tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-325262572026-05-28T14:46:12.989-07:00It would seem, then, that a government which could separate these two functions (deciding what is right and deciding what is fair) might have a chance to create a society which could avoid the transcendent and immanent extremes of the past. It is our contention that this is what the Fathers of the new American nation accomplished in establishing an independent judiciary charged with interpreting the Constitution.Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08846371280799024151noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-9440473987212859232017-03-11T06:17:00.002-08:002017-03-11T09:04:36.605-08:00

I'm fascinated by federalism schemes and blueprints to divide power in ways that (1) respect local decision-making, (2) lodge power to address problems impacting the whole at the federal level, and (3) protect freedom and power distribution through systemic checks and balances. These concerns have been at the root of this blog's call for repealing of the Seventeenth Amendment. This is an

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-66638263100744779552015-09-02T10:21:00.000-07:002015-09-02T10:35:28.387-07:00

Governance and the Bible I was reading an article by Derek Penwell, "9 Arguments From the Bible Fundamentalists Should Have to Make" about conservatives inconsistent use of the Bible to support some of their policies. The basis for the article is, if the support for a ban on same-sex marriage comes from scripture than why isn't the Bible used as the authority for other conservative

Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08846371280799024151noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-38865873600991633112013-11-24T15:10:00.001-08:002013-11-24T15:10:37.172-08:00

Kelly ponders in his latest, cleverly-named article, Calvin and Hobbes, if the views of sixteenth-century theologian Reformation leader John Calvin toward the poor have infested modern-day America's views of the poor. The implication is, I would think, that those who do not believe government welfare programs are (1) constitutional or (2) proper functions of government do not believe that the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-81176811973660908932013-11-24T06:47:00.001-08:002013-11-24T06:47:47.309-08:00

The Democrats in the Senate this past week voted to restrict the use of the filibuster by the minority Party in consideration of presidential executive and non-SCOTUS judicial nominees. As this blog has called for since 2007, this is a move whose time is past due, especially given the increasing partisanship of Congress and Washington DC and the increased difficulty to move anything legislative

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-1512305685642574592013-11-23T08:42:00.001-08:002013-11-23T08:42:00.425-08:00

"In the United States, the majority takes charge of furnishing individuals with a host of ready-made options, and it thus relieves them of the obligation to form their own. There are a great number of theories on matters of philosophy, morality or politics that everyone thus adopts without examination, on the faith of the public; and if one looks very closely one will see that religions itself

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-8652184582670361552013-11-20T13:57:00.000-08:002013-11-20T13:57:28.733-08:00

Have the ideas of John Calvin influenced the current debate over the role of government in the United States? I've been listening to a course about European history and the development of Western Civilization. It is quite eye-opening how many parallels exist between events from centuries ago and those of today's age.  In the time between the Roman Empire and World War I there

Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08846371280799024151noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-35989150657648731052012-10-09T09:19:00.000-07:002013-11-23T09:19:38.701-08:00

This clever juxtaposition of the Article I word of "armies" and the Second Amendment's preamble on militias by Akhil Reed Amar in his latest book on the Constitution, The Unwritten Constitution, serves to illustrate the concept of America's unwritten Constitution through deed and action ("We the People .. do ordain and establish…") that Amar seeks to impart in the second chapter of his book. In

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-83630480056019285942012-07-19T09:14:00.000-07:002013-11-23T09:15:29.387-08:00

Not So Eerie Parallel By Kelly The analysis of John Yoo's problem with Elena Kagan reminded me of something I attribute to the Watergate scandal, specifically G. Gordon Liddy. The paraphrase was something like 'The President can not give an unlawful order'. I can't find the quote, I might have it attributed to the wrong person. To be fair I'm basing it on 30-year-old memories but I was

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-79999637386956751402012-04-03T09:06:00.000-07:002013-11-23T09:07:25.775-08:00

American Localism In his book Timely Renewal, James W. Lucas makes a particularly effective case for decentralization of government power and placing governance as close to the people, in geographic terms, as possible. Arguing that large federal government (and its associated suffocating regulations and debt) and large corporations (and their anti-competitive monopolies) have brought

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-18326512531629416452011-08-02T08:56:00.000-07:002013-11-23T08:56:36.793-08:00

Our Consolation must be this, my dear, that Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. --John Adams Regarding the siege of Boston; Letter to Abigail Adams - Philadelphia [July 7th, 1775] I am for a government rigorously frugal and

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-30759087234460456662011-06-26T12:47:00.000-07:002013-11-24T12:48:04.009-08:00

Current uses of the words "conservative" and "liberal" have nothing to do with their traditional meaning. Well, that is not exactly true. They have, perhaps, too much to do with their traditional meaning given the fact that they seem to mean the same on the surface, but the animating spirit is completely different. Two hundred years ago, liberals believed in moving beyond personal government, in

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-27404824580987214042011-05-24T18:00:00.000-07:002013-11-22T18:06:59.994-08:00

