I’m always struck by the confident declaration that it was “all just a lie to confuse people” whenever the subject of Hitler and the NSDAP comes up. The standard line is that they were “authoritarian,” “fascist,” or simply “Nazis”—but that they were absolutely not socialists.

Except they were.

If you understand the actual history of socialism, and American high schools do not teach it, you know that Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, progressives, democratic socialists, fascists, national socialists, and the various international labour parties all derived from the same 19th-century political source. There were schisms and fractures, but the different factions still recognized one another as part of the broader socialist family.

You should read the history of the First International and the Second International. Pay attention to how the “left” and “right” of socialism were defined by the socialists themselves. That history includes a range of groups and parties that appear unrelated only because we have been taught, incorrectly, that fascism, communism, and socialism are entirely separate movements and ideologies.

When Mussolini and Hitler said they were socialists, they meant it. Their own speeches and writings, and those of their contemporaries both inside and outside the socialist movement, make this clear. The claim that the socialist label was merely a cynical ploy to attract the working class is a late-20th-century invention—by socialists.

The usual basis for denying their socialism is that they maintained private property and corporations and allowed profits. Notice the key word: allowed. Mussolini and Hitler could have abolished private property and corporations if they had chosen to. Instead, they required those institutions to be subordinated to the state and to serve the state’s purposes. Those who complied were permitted to keep a profit. But that profit existed at the state’s discretion, not as a right of the private citizen. In any meaningful sense, there was no independent private citizen under Fascist Italy or National Socialist Germany.

When Hitler spoke of preserving private property and corporations, it was largely to reassure the German upper classes that they would not meet the fate of their counterparts in Bolshevik Russia.

Those who insist that the Nazis and Fascists were not socialists are usually operating within the Socialist International tradition. They need to disavow fascism in order to present themselves as the “good” socialists, untainted by the “bad” ones. Yet socialism in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Venezuela, and Cuba has produced outcomes at least as destructive, and often worse, than socialism in Germany and Italy.

Ask yourself why certain socialists are so determined to disavow other socialists. You may find a revealing answer.

I strongly recommend reading contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous histories of the Third Reich. Start with William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Then read Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which argues that National Socialism is a predictable outcome of centralized economic planning.

There is much more, but that is a solid starting point.

Further Reading

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer

The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich A. Hayek

The Constitution was ratified by the states as a binding compact. The original 13 states consented through their legislatures. Every state admitted afterward explicitly accepted the same framework. This was never meant to be a temporary or easily discarded agreement.

The Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights was originally a restraint on the federal government. The 14th Amendment changed that by incorporating most of those protections and making them binding on the states as well.

Yet today we see sustained, deliberate resistance in multiple states to core Bill of Rights protections:

• First Amendment (speech, religion, assembly)

• Second Amendment (the current “assault weapon” cases are only the latest example)

• Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment protections in criminal justice and regulatory contexts

When states treat the Bill of Rights as optional, they are rejecting a central part of the constitutional settlement.

Federal Supremacy and Enumerated Powers

The Constitution allocates certain powers to the federal government and explicitly excludes the states from exercising them. Immigration and border control are among the clearest examples of enumerated federal authority. At the same time, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments reserve all other powers to the people and the states.

This structure is deliberate. If a power is properly federal, a governor’s personal or political dislike does not override it. The state has no more authority to nullify that power than it does to ignore the Bill of Rights. Expressing disagreement is legitimate. Active resistance and nullification are not.

Governance Without Representation

The Framers designed the Senate to give the States direct representation in the federal government. Senators were chosen by state legislatures, not the people at large. This was intentional. It gave the states a powerful institutional voice to protect their sovereignty and check federal overreach.

The 17th Amendment changed that. By making Senators directly elected by the people, it nationalized the Senate and largely severed the states’ formal institutional link to the federal government. State legislatures lost their direct leverage. Today, Senators no longer answer to the State at all. They answer primarily to fundraising, national party interests, and popular vote cycles in their state.

