“Economic fairness” is expected to be the topic of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, during which he will likely sound the same populist notes of progressivism that America heard last month in his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Fairness, though, is in the eye of the beholder. And in the President’s eye, “fairness” means equality of outcomes, not of opportunity. He says he will “lay out a blueprint for an American economy that’s built to last,” but if his Kansas speech is any indication, that …
Certain Supreme Court cases haunt the American people. When particular issues land on the Court’s docket, some Americans proclaim that, of course, the Court will rule this way because, don’t you know, there is a precedent for that. Free speech, free exercise, the Commerce Clause, and abortion—these are only a few of the issues that cause Americans on the left and the right to hold their breaths and wonder, “Will this be the case where the Court overturns (fill in the blank case). Is Americans’ concern with precedents misplaced? Is …
Supporters of Ron Paul have re-launched an old ad promoting the old idea of American isolationism. “We now are a nation known to start war,” Paul is quoted as saying. “We feel compelled because of our insecurity that we have to go over and attack these countries to maintain our empire.” The message here (and repeated elsewhere) is that Paul’s isolationism is aligned with the Founding Fathers and “what is truly American and truly constitutional.” Not only is this refrain a gross misrepresentation of American history but it offers dangerously …
Unemployment is up, inflation has risen, housing prices have stalled, and bankruptcies are at a record high. The price of oil is through the roof, we are on dangerous territory with Iran, and the great communist nation on the other side of the world is on our heels. Meanwhile, the President of the United States still doesn’t understand why Americans will not simply pull themselves out of their funk. Welcome to the year 1980. The resemblance between 1980 and 2012 doesn’t stop at economic conditions and foreign troubles. The year …
Martin Luther King Day has arrived once again, and like clockwork, liberals are invoking King’s name to support their causes. In an e-mail to activists, Obama’s former “green czar,” Van Jones, calls King the “original Occupier.” He urges activists to use MLK day meet-ups to energize left-wing campaigning for 2012. Despite these efforts, conservatives should not surrender King’s legacy to the left. Conservatives, of course, have reservations about certain aspects of King’s legacy. For one, he became too close, later in his career, to the welfare state. He was enamored …
Free-market capitalism is losing supporters these days. Wall Street occupiers blame banks, financial firms, and Wall Street for the bad economy. President Obama derides free markets, in true straw-man fashion, as you’re-on-your-own economics with “a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can.” Even some Republican presidential candidates have inveighed against capitalism. What about the Founders? What did they think about free-market capitalism? Although the term capitalism was scarcely in use at the time of the Founding, the Founders supported the principle of economic liberty underlying it. …
With Congress set to kick off its 2012 session in just a couple of weeks, now is the perfect time to consider what the government’s primary goals should be for the new year. The economy and the election will rightly command the most attention, but we must remember that defending America is always the government’s primary responsibility. To formulate an effective defense strategy for 2012, Congress and the President should not only consider military funding and strategy but, more importantly, how to properly balance national security and liberty. In the …
This week, President Obama made several recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But here’s the catch: The Senate was in session, not in recess. As Heritage’s Todd Gaziano and Edwin Meese argue, President Obama’s unilateral determination that the Senate’s pro forma sessions were not real undermines the separation of powers. This is the opportunity to remember what the separation of powers is and why it matters. The principle of separation of powers states that the executive, legislative, and judiciary powers of government …
Let’s be honest: We all know you’re not really gonna quit smoking, start exercising, and eat more vegetables as of today. As Emerson wryly remarked: “All promise outruns performance.” The key to keeping your New Year’s resolutions is to make them more realistic. Rather than try to drastically change the way you live, why not start with the more modest goal of changing the way you speak? And what better place to start for conservatives than with America’s Founding principles? As conservatives continue to rediscover the Declaration of Independence and …
Americans are blessed to have inherited a constitutional republic. If we are to keep it, we must vigilantly preserve the Constitution upon which it stands. As 2011 draws to a close, we made a list (and checked it twice!) of the year’s most important constitutional trends. Nice: Congress begins to rediscover its (atrophied) constitutional muscles Congress kicked off the year with unprecedented reverence for the Constitution. Congress began the session with a ceremonial reading of the Constitution on the house floor, and then adopted a new rule that requires any proposed …