I read these words this morning, and if I didn't know that they were written in 1919, I'd have thought them written for America today.   We can no more subject the world to the English compromise than to the English climate; and both are things of incalculable cloud and twilight. We have grown used to a habit of calling things by the wrong names and supporting them by the wrong arguments;

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-89302876644808328932011-02-26T12:59:00.000-08:002013-11-24T13:01:12.689-08:00

A dear friend pointed out the Yahoo! news story highlighting the growing gap between the rich and the poor in America that was the central artifact in a drawn-out family debate. I read this story and am left wondering what exactly is the point. What do those who wring their hands over this sort of thing propose we do about the thing? The unspoken assumption is that the pot of money is only so

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-64267938267427147772011-01-15T13:16:00.000-08:002013-11-24T13:17:34.393-08:00

On the venerable Balkinization blog, Guest blogger David Beatty asks if the U.S. Constitution is beloved or betrayed? While the American constitutional system still sets the standard for separation of powers, submission to the rule of law, and federalism, those outside the U.S. share a concern over what Beatty styles judicial politics and personality. Beatty writes: It is more in the theory and

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-87795384420563570182010-12-02T08:12:00.000-08:002013-11-23T08:12:36.269-08:00

Representative Rob Bishop has introduced the so-called Repeal Amendment in the House of Representative as a proposed amendment to the Constitution. The idea is to give the states a mechanism to preserve federalism from their end: The U.S. Constitution, as drafted by the Founders, designed a system that created a balance of power between state and national government. That original balance has

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-44372386990745137452010-10-25T08:04:00.000-07:002013-11-23T08:05:39.982-08:00

The Balkinization blog held a symposium the past week on Bruce Ackerman's new book, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic. Stephen Gardbaum wrote one of the reflections on Ackerman's book, and he also provides a nice recap for the uninitiated: Bruce Ackerman’s The Decline and Fall of the American Republic is a profoundly important constitutional wake-up call. It presents a powerful,

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-63458075091044964352010-09-29T07:51:00.000-07:002013-11-23T07:52:57.624-08:00

The Fourth Amendment, in many respects, is the closest thing to a right to privacy that can be found in our federal Constitution. This Amendment has become the bulwark of personal security and liberty in our country, even as we struggle to understand the limits our security should place on our liberty and the imposition that technology places on both. But in Chapter 4 of his book The Bill of

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-9694514849483056662010-09-26T07:35:00.000-07:002013-11-23T07:56:50.243-08:00

For hundreds of years, human society has ordered itself around the institution of marriage. Men provided safety, security and sustenance for women, women ordered the household so that men could work out in the community, and the home the man and woman built provided the place for children to be raised in accordance with the expectations and standards of the community. Marriage has not been first

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-82721489296214584632010-07-10T06:01:00.000-07:002013-11-23T06:03:21.166-08:00

In considering the constitutional state of war powers a few years back, I worried that "executive excesses would probably be tied to [the president using the military domestically], as might be the case if a President sought dictatorial powers through the imposition of martial law." At the time, I was not prepared to offer a structural solution to prevent such a calamity, and for good

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-78067115030940567822010-06-10T19:05:00.000-07:002013-11-23T06:06:32.981-08:00

Congress has the sole power to decide when, where, against whom, and to what extent the United State will go war, according to this paper from Saikrishna Prakash: Unleashing the Dogs of War: What the Constitution Means by "Declare War". For the Founders, Prakash argues that there was more than the formal way to declare war that we typically think of today. Attacking an enemy was considered a

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-85330142367207168002010-05-26T18:48:00.000-07:002013-11-22T18:49:45.357-08:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof .... The freedom of religion is one of the most cherished and most fundamental of American bedrock principles. One would have to look far and wide to find an American who would advocate support of a particular religion or sect by the government or, more still, would support the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-46979189306086541082010-05-26T18:32:00.000-07:002013-11-22T18:34:26.928-08:00

John Yoo has an op-ed piece in the New York Times today that takes Elana Kagan, President Obama's nominee to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, to task for her limited view of presidential powers. I have not seen enough to know whether I would vote to affirm Kagan's nomination were I a Senator (ah, the hubris runs deep this day...), but given John Yoo's constitutionally

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-5837256277146555632010-05-26T13:47:00.000-07:002013-11-24T13:54:58.897-08:00

After the final episode of Lost, with all of its unsatisfying twists and mysteries, I am more convinced than ever that it spoke to us because it is a reflection of the state of our own souls and, more fully, of our own culture. This state is no better expressed than this brilliant review of the series finale: I once was found, but now I am Lost. As with everything else the whirlwind of "the

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-85483360352634661712010-05-25T18:14:00.000-07:002013-11-22T18:17:21.951-08:00

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher  

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32526257.post-40063346892063655382010-05-21T14:24:00.000-07:002013-11-22T18:10:25.646-08:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. We see the First Amendment of the Constitution as the bedrock of our rights, protecting our freedom of speech and religion.

Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11727689682452973822noreply@blogger.com0