One might almost say the States now face governance without representation — a situation eerily reminiscent of the original colonial grievances against King George and Parliament. Ironically, all that might have been required to prevent the American Revolution was giving the colonies a meaningful voice in Parliament. Consider that in light of the States having no direct representation.

Whether one agrees with them or not, the roughly ten Blue States that are most aggressively resisting federal authority clearly do not feel they have meaningful institutional voices in a federal government that now holds large swathes of power. This situation fuels much of the current tension.

The Legal Foundation of the Constitution

It is worth remembering that the original 13 States had to ratify the Constitution in order for it to binding on them. And then every state admitted after the original 13 was required to formally accept the Constitution as a condition of admission. Through their enabling acts and admission resolutions, which are legal and binding, each new state explicitly consented to the constitutional compact and agreed to be bound by it. This was not a casual formality. It was a positive, binding act. The state legislature and people affirmatively chose to join the Union under the terms set by the Constitution.

The Deeper Problem

The entire point of the Constitution is that certain foundational laws, processes, and protections of individual rights are taken off the table. The government, federal and state, is constrained by those limits. And the municipal governments are bound by the State Constitutions. Every layer of our Federal system has a legally binding structure that they are obligated to.

When those governments overstep, we have peaceful mechanisms — elections, legislation, federalism, the courts, and petition for redress of grievances — to enforce the Constitution.

As President Coolidge observed on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the genius of the American system was placing certain rights beyond the reach of government. The Constitution is not a grant of unlimited power to majorities or bureaucracies. It is a deliberate restraint — a document in which We the People removed foundational rights and principles from ordinary political control, and the States agreed to this framework.

The real danger we face today is not simply rogue bureaucrats or overreaching federal agencies. It is the growing willingness of states themselves to nullify portions of the Constitution and ignore enumerated federal powers when it suits them. Whether it is the Bill of Rights or clear areas of federal supremacy such as immigration, some states are effectively declaring that parts of the constitutional compact no longer apply to them.

This is far more corrosive than simple policy disagreement. When states, which were parties to the original compact, begin selectively rejecting the Constitution while still claiming its protections and benefits, they undermine the very foundation of the Union. The peaceful mechanisms designed to resolve such disputes are being bypassed. That path leads not to reform, but to constitutional erosion and eventual fracture.

Observations from the Late Republic
#Observations #LateRepublic #Federalism #TheConstitution

Further Reading

• The Federalist Papers (especially Nos. 10, 39, 45, 51, and 62)

• Randy E. Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty

• Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights Primer

I received an interesting comment on Thursday’s post about the upcoming Supreme Court cases on “assault weapon” bans. The commenter made a point that deserves a full response:

“It is not ‘government’ that is attacking American freedoms. It is an anti-American sliver of bureaucracy. A parasitic piece of the deep state…”

I understand the frustration with the administrative state. But we have to deal with reality as it exists.

The cases before the Supreme Court — Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut) and Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois) — were not the work of rogue bureaucrats. They were passed by elected legislatures, county commissions, and city councils, and enforced by the executive branches of those governments. The same is true in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois, and the District of Columbia.

This is government, state and local, actively infringing on a core constitutional right.

The entire point of the Constitution is that certain foundational laws, processes, and protections of individual rights are taken off the table. The government is constrained by those limits. When it oversteps those bounds, we have peaceful mechanisms to enforce the Constitution. Those mechanisms include elections, legislation, federalism, the courts, and direct petition and redress of grievances.

As President Coolidge observed on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the genius of the American system was placing certain rights beyond the reach of government. The Constitution is not a grant of unlimited power to majorities or bureaucracies. It is a deliberate restraint. It is a document in which We the People removed foundational rights and principles from ordinary political control and the States agreed to this governing framework.

It is an important point in all of this that each State either ratified the Constitution or agreed to its rules and constraints when they were admitted to the Union. Now, some of the States want to change the deal. But the Constitution has removed that option from them.

