Not a day goes by when the liberal media don’t telegraph to the world that a “Trumpocracy” is destroying American democracy. Conspicuous by its absence is a pesky fact: Ours was never a country conceived as a democracy. To arrive at a democracy, we Americans destroyed a republic. One of the ways in which the...
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US media figures are in the habit of referring to the president of the United States as the “Commander in Chief of the United States” People who do that badly misunderstand the structure of US government as described in the Constitution of the United States. This misunderstanding may have been caused by the disappearance of...
Read MoreLate last week, a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, questioned the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller to seek an indictment and pursue the prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort for alleged financial crimes that, according to the indictment, began and ended well before Donald Trump ran for president. Mueller was appointed special...
Read MoreCongress Offers a Bipartisan Blank Check to Donald Trump
It may be too late. The president of the United States is now a veritable autocrat in the realm of foreign policy. He has been since at least 1945, when the last congressionally declared war finally ended. Wars in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen (among other places) were all...
Read MoreTwenty-three-month-old Alfie Evans, passed away in a British hospital on Saturday. While the official cause of death was a degenerative brain disease, Alfie may have been murdered by the British health system and the British high court. Doctors at the hospital treating Alfie decided to remove his life support, against the wishes of Alfie’s parents....
Read MoreA popular way to begin the first day of class in constitutional law in many American law schools is to ask the students what sets the U.S. Constitution apart from all others. Usually, they answer that it's the clauses that guarantee the freedom of speech, privacy and due process. Yes, each of those guarantees --...
Read MoreA few weeks ago, President Donald Trump was an outwardly happy man because of the utterance of one solitary word from the lips of special counsel Robert Mueller to one of Trump's lawyers. The word that thrilled the president and his legal team was "subject." It seems that Mueller and one of Trump's lawyers had...
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A Modest Proposal for Ending the United States
I see that a man named Sessions, apparently Washington’s Attorney General, threatens to unleash the coercive powers of the federal government against the state of Colorado, his reason being that he does not like the state’s policy with regard to marijuana. This is most curious. Why he believes the policies of Colorado to be his...
Read MoreWhen James Madison drafted the First Amendment -- “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” -- he made sure to use the article “the” in front of the word “freedom.” What seemed normal to him and superfluous to moderns was actually a profound signal that has resonated for 227 years. The...
Read MoreThe Ash Wednesday massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, seems to have broken more hearts than similar tragedies that preceded it. It was no more senseless than other American school shootings, but there is something about the innocence and bravery and eloquence of the youthful survivors that has touched the souls...
Read MoreHidden beneath the controversy stirred up last week by the publication of a book called "Fire and Fury," a highly critical insider's view of the Trump White House that the president has not only denounced on national television but also tried to prevent from being published and distributed, are the efforts of the Trump administration...
Read MoreFor the second time in two months, someone who has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State has plotted to kill innocents in New York City and has executed his plot. According to police, at the height of the Monday morning rush hour this week, in an underground pedestrian walkway that I have used many times,...
Read MoreRon Paul • December 11, 2017 • 600 Words
Last week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The case stems from the refusal of Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery, to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The bakery was found guilty of a civil rights violation and ordered to stop refusing to...
Read MoreWar Without War Powers (the Not-So-New American Way)
On September 1, 1970, soon after President Nixon expanded the Vietnam War by invading neighboring Cambodia, Democratic Senator George McGovern, a decorated World War II veteran and future presidential candidate, took to the floor of the Senate and said, “Every Senator [here] is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave... This...
Read MoreEarlier this week, the government revealed that a grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C., indicted a former Trump presidential campaign chairman and his former deputy and business partner for numerous felonies. Both were accused of working as foreign agents and failing to report that status to the federal government, using shell corporations to launder income...
Read MoreI am in Switzerland this week interacting with and lecturing to students and faculty at the University of Zurich. The subject of our work is the U.S. Constitution and its protections of personal liberty. In most countries, government has begrudgingly granted snippets of personal liberty to keep those who are demanding it at bay. Throughout...
Read MoreSometimes the public expression of unwanted ideas reaches directly into our living rooms. When President Donald Trump attacked a half-dozen or so professional football players who, instead of standing during the traditional playing of the national anthem prior to football games, "took a knee" by kneeling on one or both of their knees during the...
