely as a cog in the [...]
The paradigm motivating Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence is of an individual who must be protected by the courts from all outside pressures. The result has been increasing hostility toward the fundamental institutions on which our constitutional order relies… Justice Anthony Kennedy Justice Anthony Kennedy’s tenure on the Supreme Court was filled with irony. Had it [...]
The liberal rage against the border wall has much to do with the nature of boundaries. Walls, borders, and fences are manifestations of restraint. Fallen humanity naturally resists the restraints of order that keep the unbridled passions under control. Walls are needed to keep the peace… “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote [...]