Constitution

Liberty, Power, and the Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2006

A few years ago, I was delivering a lecture on the Constitution to an assembly consisting of a couple hundred high-school students. I made the following observation, which threw the students into an uproar: “The First Amendment to the Constitution does not give people the right to free speech.” Immediately, I was pummeled by criticisms from all across the ...

A Democratic Dictatorship

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2006

Amidst all the discussion and debate about whether President Bush has violated the law by ordering the National Security Agency (NSA) to record telephone conversations, we must not overlook an important fact: the United States is now traveling in uncharted waters, ones in which the ruler of the nation is exercising omnipotent power over the American people. A more ...

Bush’s Bogus Theory of Absolute Power

by James Bovard April 7, 2006

The Bush administration has a theory to explain why the Founding Fathers secretly intended for the president to have boundless power. Even though the new unitary executive theory is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law. The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much ...

American Democracy Indicted

by Anthony Gregory April 1, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 291 pages. “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” So says a popular bumper sticker. Indeed, those of us who have been paying attention to the political scene for ...

Misguided Democracy

by George Leef March 1, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); 288 pages; $26.95. One of Winston Churchill’s most famous quips is that democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others. The supposition behind the “except” clause is that ...

Attention Deficit Democracy

by James Bovard January 27, 2006

The following is the introduction to James Bovard’s new book, Attention Deficit Democracy. The forms of our free government have outlasted the ends for which they were instituted, and have become a mere mockery of the people for whose benefit they should operate. — “Americus” Delusions about democracy ...

Freedom and the Fourteenth Amendment

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2005

One of the long-standing debates within the libertarian movement involves the Fourteenth Amendment. Some argue that it is detrimental to the cause of freedom because it expands the power of the federal government. Others contend that the amendment expands the ambit of individual liberty. I fall among those who ...

More Bush Insults

by Sheldon Richman October 12, 2005

Everybody is good at something, and George Bush is good at insulting our intelligence. As if he hasn’t provided enough evidence, he recently obliged with two more demonstrations. First came his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. By picking Miers he is telling the American people she ...

The New Deal and the Courts, Part 4

by William L. Anderson September 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 No matter who is appointed to replace retiring members of the Supreme Court, the larger issues will remain unchanged, as they have been for nearly seven decades — the New Deal Supreme Court has become a permanent fixture in our country. Changes brought about by Franklin Roosevelt’s ...

Coercion: It’s What’s for Dinner in Postconstitutional America

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2005

Most recent free-speech controversies have been about government efforts to restrict someone’s right to express himself. So it is noteworthy that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a case involving not stifled speech, but rather coerced speech. Alas, it decided the case wrongly. Everyone has seen the generic TV ...

The Courts and the New Deal, Part 3

by William L. Anderson August 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 When Janice Rogers Brown was renominated to fill a vacancy on the D.C. Court of Appeals this year, the New York Times demanded that Democrats filibuster her nomination, one of the reasons being that, in a speech to a gathering of conservative lawyers, Brown had called ...

The Courts and the New Deal, Part 2

by William L. Anderson July 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 The system of laws and courts in the United States today hardly resembles that system that came about in the wake of the founding of this republic. This sea change in the law is not due — as some might claim — to the complexities of ...