Read MoreHere we go again. The United States has been rattled to the core by an unspeakable act of evil perpetrated by a hater of humanity. A quiet, wealthy loner rented a hotel suite in Las Vegas, armed it with shooting platforms and automatic weapons, knocked out two of the windows, and shot at innocents 32...
Read MoreThe weird odyssey of President Donald Trump's travel bans continues. The original ban, signed as an executive order Jan. 27, barred absolutely all immigrants and refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The countries had actually been chosen by the State Department of former President Barack Obama. Obama never signed a ban, but Trump did. The...
Read MoreAmid the bad news this summer of racial tensions in Charlottesville and biblical-like floods in Houston and preening saber rattling between Pyongyang and Washington, a dangerous below-the-radar trend has been developing about which all who believe that the Constitution means what it says should be concerned. It is the reckless influence upon local law enforcement...
Read MoreLast weekend, serious violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a group of white supremacist demonstrators was confronted by a group of folks who were there to condemn the message the demonstrators had come to advance. The message was critical of the government for removing a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from a public...
Read MoreEarlier this week, the Trump Department of Justice told the mayor of Chicago that it would cease funding grants to the Chicago Police Department that had been approved in the Obama administration because Chicago city officials were not cooperating with federal immigration officials. The DOJ contended that Chicago officials were contributing to lawlessness by refusing...
Read MoreFor most Americans, Independence Day means firecrackers and cookouts. The Declaration of Independence—whose proclamation, on July 4, 1776, we celebrate—doesn't feature. Contemporary Americans are less likely to read it now that it’s easily available on the Internet, than when it relied on horseback riders for its distribution. It is fair to say that the Declaration...
Read MoreThe political fiasco that unfolded last week as President Donald Trump and the Republican House leadership failed to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, is attributable as much to the failure of politics as it is to the failure of politicians to understand the constitutional role of the federal government. Republicans...
Read MoreI have spent this past week watching the Senate Judiciary Committee interrogating U.S. Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch. Judge Gorsuch is President Donald Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. The vacancy was created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia more than 13 months ago. The Supreme Court is currently generally...
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[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively on VDARE.com.] Inevitably, a federal judge (William M. Conley, nominated by Obama) is trying to block President Trump’s revised travel ban [Judge: Revised Trump ban cannot be enforced on Syrian family, by Todd Richmond, AP, March 11 2017]. This is just the next shot in what...
Read MoreOver the past weekend, Trump administration officials offered harsh criticisms of the judicial interference with the enforcement of the president's immigration order. The Jan. 27 order suspended the immigration privileges of all refugees from Syria indefinitely and all immigrants from seven designated countries for 90 days. After a federal district judge in Seattle enjoined the...
Read MoreLast week, in a public courtroom in the federal courthouse in Seattle, the states of Washington and Minnesota -- after suing President Donald Trump, alleging injury caused by his executive order that suspended the immigration of all people from seven foreign countries -- asked a federal judge to compel the president and all those who...
Read MoreLast week, President-elect Donald Trump re-emphasized the approach he will take in enforcing the nation's immigration laws, which is much different from the manner of enforcement utilized by President Barack Obama. The latter pointedly declined to deport the 5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States who are the parents of children born here --...
Read MoreNine Things Obama Could Do Before Leaving Office to Reveal the Nature of the National Security State
In less than seven weeks, President Barack Obama will hand over the government to Donald Trump, including access to the White House, Air Force One, and Camp David. Trump will also, of course, inherit the infamous nuclear codes, as well as the latest in warfare technology, including the Central Intelligence Agency’s fleet of killer drones,...
Read MoreWhat if on Thanksgiving Day there is more to be fearful about than there is to be thankful for? What if our political season from hell is not over but merely transformed? What if the election season through which we all just suffered is a portent of things to come? What if the election was...
Read MoreWhat if the Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of government is to protect our natural rights? What if natural rights are the freedoms we enjoy without neighbors or strangers or government interfering? What if those freedoms are listed in part in the Bill of Rights? What if the government is supposed to keep...
Read More"No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." -- Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The clash in American history between liberty and safety is as old as the republic itself. As far back as 1798, notwithstanding the lofty goals and individualistic values of the Declaration of...
