ArcaMax

"Those who have sown the wind shall reap the whirlwind."

-- Hosea 8:7

The federal antipathy to compliance with the Constitution is well known and well documented. Presidents have declared war in contravention of the constitutional command that only Congress may do so. Congress itself has enacted legislation in areas that the drafters of...Read more

"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy ...

She might become the dictatress of the world,

But she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit."

-- John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

In the middle of his term as Secretary of State, the future president John Quincy Adams addressed a joint session of Congress. What ...Read more

"Every move you make

And every vow you break

Every smile you fake

Every claim you stake

I'll be watching you."

-- "Every Breath You Take," song by The Police

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to privacy. Like other amendments in the Bill of Rights, it doesn't create the right; it limits government ...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

In the months following the attacks of 9/11, the government laid the blame for orchestrating them on Osama bin Ladin. Then, after it murdered bin Ladin, the government decided that the true mastermind was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

By the time of bin Ladin's death, Mohammed had already been tortured by CIA agents for three years at various black ...Read more

Sometime before he withdrew from the presidential race, President Joe Biden secretly reaffirmed his own self-willed and self-created authority to kill persons in other countries, so long as the CIA and its military counterparts have "near certainty" that the target of the homicide is a member of a terrorist organization. That standard was ...Read more

"Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction."

-- Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

In December 1776, just six months after the Declaration of Independence had been signed and a year and a half into the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine sensed a desperation throughout the colonies. It prompted him to write a candid and now iconic ...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

In his famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1928 called the right to be left alone the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. He was referring to the right to be left alone from the government -- a right that today we call privacy.

Olmstead was involved in ...Read more

When a presidential debate devolves into an argument over golf scores and afterward the public argues about the candidates' mental acuity or personal honesty, when the question for voters is who is the sharper debater rather than who would be more faithful to the Constitution, when both major party candidates support mass surveillance, ...Read more

"I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude."

-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

It wasn't until 1969 that the Supreme Court's modern First Amendment jurisprudence made it clear that whenever there is a clash between the government and a person over the constitutionality of the person's speech, the courts will give every ...Read more

What if the government is a myth? What if it doesn't produce what we pay it for? What if it fails to safeguard our lives, liberties and property from its own agents? What if nothing changes after these failures and after elections? What if we're stuck with it?

What if the National Security Agency -- the federal government's 60,000-person strong...Read more

Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged? Can the United States legally attack an ally?

These questions should be front and center in a debate over the U.S. involvement in Ukraine. Sadly, there has been no great ...Read more