Musings of a Patriot

Tag: change congress

  • George Washington’s Farewell Address

    I have always had great respect for George Washington, but in the cannon of political doctrine his Farewell Address should be considered equal to the doctrine of the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament and the prophecy in the book of Revelation in the New Testament. Washington himself boils down the topics of his…

  • Why Bob Bennett?

    I went to the organizing convention for the Utah Republican Party on Saturday. While I was there in the nidst of hundreds of people campaigning for candidates and causes among the state delegates I made a point to talk to a variety of people sporting Bob Bennett t-shirts. With four primary challengers at present it…

  • Our Broken Debate

    The big question in the debate over torture right now is “who knew what and when did they know it?” That question is being used by Republicans right now to implicate Speaker Nancy Pelosi as having done nothing with what she knew and thus being complicit in any torture committed under the previous administration. The…

  • 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. 64 – 65

    In discussing the powers of the senate related to the making of treaties John Jay outlines a truth that undercuts one of the major arguments against term limits. In Federalist No. 64 he states: providing for the frequent elections of senators in such a way as to obviate the inconvenience of periodically transferring those great…

  • Con-Gress

    As much as it may be fashionable to blame congress for many of our problems I think it is fair to take an unbiased look at how congress functions. As I began to do so I realized that no matter how numerous my complaints about the legislation we hear about and the legislative process itself…

  • Federalist Nos. 59 – 61

    Federalist Papers  59, 60, and 61 discuss the power of Congress to regulate the elections of members of Congress. This power is meant to be exercised by the individual states while allowing the federal government to make some blanket provisions to ensure some uniformity within the union. Some people worried that Congress might be able…