Musings of a Patriot

Category: National

  • The Issue of Secession

    Is the lack of a constitutional provision for secession a problem? What would such a provision look like? I would like to explore these questions to see what it reveals about secession and about our nation.

  • Political Sacred Cows

    Whenever someone assigns one thing as unassailable – whether it’s HAFB, the importance of seniority, the idea that all elected officials are crooks who should be replaced, or even the original text of the U.S. Constitution – it eventually leads them to make decisions that are undesirable in the long run.

  • Politics vs Economics

    I am not surprised that there are big ideas that make perfect sense from an economic perspective which are politically unpopular – after all, doing what has been deemed to be politically possible has led us to a dire economic position.

  • Perspective on Palin Endorsing Hatch

    I was a little surprised at the news that Sarah Palin had endorsed Orrin Hatch. It’s not that I had expected her to endorse Dan Liljenquist, just that I would not have expected her to see an entrenched, entitled incumbent as the type of person who could fix what’s wrong in Washington. As I thought…

  • We Need a New Generation in Washington

    Investors Business Daily has a pro-Hatch propaganda piece up that deserves a few tweaks. First, the headline says that republicans must gain control of Congress for the economy to recover. Do we really need to remind everyone that Republicans had almost uninterrupted control of Congress from 1995 to 2007. Had Republicans retained control of Congress…

  • Campaign Platform of the President the Nation Needs

    The other day I was sitting on a bus with time to let my mind wander. I was thinking about our presidential campaign season and the ideas being promoted by our current candidates – including our current president – when I found myself considering what kind of a president I think our nation needs –…

  • Marginal Logic for Same-Sex Marriage

    I’m a big fan of the CATO Institute and their perspective on constitutional government but no matter how much I may generally agree with them, that cannot give them a free pass to use use absolutely terrible logic to promote a position. You’ll have to take my word for it that I would dislike the…

  • Failure of the American Voter

    I’ve been thinking about the massive disconnect between the abysmal ratings that Congress enjoys (8% approval I recently read) and the virtual invincibility of Congressional incumbents (incumbents consistently win 90% of the elections where they seek reelection). I realized that the apparent disconnect was not as stark as it first appeared (11 out of 12…

  • Selective Enforcement of Law

    photo credit: ThreadedThoughts In a not-particularly-surprising move, Arizona passed a very strict law giving police broad powers to crack down on illegal immigration. Equally unsurprising is the backlash from those who worry that rights will get trampled in the enforcement of this law. The biggest complaint is against the provision allowing police to stop anyone…

  • Repeal vs Lawsuit vs Nullification

    photo credit: Smabs Sputzer Ever since the passage of that rancid piece of legislative sausage labeled health care reform Republicans have been talking about repealing the bill. Some even talk about “repeal and replace” as their goal. Alongside that rhetoric (and that’s pretty much all it is at this point) there has been the action…