Month: May 2008
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Imagine This
I know this will sound crazy but imagine for a minute that Mexico (or some of the 31 states of Mexico) were to petition to become states as part of the United States. (There is nothing in the constitution to stop them so long as they have, or choose to adopt, a republican form of…
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“Republican” Does Not Equal “Conservative”
I was excited to hear The Fall of Conservatism on Radio West and to read the article being discussed. All through the show there was a concern lurking in the back of my brain. When I finally identified it as the unfortunate interchanging of the movement called conservatism with the political party called republican I…
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Justice In Texas
The Texas Supreme Court has just shown what justice looks like: The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the removal of FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch was unwarranted — and the decision to take them was an abuse of judicial discretion. . . . In its ruling, the high court said that state law…
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Right, Left, or Straight
I think that Lyall is right in suggesting that we are asking the wrong question in the education debate. He identifies the current question as “How can we reform, improve our system of education today?” He believes that the correct question if we are to come to the answers we need is “What is the…
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Federalist Nos. 15 – 16
Federalist Nos. 15 and 16 led me to two conclusions. First, Hamilton is accusing those who oppose the Constitution of hoping for a different result by repeating their previous actions (sounds like our modern politics of perpetual incumbency). Second, the confederacy that Hamilton describes that preceded our current (theoretically) Constitutional government sounds a lot like…
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Living Memorials
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am lousy about any traditional holiday celebration, but Memorial Day just passed me by without making any more impression than any other rainy day. No, I’m not bitter at having my plans ruined by the weather – my plans proceeded without any interruption. It’s…
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Changing the System
The Ogden Standard Examiner had a great guest commentary by the chairwoman of the Weber County Democratic Party. LaFray Kelley asks a good question: Why should the presence or absence of an ex-Massachusetts governor on the ballot for president have any influence on your judgment over how well your local state legislators have done in…
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Power as an End
Cal Thomas sums up America’s current political situation quite succinctly: Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. Duncan complains that conservative, pro-life, pro-gun Democrats won three special elections by stealing GOP issues. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues,” Duncan told the New York Times. “We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt…
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A Step In The Right Direction
I was disappointed today when I heard news of a hearing in the Texas-FLDS fiasco where a mother was trying to get custody of her nine month old baby. What surprised me was the age of the child since my understanding was that mothers of children under 1 year had been allowed to stay with…
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Federalist Nos. 13 – 14
Federalist No. 13 left me with imagining one of two conclusions based on the following statement: Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole. The two conclusions that I can draw…