Happiness: The Goal of Life and Government The word “happiness” held deep meaning for America’s Founding Fathers. To them, happiness was not a fleeting feeling or momentary pleasure. It meant living a life of virtue, moral excellence, and liberty within a well‑ordered community. They believed the chief aim of both the individual and the government [...]
Thomas Jefferson Our Founding Fathers’ Government Based on Reason: A New Way of Thinking Self-Evident The words of the Declaration of Independence—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”—are more than a call for freedom. They express a new philosophy, one that changed how people thought about government and truth [...]
How to Interpret Our Founding Fathers A New Way of Seeing the World The Enlightenment was a powerful movement in the 17th and 18th centuries that transformed how people thought about God, nature and what it means to be human. It crossed the Atlantic into the American colonies and deeply shaped the minds of [...]
WHAT WOULD AMERICA BE LIKE IF EVERYONE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE U.S. CONSTITUTION? Some years ago, I was watching a presidential debate on TV and the three leading candidates each contradicted each other regarding a point in our U.S. Constitution. No one seemed to notice the discrepancy, including the moderator and candidates. I realized [...]
Does the National Holiday for Christmas Violate Separation of Church and State? There are religious and non-religious sides to Christmas. This blog will briefly identify a number of these and take a look at how the Constitution has been applied in “separating church and state” as regards the federal holiday of Christmas. What Is Separation [...]
Do the Ten Commandments Belong in Public School Classrooms? Louisiana recently passed a law to post the Ten Commandments in all state public schools. Does posting of the Ten Commandments in Louisiana public schools violate the doctrine of separation of church and state, and the First Amendment? Is Posting the Ten Commandments in Public Schools [...]
What Are the Purposes of the United States Government? If one knew the purposes of our government, they would have a workable yardstick to measure how well our government, its employees and elected officials were doing. And they could make decisions based on what they observed. The Constitution’s Preamble Lists Six Purposes for Our Country [...]
When Was Politics Not a Dirty Word? Most American view politics as a dirty job. Majorities say the political process is dominated by special interests, flooded with campaign cash and mired in partisan warfare. Elected officials are widely viewed as self-serving and ineffective. This quote is from a September 2023 [...]
4th of July Take a moment and get inspired by the language of our Declaration of Independence We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure [...]
How Come Most Americans Don’t Understand the Constitution? In 1787 Americans Read and Understood the Constitution Back in 1787 before our Constitution was ratified, newspapers in every state printed the entire text of the proposed Constitution. These newspaper articles were filled with arguments for and against ratifying the Constitution. Tempers ran high on both [...]
