David Boaz has a great piece over at Reason today on the historical blinders that some libertarians seem to have when looking at America’s past: When we look at our own country’s history—contrasting 2010 with 1776 or 1910 or 1950 or whatever—the story is less clear. We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions [...]

Virginia Delegate James LeMunyon has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal where he makes an argument that I’ve been hearing with disturbing frequency lately: The remedy is in Article V of the Constitution, which permits a convention to be called for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments. Any proposed amendment then would have to [...]

Over at United Liberty, Kevin Boyd puts forward the best case I’ve seen to date against the idea that we are anywhere near the point where rebellion is justified: For those of you out there who think this is the time for revolution, please consider the following: 1) All political and legal options have not [...]

The New York Times’ long-time SCOTUS reporter Linda Greenhouse takes a look at how the current court might look at the challenges to the health care reform law: The challengers invoke and seek to build upon the Rehnquist court’s “federalism revolution” that flowered briefly during the 1990’s. In a series of 5-to-4 rulings, the court [...]

Over at The American Spectator, conservative lawyer Stacy Cline points out that the legal challenges to ObamaCare have the odds, and the case law, against them: Last night’s passage of the greatest expansion of the federal government since the Great Society is a sad day for our country, not only because it may bankrupt our [...]

It was 245 years ago today, that The Stamp Act of 1765, one of the first of the many punitive taxes imposed on the American colonies and precipitated the Revolution, was passed by Parliament. 244 years and 364 days later, the United States Congress passed a piece of legislation that makes the Stamp Act look [...]

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas Jefferson

Ezra Klein quotes approvingly from Bruce Bartlett’s new book, The New American Economy: The Failure Of Reaganomics And A New Way Forward: The reality is that even before spending exploded to deal with the economic crisis, the government was set to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation just to pay [...]

Crossposting something my wife wrote, from here: I’ve been in an incredibly foul mood the last couple of days, and until this morning I did not understand why. We’re planning on moving to where we actually want to be. We’re constantly being asked why we want to move to the middle of nowhere. I tell [...]

From the time of 1765 forward, the American people, in fits and starts, began moving closer and closer to breaking ties with Britain and declaring independence. They grew increasingly angry at being dragged into [or paying for] the wars of the Crown. The King had largely held a hands-off approach with the colonies, who largely [...]

Iced Earth “Declaration Day” The Glorious Burden (2004) Written by Jon Schaffer A desperate situation Forced to retaliation The task ahead a burden Men will suffer, that’s for certain We’ll charge into the fire The cause, we must inspire We raise our fists to tyranny A high price, freedom is not free The odds are [...]

“It’s Independence Day, dammit, not the ‘Fourth of July,’” properly noted a close friend on Twitter. This was countered by what I consider another valid point. “That depends on who you’re asking,” responded African-American Jefferson County (AL) Commission candidate Iva Williams. “Plymouth Rock landed on me!” In my opinion, there is a lot of truth [...]

Many Republicans, having discovered that Bush’s policies are tyrannical, are making noises about wanting out of the fascist state that they were cheering on a few months ago. While we may wonder why it took the trivial matter of having people who have the letter D appended to their names on news reports executing Bush’s [...]

This morning, the 9th circuit court of appeals confirmed that the 2nd amendment is indeed incorporated against the states under the selective incorporation doctrine, in the case Nordyke Vs. King. This means that the 2nd amendment has a lawful status equivalent to that of the first, fourth, fifth, and other amendments which explicitly protect our [...]

I’m not going to make it to any Tea Parties today, because frankly I think my personal time is far better spent earning money at my job than engaging in a bit of populism that will likely be forgotten and ignored by the mainstream media — at least those portions of the MSM that don’t [...]

If book sales of “Atlas Shrugged” are any indicator, the Obama administration may have just given the freedom movement a much needed shot in the arm. From the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights: Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for [...]

For a long time, I’ve been pissed off about Daylight Savings Time. In my job, I work with a lot of people across the country, and thus I get into work early (7:30 or so) and leave about 5:00 PM. Before it went into effect this year, each morning I would drive to work in [...]

A writer at The Washington Post says the answer is yes: First, it isn’t the 1950s anymore. As religion scholar Will Herberg noted in his influential 1955 essay “Protestant-Catholic-Jew,” at that time 68 percent of Americans were Protestant, 23 percent Catholic, and 4 percent Jewish. (The remaining 5 percent expressed no religious preference.) “Not to [...]

Mark over at Publius Endures discusses the current state of the Republican Party, as it has changed from the 1994 version to the 2008 version (emphasis added): With libertarians leaving the party in droves, the remaining GOP opinion-makers are increasingly free to abandon free market rhetoric; put another way, they have become smaller and thus [...]