Read MoreIn 2014, President Barack Obama signed 12 executive orders directing various agencies in the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security to refrain from deporting some 4 million adult immigrants illegally present in the United States if they are the parents of children born here or legally present here and if they hold a job,...
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How the United States Became a Prisoner of War and Congress Went MIA
Let’s face it: in times of war, the Constitution tends to take a beating. With the safety or survival of the nation said to be at risk, the basic law of the land -- otherwise considered sacrosanct -- becomes nonbinding, subject to being waived at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared, panicky,...
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An address delivered to the Libertarian Party of Florida on March 23, 2016 in Destin, Florida
To answer the question that is the title, we have to know of what the US consists. Is it an ethnic group, a collection of buildings and resources, a land mass with boundaries, or is it the Constitution. Clearly what differentiates the US from other countries is the US Constitution. The Constitution defines us as...
Read More"There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all." -- Justice Antonin Scalia (1936-2016) After the San Bernardino massacre on Dec. 2, 2015, the FBI lawfully acquired the cellphone of one of the killers and persuaded a federal...
Read MoreWhen the sad news came of the sudden death this past weekend of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, I wept for my friend. We had developed a happy friendship during the past 15 years, one which I had selfishly hoped would endure. He permitted his friends to see all of him. We knew him...
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Former Fox News Channel broadcaster Glenn Beck, now of The Blaze TV, has been warning theatrically of an inchoate catastrophe should the country choose Donald J. Trump “as its next president.” Trump “will be a monster much, much worse" than Barack Obama, says Beck. Worse than George W. Bush? Will Trump be worse than the...
Read MoreThe nation's attention turned to Oregon this week when a group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom seized control of part of a federal wildlife refuge. The citizens were protesting the harsh sentences given to members of the Hammond ranching family. The Hammonds were accused of allowing fires set on their property to spread onto...
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America, as one wag put it, is a “post-constitutional” country. Even worse, a plurality of Americans has now turned, en masse, against the First Principles of its founding. The organizing principle that currently informs American thinking is statism. It’s the state über alles: its laws, and the foot soldiers that enforce hundreds of thousands of...
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I’m going to move to Mexico. I swear I am. Except that I already have. Well, I’m going to move there twice. It’s to get away from Hussein Obama. Who is this President? How did we get him? Does he have anything in common with me? Is there anything even American about him? He is...
Read More"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." -- Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution In 2008, the Supreme Court laid to rest the once-simmering dispute over the meaning of the Second Amendment. In an opinion...
Read MoreWhat if the government's goal is to perpetuate itself? What if the real levers of governmental power are pulled by agents and diplomats and bureaucrats behind the scenes? What if they stay in power no matter who is elected president or which political party controls Congress? What if the frequent public displays of adversity between...
Read More"If the law supposes that, the law is a ass -- a idiot." Charles Dickens gave that line to Mr. Bumble in "Oliver Twist." And it sums up the judgment of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis about the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision, which said the 14th Amendment guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. Davis...
Read MoreThe tone of the debate over the nation's immigration laws has taken an ugly turn as some office-seekers offer solutions to problems that don't exist. The natural rights of all persons consist of areas of human behavior for which we do not need and will not accept the need for a government permission slip. We...
Read MoreIn my column for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta I wrote: “A number of legal scholars have made the irrelevant point that the Magna Carta protected rights of the Church, nobles, and free men who were not enserfed, a small percentage of the population in the early 13th century. We hear the same about...
Read MoreCan the president kill you? The short answer is: Yes, but not legally. Yet, President Obama has established a secret process that involves officials from the Departments of Justice and Defense, the CIA, and the White House senior staff whereby candidates are proposed for execution, and the collective wisdom of the officials then recommends execution...
Read MoreThe turmoil over the efforts by the State of Indiana to make lawful the decisions by operators of public accommodations to decline their services based on their stated religious views has died down because the legislature amended the offending parts of its legislation so that the new law prohibits denying services based on sexual orientation,...
Read MoreThe Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2015 is constitutionally infirm and legally troublesome. The circuitous constitutional route that brought about this statute began in 1990 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment may not be used as a defense to violating the general laws of the land....
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