ArcaMax

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because the law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

As if nanny state governors had...Read more

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most.
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) "In Memoriam"

The death of a loved one is never easy. Three of my grandparents died during my college years; my maternal grandmother died much later at...Read more

In 2019, agents of the federal and state governments persuaded judges to issue 99% of all requested intercepts. An intercept is any type of government surveillance -- telephone, text message, email, even in-person. These are intercepts that theoretically are based on probable cause of crime, as is required by the Fourth Amendment to the ...Read more

During the darkest days of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, the British-born-turned-American political philosopher, wrote of his adopted country, "These are the times that try men's souls." He was referring to the hard choices that were facing the colonists.

History is filled with hard choices. They are often made hard by fear -- fear ...Read more

Since the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the determination of President Donald Trump to fill her Supreme Court seat before Election Day with the traditionalist Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the concept of court packing has reared its head. The phrase "court packing" is a derogatory reference to legislation that alters the number of ...Read more

What if we all start a return to normal life now that the government says the worst of the pandemic is behind us? What if we all make conscious choices to move about as before or to stay sheltered, based on our own exercise of our own informed free wills and not on the basis of governmental edicts? What if each of us decides if it is healthier ...Read more

"If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned." -- Justice George Sutherland (1862 to 1942)

Late last week, the Supreme Court of Michigan -- the state's highest and final court -- invalidated the pandemic executive orders of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as well ...Read more

"The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of the people." -- Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980)

With President Donald Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- is back in the news. Barrett expressed constitutional misgivings...Read more

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court for 27 years until her death late last week. Her tenacious advocacy for the rights of those she perceived as legally disadvantaged, combined with her outsized intellect, moved the vector of the court's direction as few justices have in history. She championed the rights of women and members...Read more

A federal court in Pennsylvania this week has become the first in the nation to rule that the lockdown, social distancing and essential workplace regulations imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf are unconstitutional.

The judge found that the governor's orders were so inconsistent, so bereft of any rational basis or scientific model, and so ignorant of the ...Read more

I was appalled at the allegations against President Donald Trump leveled in a recent article in The Atlantic. The article claimed that the president referred to American soldiers killed in World War I and buried in France as "losers" and "suckers." It also offered that the president is disdainful in general of military personnel who have been ...Read more

All states have laws that prohibit assault and destruction of others' property. States and the federal government also have laws that prohibit bystanders from encouraging others to engage in violence. The latter is known as incitement.

When violence has erupted in American streets between groups supporting President Donald Trump and those ...Read more

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." -- Unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service -- formerly the Post Office -- is an American institution rooted in the Constitution. To the framers, the idea that the ...Read more