Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Federalist No. 45
I wish we had a constitutionally limited federal government such as the one that Madison is promoting/defending in Federalist No. 45. the next question to be considered is, whether the whole mass of {the powers transferred to the federal government} will be dangerous to the portion of authority left in the several States. Madison argues…
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Federalist No. 44
Although it is not the central point of Federalist No. 44, I found it very interesting to read the fervent distrust of paper money that the defenders of the Constitution had based on their experience – especially considering our present circumstances of economic uncertainty that are largely due to the instability of paper currency (which…
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The Revolution
After the primary season and the surprises from the Ron Paul campaign I have wanted to read his book, The Revolution – A Manifesto, for quite some time. I had to wait or quite a while before it became available at my library (apparently I was not very early in placing my hold). I was…
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Christmas Present
My wife surprised me for Christmas this year by giving me a pocket edition of the Constitution (which also contained the Articles of Confederation, the Annapolis Convention, the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty, and various other documents) – I was very excited. This morning I was at Lowe’s talking with…
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Who Should Adopt?
The debate over who should be allowed to adopt a child is a sensitive one. We have a system which tries to provide the best situation to children in need of good families, but there are more children than available families under the current definition. I think it is natural to be skeptical of the…
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Federalist Nos. 41 – 43
These papers by Madison cover topics that had previously been addressed by Hamilton in Federalist Nos. 24 – 28, and 30 – 36 (covered here, here, and here). Federalist No. 41 focuses primarily on the issue of standing armies, Federalist No. 42 concerns issues of foreign relations, law enforcement, and interstate commerce, and Federalist No.…
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Human Rights
A post at the Utah Amicus this morning shared a short video based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The video and the overall message is good, but starting at 2:51 in the video the message departs from the reality of human rights and enters the Utopia of idealism. I think it is important…
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Federalist No. 40
It is only very recently that I heard someone express the sentiment that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 exceeded their authority in the Constitution they proposed. I was therefore more interested in reading Federalist No. 40 which addresses this exact question. The conclusion is a resounding dismissal of the charge save in one particular: In…
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Federalist No. 39
Federalist No. 39 seems to contain the central argument that is being addressed in the debate over ratifying the constitution: "But it was not sufficient," say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, "for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the…
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Federalist No. 38
It was very interesting to read in Federalist No. 38 that one primary difference between this Constitution and the constitutions of Greece and Athens (among other examples) is that this one was developed by a group instead of being drawn up by a single respected individual. The bulk of this Federalist paper goes to show…
Got any book recommendations?