ArcaMax

A recent Supreme Court oral argument about the liability of the FBI for invading and terrorizing the wrong home has brought to mind the dark and dangerous history of law enforcement.

The practice of British agents rummaging through the private possessions on the private property of anyone against that person's will was a significant ...Read more

What if the writ of habeas corpus has been guaranteed to the British since 1215 and to Americans since 1789? What if this encompasses the right of every person who is confined by the government against his or her will to compel the jailer to justify the confinement before a neutral judge?

What if this right is personal and individual and ...Read more

Among the lesser-known holes in the Constitution cut by the Patriot Act of 2001 was the destruction of the "wall" between federal law enforcement and federal spies. The wall was erected in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which statutorily limited all federal domestic spying to that which was authorized by the Foreign ...Read more

Last week the FBI arrested a Wisconsin state judge as she was walking into the courthouse where she works. The feds had alerted the media -- but not the judge -- to this event, and they arrived and recorded the arrest.

The standard and preferred practice when arresting a nonviolent person who is a public official with deep roots in the ...Read more

A little over a year ago, I spent a week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a university-like organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last year, the Academy addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on the 750th anniversary of his death.

This...Read more

"That God, which ever lives and loves,

One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event

To which the whole creation moves."

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

When American colonists were oppressed by British monarchs, the word most frequently uttered in pamphlets, editorials and sermons was not "safety" or "taxes"; it ...Read more

"No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of [the Constitution's] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."

-- Ex Parte Milligan, Supreme Court of the United States, 1866.

President Donald Trump has recently imposed a national sales tax on ...Read more

The U.S. Constitution was crafted in 1787 both to establish a new central government and to limit it. Some of the limitations are direct, some are subtle, and some are hidden. The chief instrument of limitation is the separation of powers, the brainchild of James Madison.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia called the separation of powers the most ...Read more

"I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it."

-- Voltaire (1694-1778)

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists' grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints about infringement upon speech.

In those days, ...Read more

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and ...Read more

When an invitation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the renowned Professor Alexander Dugin to visit them in Moscow arrived in my inbox, it was actually the culmination of a series of emails and telephone calls from Russian-American friends giving me a heads up. Still, it startled me.

So, last week, I flew to Dubai in the United ...Read more

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion,

and only one person were of the contrary opinion,

Mankind would be no more justified

In silencing that one person,

Than he, if he had the power,

Would be justified in silencing mankind."

-- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

The world is filled with self-evident truths -- truisms -- that ...Read more

I have often thought that after Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson was our worst president. By worst is meant least faithful to the Constitution and most destructive of personal liberty.

With the exception of Lincoln's dictatorship -- during which the federal government used violence to crush the states' natural right to secede from a union they ...Read more