Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
Constitutional Amendment I
The beauty of the amendments in the Bill of Rights is that they are all short enough that I will be comfortable quoting each amendment in its entirety as I write about it. That may not hold as I get to the later amendments. Here is Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an…
-
Constitution of the United States
Having completed a review of each of the 85 Federalist Papers I am excited to finally write about the Constitution of the United States that they were written to promote. My goal is to reduce the Constitution to a very simple outline showing the form of government that we were meant to have. I will…
-
Federalist No. 85
In the last of the Federalist papers, Federalist No. 85, Hamilton concludes by arguing that the preceding papers should demonstrate that the proposed constitution is fundamentally sound, and that it should be ratified regardless of any few faults or reservations that people might have because revision prior to ratification would be more difficult than amendment…
-
Federalist No. 84
In his penultimate federalist paper, Federalist No. 84, Hamilton ties up a few loose ends and once again shows his prescience. As I was reading this thought on the need (or lack thereof) for a Bill of Rights: a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under…
-
Federalist Nos. 80 – 83
Some of the items of discussion in the federalist papers are so obvious that I must conclude that the purpose of these papers was not onyl to answer critics of the proposed constitution, but also to endeavor to generally educate those who had not considered the necessities of government in order that they might make…
-
Federalist Nos. 78 – 79
I had always been taught that the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches were fundamentally equal in power within the federal government (checks and balances etc.) but Federalist No. 78 says otherwise: the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power. I wonder if my understanding is a byproduct of the power…
-
Judicial Appointment
Yesterday I wrote about the president’s power to nominate people for important positions in government. Today we get the news that Justice David Souter will be retiring. (This is doubly convenient as the remaining federalist papers deal with the judicial branch of our government.) I don’t intend to speculate on who the president will nominate…
-
Federalist Nos. 76 – 77
Federalist Nos 76 and 77 discuss the power of the president to nominate people for high government offices. I notice that these papers use some of the very same arguments in defending these powers of the president as were used to defend other powers that were to be vested in the proposed executive. I also…
-
Obama’s First 100
Today is day number 100 for the Obama Administration. This has been a benchmark of measurement for every administration since FDR. There will be lots of stories in the political media attempting to measure how he is doing as a president. This morning on NPR they perfectly captured the measure in only six words: His…
-
Hoping History Holds
Nobody with a political pulse in Utah could be surprised at the news that Sens. Bennett and Hatch plan to run again, especially considering that they both have their campaign websites up and running already (yes, even Hatch for 2012). I have often been discouraged by the assertions of a trusted friend that Hatch is…
Got any book recommendations?