Tag Archives: US Constitution

CICERO SAID SO

“The Budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be reduced lest the State become bankrupt. The people should … work and not depend on government for subsistence.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero in the year 106 BC.

So you see, some things just don’t change much over time, even a very long time. Surely Madison, Adams, Jefferson and that whole crowd understood this when they formulated the Constitution.

“It is a gloomy moment in the history of our country. Not in the lifetime of most men has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. The domestic economic situation is in chaos. Our dollar is weak throughout the world. The political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty. Russia hangs, as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent, upon the horizon. It is a solemn moment. Of our troubles no man has seen the end.”

Harper’s Magazine  1847

Dare we Hope our beloved land will once again triumph over trouble as it did in the wake of Harper’s nineteenth century view? Or is Change changing our path to that once trod by Rome?

Bob B

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BILL OF RIGHTS

The Supreme Court is about to hear a case on gun control. The Second Amendment gave citizens the right to bear arms. The first ten amendments to the US Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. The case at issue will bring the entire Bill of Rights into the picture.

The narrow issue is whether states and cities can restrict gun control without violating the Second Amendment. One side argues that the Bill of Rights was intended to limit Federal government and does not apply to state and local government. The opposition will counter with the tenet that state and local law cannot contravene Federal law.

If the first argument prevails logic follows that the entire Bill of Rights only prevails at the will of each state. The ten amendments get their name from their function, a list of citizens rights that cannot be abrogated by government.

If you have read A Conflict of Visions or even just the review, you know where each side stands and the core reason why. The Left trusts leaders of government more than it trusts the citizens. They favor more power to our leaders. The Constitution limits the power of our leaders. The Right supports the limitation because it recognizes that all leaders are not good and wants a strong Constitution to protect America from ever drifting into control by a despot.

This case is about a lot more than gun control. It is about government control.

Bob B

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AT THE BOOK STORE

While “gone fishing” I visited the book store. I was in Bernie Sanders country so you can imagine the titles on display in the Political Science section. I chose one at random, A Long Time Coming by Evan Thomas of Newsweek Magazine. It was thin with a hard cover. Thin books are always inviting. The title aroused my curiosity. Just what was it that the author thought was a long time coming?

There was no need to read beyond the first chapter to find the answer. This was a contemporary book occasioned by the election of Barack Obama. One could almost hear the gentle sound of air wafting from the lungs of Mr Thomas of Newsweek Magazine as he heaved a great sigh of relief and brought the news, finally “the undoing of the work of Nixon, Reagan and the Bush years” has begun. So this is what was a long time coming.

Undoing Nixon, Reagan and Bush? Pray tell, what did Nixon do that must now be undone? Reagan faced up to the Soviet Union and was instrumental in bringing down the Berlin wall. At home, his administration reversed spiraling inflation. Are these to be undone? And Bush? He spent like a Democrat and started a war. About the only thing these presidents have in common is they were all elected on the Republican ticket.

A sentence or two later in the book we find Thomas sees redemption at hand for the United States in that “a nation whose Constitution has enshrined slavery has elected a black man” to the Presidency. Continue reading

SOTUS SITS

United States Supreme Court justices fail to applaud their being insulted, all of them. If Obama was trying to gain populist favor by his remark it was neither the time nor target for it. Attacking the Court does not elicit populist cheers like attacking banks, insurance companies or lobbyists.

Obama has been very critical even of the liberal Warren court. Why does he do it? He does it because the Constitution was written to protect the American people from those with an agenda like Obama’s and the Supreme Court is the peoples defender of the Constitution. The Constitution was an impediment to Wilson who tried to change its composition. It was an impediment to FDR whose NRA the Court declared unconstitutional. It is an impediment to Obama’s big government agenda for America.

Hooray for the Supreme Court !!

And so it sat.