Musings of a Patriot

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • What Is A Billion

    I got a forwarded email about putting some perspective on what “a Billion” is and how easily politicians throw around numbers on that order of magnitude. Here’s a summary from the email that attempts to put some perspective on the “one billion” figure: A billion seconds ago it was 1959. A billion minutes ago Jesus…

  • Increasing City Council Pay

    The news that our mayor asked city council to raise his pay and theirs got me thinking about this issue more closely than I’ve ever thought about it before. It makes sense that it would be a sensitive issue, but even in the private sector I’m a bit leery of giving someone the power to…

  • Federalist Nos. 11 – 12

    Federalist Nos. 11 – 12 follow the same overarching argument that many of their predecessors followed. It can be boiled down to the truths concerning economies of scale. A larger union has great advantages over a smaller nation in many aspects of government. Number 12, which deals with government revenue, reminded me of a few…

  • Re: Growth Will Force a Lake Bridge

    It must be nice to be paid to publish your opinions – especially when there is nobody to dispute your position. With the power of the press you get to proclaim who is right and who is wrong, and you get to make your living taking the time to make a considered opinion not only…

  • Picking Up the Pace

    I realized yesterday that I have been losing steam on my review of the Federalist papers partly because the idea of 84 posts is rather daunting. I also realize that I am not obligated to break them up exactly as they were published. I have determined that I could have covered 2 – 5 in…

  • Fortune 535

    Check out the Sunlight Foundation’s Fortune 535. It gives numbers of the net worth of each member of Congress based on congressional reporting requirements. Some of the numbers won’t be very surprising, but others will probably make you take a second look. In any case, make sure you do more than just look at the…

  • Federalist No. 10

    A larger republic would be less susceptible to factions and the multi-level structure of government would allow for issues of local concern to be solved at a local level with only “the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national.” But the advantage of a larger republic breaks down when large groups of people…

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