There will be no fireworks to celebrate the 232nd anniversary of Constitution Day, nor public readings of the document. Most will pass the day without even a moment’s reflection on the event that redefined the political community of the United States. September 17, 1787, was the day that the newly drafted Constitution was signed by
After a handful of mass shootings over the summer, Congress is returning to session flush with the need to act on gun violence. Unfortunately, consensus appears to be forming around proposals that are both ineffective and constitutionally suspect. I’m talking about federal “red flag” legislation, which would allow family members and friends to report on
You know President Trump’s politics of disruption is succeeding when political scientists begin paying attention. Aroused from their slumbers, startled profs are even revising the old syllabus and lecture notes. Many political science departments are seeing booming enrollments. What Trump means for the practice of politics has the opportunity of improving the scholarship about politics.
It’s simply hard to know where to begin to respond to the staggering chutzpah of Jennifer Rubin’s recent Washington Post opinion column accusing the president of undermining our intelligence community. Rubin used the recent leak regarding the exfiltration (a fancy word for “removal”) of an undercover “asset” in Russia as a hook to make the
“I am the late Dauphin,” or so goes the line from Huckleberry Finn. American fraudsters long have sought to clothe themselves in the trappings of European aristocracy. A permanent elite is alien to American culture. Being alien, it is altogether fascinating. The distraction opens the door to swindle. Last week in City Journal, Harvard political
As I was traveling from Jacksonville, Florida back home up the I-95, hundreds of electric power service vehicles from several companies were making their way south. Among those service vehicles were the ubiquitous Asplundh tree clearing trucks meshed in between the convoys. For people living on the East Coast, these were anxious days because as
Congress reconvenes this week after a summer fraught with multiple mass shootings. Reportedly, legislation implementing tighter gun control is on the table, with rumored support by some in the White House. The rhetoric surrounding guns continues to escalate. Here’s the thing about guns. The Constitution—that handy little document—guarantees our rights to them, and that guarantee
In the wake of recent incidents in El Paso and in Dayton, our legislators—even more than usual—have been enthusiastic in their now-ritual “Dance of Death” for the Second Amendment. Their cries for more draconian background checks are joined by what is nothing less than a proposal to transform America into an informer culture. "Red flag
One of the nobler elements of the American system is its jealous protection of the rights of minority interests. Going back to James Madison’s strictures about balancing faction against faction in Federalist #10, and Abraham Lincoln’s warnings against unfettered popular sovereignty in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Americans have long held to a noble tradition of respecting
After months of dithering in a campaign as aimless as its Keroucian prologue, Beto O’Rourke had an interesting thought that’s also kind of true: “America is f---ed up” for tolerating mass shootings. He’s not wrong, but his indignant posturing is misplaced. Last week, Beto gave a rather f---ed up answer to a question about abortion.
