The Foundry

Posts Tagged ‘Founding Fathers’

• The Rules Simply Don’t Apply to Liberals

  Posted January 22nd, 2010 at 12:27pm in Ongoing Priorities with 14 comments

  In the wake of the Massachusetts election on Tuesday night, liberals in Congress have once again embarked on a course to change the rules to fit their needs.  Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) intends to introduce a bill that would eliminate the 60 vote threshold to end debate in the U.S. Senate. Ironically, the timing of [...] More

• Filibusters and Our Founders

  Posted January 12th, 2010 at 2:46pm in First Principles, Ongoing Priorities with 8 comments

  Yesterday Thomas Geoghegan argued in The New York Times that the Senate filibuster is “at worst, unconstitutional and, at best, at odds with the founders’ intent.” However, the most rudimentary reading of the Constitution suggests that the Founders wanted the passage of legislation to be exceedingly difficult in order to prevent a slim majority [...] More

• We Still Hold These Truths: The Progressive Assault on America

  Posted November 19th, 2009 at 12:26pm in First Principles with 11 comments

  This is the second of a four part series. Matthew Spalding’s new book, We Still Hold These Truths, examines the timeless principles and practical wisdom that have been the source of America’s monumental success. In this video segment Spalding discusses the progressive assault on the Founders’ principles that began more than a century ago and that continues—indeed, [...] More

• ‘We Still Hold These Truths’: Live on the Bill Bennett Show

  Posted November 3rd, 2009 at 10:39pm in First Principles with 0 comments

  Do Americans have a right to government-run health care? Is it “the consent of the governed” to be forced to obey the dictates of unelected bureaucrats? Does religious liberty allow our government to impose a secular culture?  These are among great questions of the day to which Americans ought to apply the guiding principles of [...] More

• Is Healthcare a ‘Right’?

  Posted August 21st, 2009 at 12:24pm in First Principles, Health Care with 43 comments

  Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) likes to refer to healthcare as “a fundamental right and not just a privilege.” But what exactly does he mean? Is there really a ‘right’ to healthcare? Debate over the purported ‘right to healthcare’ has quieted recently. Or rather, with concrete proposals under consideration, ‘rights questions’ have been drowned [...] More

• ‘The Death of Representative Gov’t…’

  Posted July 29th, 2009 at 2:57pm in First Principles with 7 comments

  From NRO’s “The Corner“: Thousand-page bills, unread and indeed unwritten at the time of passage, are the death of representative government. They also provide a clue as to why, in a country this large, national government should be minimal and constrained. Even if you doubled or trebled the size of the legislature, the Conyers conundrum would [...] More

• Happy in the Confirmation of Our Independence and Sovereignty

  Posted July 3rd, 2009 at 9:40am in First Principles with 3 comments

  On December 23, 1783, General George Washington resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to Congress, which met then in the State House in Annapolis. Both Washington and Congress recognized the importance of the occasion, and the ceremony was carefully organized by a Protocol Committee headed by Thomas Jefferson. The scene was described by James [...] More

• Morning Bell: The Left’s Assault on the Declaration of Independence

  Posted July 3rd, 2009 at 9:01am in First Principles with 57 comments

  There has been a lot of change in recent months – a $787 billion spending bill, a budget exceeding $3 trillion, government ownership of auto manufacturers, government-imposed caps on earnings, legislation imposing limits on economic activity in America under the name of environmental justice. It is increasingly difficult for conservatives to sustain any audacity of [...] More

• The Meaning of America

  Posted July 2nd, 2009 at 2:12pm in First Principles with 2 comments

  The Fourth of July presents the occasion not only to celebrate our great country, but also to reflect upon its meaning. The division between today’s liberals and conservatives is not irreducible to policy differences. It is indicative of a deeper debate about the meaning of America. Such debates are not new. Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, often celebrated [...] More

• Charlie Gibson is Utterly Alien

  Posted September 12th, 2008 at 12:36pm in Family and Religion, First Principles with 8 comments

  Speaking at the Voters Values Summit, Newt Gingrich lit into Charlie Gibson and ABC News for their “stunningly distorted interview” of Gov. Sarah Palin last night. Gingrich focused his criticism on Gibson’s butchering of a Palin quote about U.S. policy in Iraq. Here is how Gibson butchered Palin’s quote last night: GIBSON: You said recently, in [...] More