Tag: principles

Principle Above Politics: Conscience Is Forever

  

Bill Clinton was acquitted of impeachment charges in February 1999. The next month, I was in Washington, DC, attending a conference on constitutional history. It included a session in the chamber of the Supreme Court. I was thrilled to be there. Years before, while earning my doctorate at American University, I had worked in the Supreme Court history office and had even sat in on one of the cases presented to the Court. The thrill, though, disappeared as I listened… Read more »

Compromises at the Constitutional Convention: Principled?

  

When is compromise right? When is it wrong? When I look at historical compromises, I try to apply this rule: A compromised principle leads to unrighteousness, but a principled compromise is a step closer to the principle’s ideal. Let’s take the Constitutional Convention as an example. The delegates who comprised the convention that led to our current Constitution had to grapple with a number of controversial issues. The two most prominent were how to carry out proper representation and how… Read more »

Here’s What Concerns Me

  

It’s a very easy thing to loathe politics; it can be a very loathsome thing, exposing as it does the basest of human interactions: petty jealousies, outsized egos; personal insults; the precedence of expediency over principle. I do understand why people want to avoid it. All along the political spectrum there are people who operate at the lowest level of morality and who seem to delight in tearing down those with whom they disagree. Some of those people do so… Read more »

Who Was Harry Freeman? And Why Should You Care?

  

Harry Freeman is not a household name; most Americans have no idea who he was. Why should anyone care? Well, Harry Freeman was an example of just how devoted someone can be to a political party regardless of the drastic changes that might occur. Whittaker Chambers knew Harry Freeman. When Chambers joined the open Communist Party in America in the late 1920’s, he worked alongside Freeman at the party’s newspaper, The Daily Worker. Allow me to draw from what I’ve… Read more »

Declaring Rights in Virginia in 1776

  

The year 1776 is auspicious for the United States because that’s when we became the United States. Most of our attention in commemorating that event centers on the Declaration of Independence, and rightly so. I’ll have something to say about that document in a post next month. Another document, which was at Thomas Jefferson’s elbow when writing the Declaration, came out of his home state of Virginia a month earlier, but far too many of our citizens are ignorant of… Read more »

Discernment in the Trump Era

  

Feelings run high on Donald Trump . . . on both sides. What I’m seeing on the Left and on some parts of the Right is practically an unthinking response to anything Trump does. The “Resist” movement won’t rest until Trump is impeached or, as in the case of New York City’s “Shakespeare in the Park” program, possibly assassinated. The group put on a modern version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with “Julius” looking suspiciously like the current president. It was… Read more »

Will Honest Critique Be Allowed?

  

I’m trying to like Donald Trump. I really am. Why does he insist on making it so difficult? I’m not the least bit upset that he spoke with the elected leader of Taiwan. We never should have treated that nation the way we have. So, good for him on that count. Taiwan is not Iran or Cuba. I’m pleased with a number of his nominations for his administration. If they are allowed to do what they believe, we will be… Read more »