Free Republic

Twenty-Seventh Amendment: No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

(Ninth in a series of ten. For other articles in this series, click on View all articles by John Armor--and "Blogs by this author.") The eleven amendments which constitute the Bill of Rights are more important than merely a recitation of rights beyond the reach of the federal government. Collectively, they are the third great document of American liberty, after the Declaration and the Constitution. Yes, I said eleven, though you were taught in school there were only ten. There were only ten, back then.... But, seven states demanded amendments to protect individual and states’ rights as a price of...

(Eighth in a series of ten, For other articles in this series, click on ''View all articles by John Armor,'' and "Blogs by this author.") In the short run, one could offer several provisions in the Constitution as the most critical. In the long run, one provision stands out. Without Article V, the amendment provision, the Constitution would have long since failed and been abandoned. Consider the early history of America. Our first government under the Articles of Confederation failed precisely because of its amendment clause. Under Article 13 of the Confederation, Congress could propose amendments which had to be...

Regular Guy Paul linked to an Ann Coulter column suggesting that if we took the vote away from women, we'd never have another Democratic president.  I'm almost tempted to sidetrack this post because I caught a hilarious comment in the comments section that rebutted the notion that fascism is a leftist ideology - it most definitely is - but that's for another day. I'm not even interested in Coulter's comments per se, considering they were mostly tongue-in-cheek, but something that Paul said caught my attention. Generally speaking, I would support repealing all the Constitutional amendments of the 20th century. So...

Last week US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in Detroit, Michigan, ruled that the National Security Agency’s overseas communications intercept program was unconstitutional. This is tied for the worst decision I’ve ever read, in 36 years as a member of the bar, both federal and state. Dozens of pundits have already written about aspects of her decision that are egregiously wrong. Even the august New York Times, which opposes the NSA program and favors Judge Taylor’s result, still has called her opinion “badly reasoned.” It’s important that lawyers, legal writers, and experienced laymen be able to recognize a thoroughly incompetent...

I have been doing a little transcendental meditation on the subject of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, the one that says “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Yet many people among us claim the right to infringe this right of the people. And while meditating my way through the pages of the May issue of America’s First Freedom, the Second Amendment magazine from the NRA, and the excellent ChronWatch article by Matthew...