Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: U. S. Constitution

  • Dreher contra Buchanan on “All men are created equal”

    Rod Dreher quotes Patrick J. Buchanan: “All men are created equal” is an ideological statement. Where is the scientific or historic proof for it? Are we building our utopia on a sandpile of ideology and hope? Dreher responds: With that, Buchanan repudiates not only the founding principle of our Constitutional order, but also a core…

  • Modern Liberalism, Original Intent, and Equality

    From Thomas G. West, Jaffa versus Mansfield: Does America Have a Constitutional or a "Declaration of Independence" Soul?: Modern liberalism, as John Dewey and its other originators conceived it, is the enemy of individual rights in the Founders' sense. Dewey goes so far as to say that in the context of the twentieth century, the…

  • Gorsuch Confirmed and Trump Voters Vindicated

    Argumentum SCOTUS vindicatus est! William J. Bennett had it right back in August: Too many of our rights, liberties, and securities already hang by a one-vote thread. A Clinton Supreme Court would surely do away with them. It is a better bet that a President Trump together with Vice President Pence and a Republican Congress…

  • A Religious Test for Immigration Unconstitutional? Schumer’s Lie

    Many Democrats use 'unconstitutional' rather broadly to refer to anything they don't like. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) apparently favors this broad (mis)use of the term. He claimed — wait for it — that President Donald Trump's temporary ban on Muslim immigration from seven Muslim countries is "unconstitutional" because it applies a religious test. But of…

  • The Right to Free Speech is Unalienable

    This important point is explained clearly here: We do not derive our right to freedom of speech from the Constitution. More specifically, it does not “come from” the First Amendment. [. . .] The Constitution is not the source of our right to freedom of speech because freedom of speech is an unalienable right. What…

  • On Flag Burning

    In a piece entitled, "Mr. Trump, Meet the Constitution," the editorial board of The New York Times betrays a failure to grasp the distinction between the U. S. Constitution and Supreme Court rulings about it.  In the 1989 case "Texas v. Johnson," SCOTUS handed down a 5-4 ruling according to which flag burning was a…

  • Hillary on Heller: She Lied

    So what else is new?  That the sky is blue?  The trouble with Trump is that he doesn't know enough about the issues to punch back effectively when Mrs. Clinton lets loose with one of her whoppers. He let her escape several times during their third and final debate.    Sean Davis: In her answer…

  • Leviticus 19:15: The Lord versus Hillary

    “You shall not do injustice in judgment; you shall not show partiality to the powerless; you shall not give preference to the powerful; you shall judge your fellow citizen with justice."  Alternate translations here. In the third and final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said the following about Supreme Court  nominations.  "And the kind of people…

  • Restatement on Flight 93

    More from Publius Decius Mus.  To all the “conservatives” yammering about my supposed opposition to Constitutional principle (more on that below) and who hate Trump, I say: Trump is mounting the first serious national-political defense of the Constitution in a generation. He may not see himself in those terms. I believe he sees himself as…

  • The Left Might Get Trump Nominated

    So argues Dennis Prager.  For Trump alone among the Republican candidates is willing to stand up to the thuggishness of the Left.  The other candidates including Ted Cruz are blaming Trump and his rhetoric.  The latter is admittedly less than presidential and Trump is well-advised to tone it down.  But which is worse, some harsh…

  • “No Religious Test”

    In Article VI of the U. S. Constitution we read: . . . no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. Does it follow that the U. S. Constitution allows a Muslim citizen who supports sharia (Islamic law) to run for public office?…

  • The First and Second Amendments

    There is an old saying which is perhaps now out-of-date.  If liberals took the Second Amendment as seriously as they take the First, they would demand that gun ownership be mandatory.  The point of the jibe was to highlight the absurd extremes to which liberals take the First Amendment. But now the First Amendment is…

  • Obergefell’s Threat to Religious Liberty

    Here

  • SCOTUS and Benedict

    In the wake of recent events, Rod Dreher renews his call for the Benedict Option: It is now clear that for this Court, extremism in the pursuit of the Sexual Revolution’s goals is no vice. True, the majority opinion nodded and smiled in the direction of the First Amendment, in an attempt to calm the…

  • Keith Burgess-Jackson on the SCOTUS ObamaCare Decision

    Professor Burgess-Jackson is better qualified to comment on this topic than I am. I would now like to thank Keith publicly for all his help, advice, linkage, and support over the years.  Our friendship goes back to the early days of the blogosphere.  He came on line in the fall of 2003; I made my…