Category Archives: Constitution

If there is one clear distinction between western constitutional systems and the various dictatorships and theocracies around the globe, it is the formers’ emphasis on process. Indeed, we might justifiably characterize our Bill of Rights as a restatement of your mother’s admonition that how you do something is just as important as what you choose to do. ?The ends do not justify the means? is a fundamental American precept.
Continue reading “Ends and Means”

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There is an old joke that goes something like this: How do you find a needle in a haystack? Why, you burn down the haystack. The joke is unfortunately reminiscent of the infamous Viet Nam explanation that ?We had to burn the village down in order to save it.? In the wake of 9/11, the concern of every American has to be that we root out terrorists without burning down the constitutional village. And so far, the omens are not good.
Continue reading “Terrorism and the Constitution”

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We live in dangerous times. But we are hardly the first to do so. The questions that engage us (or that should engage us) have been the subject of books and essays by great minds for centuries. Too few of us are familiar with those works.
Continue reading “The Past Illuminates the Present”

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There I was, in a rocking chair at the nursing home, where one of my grandsons had come to visit me. The discussion turned nostalgic, as we discussed those years, long past, when I had taught college students about the Bill of Rights.
Continue reading “Remember the Bill of Rights?”

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The nation’s founders realized that judges wouldn’t always be right, but they nevertheless insisted that they be independent. In the system they created, majority rule stops where the Bill of Rights begins. If judges weren’t shielded from the political passions of the day, the founders knew the Bill of Rights would quickly become the "Set of Suggestions."
Continue reading “Assault on Judges”

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