Category Archives: Founding Fathers

A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson & The Anglo-Saxon Tradition

Founding Fathers, Government, History, IMMIGRATION, Liberty, Natural Law, The West

The excerpt is from my new WND.COM column, “A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson,” a version of which was first published by VDARE.COM:

“The Declaration of Independence—whose proclamation, on July 4, 1776, we celebrate this Saturday—has been mocked out of meaning.

To be fair to the liberal establishment, ordinary Americans are not entirely blameless. For most, Independence Day means firecrackers and cookouts. The Declaration doesn’t feature. In fact, contemporary Americans are less likely to read it now that it is easily available on the Internet, than when it relied on horseback riders for its distribution.

Back in 1776, gallopers carried the Declaration through the country. Printer John Dunlap had worked “through the night” to set the full text on “a handsome folio sheet,” recounts historian David Hackett Fischer in “Liberty and Freedom.” And President (of the Continental Congress) John Hancock urged that the “people be universally informed.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, called it “an expression of the American Mind.” An examination of Jefferson’s constitutional thought makes plain that he would no longer consider the mind of a McCain, an Obama, or the collective mentality of the liberal establishment, “American” in any meaningful way.” …

The complete column, “A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson,” is now on WND.COM.

Miss the weekly column on WND.COM? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine every Saturday.

Statists Struggle With States’ Rights

Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, States' Rights

From my new, column, which you can now read on Taki’s Magazine (“10th Division”):

“States across the country are rediscovering and reasserting the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Quaint, I know, but to the federal government were delegated only limited and enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8): 17 to be precise. Most everything it does these days is extra-constitutional.

Forced to accept piles of paper from the federales, for “federally mandated increases in spending on Medicaid and education,” some states have realized that the price is too steep. Not only would they have to obey the occupying force; but the states could expect to splinter under the statist burden of a panoply of programs prescribed by the Healer-in-Chief, who would play them like hooked fish.

So, governors and state representatives are invoking that which ought to have been the law of the land: the ingenious Tenth Amendment

Miss the weekly column on WND? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine, every Saturday.

Statists Struggle With States' Rights

Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, States' Rights

From my new, column, which you can now read on Taki’s Magazine (“10th Division”):

“States across the country are rediscovering and reasserting the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Quaint, I know, but to the federal government were delegated only limited and enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8): 17 to be precise. Most everything it does these days is extra-constitutional.

Forced to accept piles of paper from the federales, for “federally mandated increases in spending on Medicaid and education,” some states have realized that the price is too steep. Not only would they have to obey the occupying force; but the states could expect to splinter under the statist burden of a panoply of programs prescribed by the Healer-in-Chief, who would play them like hooked fish.

So, governors and state representatives are invoking that which ought to have been the law of the land: the ingenious Tenth Amendment

Miss the weekly column on WND? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine, every Saturday.

Updated: Life, Liberty, And PROPERTY (‘Own It’)

Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Liberty, Political Philosophy, Private Property

“I like Fox-News broadcaster Glenn Beck. The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom.

From this scrupulous soul I’d like to hear less about ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ and more of the original Lockean phrase, from which Thomas Jefferson drew when writing the Declaration of Independence.

‘No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions,’ wrote the British philosopher John Locke, in the Second Treatise on Civil Government.

By ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ Jefferson meant property plus; the right to take action to acquire what is required to sustain and satisfy life. Instead, the founder bequeathed us a vagueness that has helped undermine the foundation of civilization: private property.

By and large, modern-day Americans have twisted the famous phrase, and have turned into looters who pursue happiness at the expense of the producers.

Elsewhere, Jefferson affirmed the natural right of ‘all men’ to be secure in their enjoyment of their ‘life, liberty and possessions.’ But in the Declaration, somehow, he opted for the inclusiveness of ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ rather than cleave to the precision of ‘property.'” …

More about why you should “shout ‘life, liberty, and property’ from the proverbial rooftops,” in my new WND.com column, now on Taki’s Magazine, titled aptly, “Own It.” Remember: If you miss the column on WND, you can catch it Saturdays on Taki’s Magazine.