Justice Clarence Thomas has made this point powerfully throughout his tenure on the Court. He consistently argues that the Constitution represents a decision by the people to place certain subjects and rights beyond the ordinary reach of majorities and government officials. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, protected by the Second Amendment, are not suggestions or policy preferences to be balanced away by desire of the government. Rather, they are structural limits on what government is allowed to do, even when majorities want something different.

Calling these actions merely the work of a “sliver of bureaucracy” obscures the truth. We are seeing elected majorities in multiple jurisdictions choosing to override constitutional protections. That is tyranny of the majority, exactly the kind of thing the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent. We must understand what these governments will argue to support violating our rights if we are going to defeat those arguments effectively.

The deep state and unaccountable administrative agencies are real problems. But in these cases, we are also confronting clear exercises of state and local governmental power. We have to name it accurately if we’re going to defend our rights effectively.

The Constitution is the backstop. That’s why these Supreme Court cases matter so much.

Observations from the Late Republic
#Observations #FourthBranch #SecondAmendment #ConstitutionalRights #LateRepublic

Further Reading

• Grant v. Higgins and Viramontes v. Cook County (pending before SCOTUS)

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022)

• Federalist No. 10 (Madison on the dangers of faction and majority tyranny)

But the real story begins much earlier.

In the 4th century, during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great and his successors, the Church formally recognized five major patriarchal sees — the Pentarchy — as the primary centers of Christian authority. These were:

• Rome

• Constantinople

• Alexandria

• Antioch

• Jerusalem

Each traced its origins directly to the Apostles. These were not peripheral outposts. They were the heart of the Christian world.

At this time, the heart of Western Europe — what would become France, England, and Germany — was still largely peripheral to Christianity. Those regions were important, but they were not the civilizational or theological core. Iberia (Spain) was far more significant, as was the wealthy, urbanized East.

By the year 800 AD, only Rome and Constantinople remained under Christian control.

The other three great patriarchal sees — Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — along with the once-thriving Christian heartlands of Syria, Lebanon, Judea, Egypt, and North Africa, had fallen to Islamic conquest. What had been the cradle of Christianity for centuries was now under Muslim rule.

This was not a gentle transition. Contemporary Christian, Jewish, and early Muslim sources describe widespread violence, the destruction or conversion of churches, massacres of resistors, and the imposition of dhimmi status on the conquered populations. Dhimmi were non-Muslims (primarily Christians and Jews) allowed to remain in Islamic lands, but as second-class subjects. They were required to pay the jizya, a special poll tax, and lived under legal disabilities including restrictions on worship, dress, public life, and vulnerability to violent pogroms and forced conversion.

From roughly 800 to 1000 AD and beyond, the Christian world remained largely on the defensive. The various Caliphates and later the Seljuk Turks continued their pressure. Most of Iberia was lost, all of North Africa, the entire Near East, and large portions of Anatolia. France and Italy were repeatedly threatened and invaded. Only after centuries of desperate fighting were the Muslim advances finally stopped and, in some places, slowly pushed back.

This long defensive struggle is the essential context that is so often missing from modern discussions of the Crusades. The Crusades did not begin as unprovoked wars of aggression to seize new lands or control trade routes. They were launched, centuries later, as a belated attempt to recover territories that had been Christian for hundreds of years before the Islamic conquests.

This creates an obvious modern contradiction that many overlook. If the Holy Land (Judea / Syria Palaestina / Jund Filastin) had always been majority-Muslim, why do Jews and Christians worldwide still celebrate it as the ancient homeland of Judaism and the birthplace of Christianity? The reason is simple: because it wasn’t always Muslim. It was conquered.

The Reconquista in Spain followed the same basic pattern — a long struggle to reclaim land that had been Christian before the Moorish invasion of 711.

If your people, your culture, and your faith had been conquered, subjugated, and slowly erased from the map, would you eventually fight to take it back? Even generations later?

That is the question the Crusades force us to confront honestly.

Further Reading for Part 1

• Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (heavily based on primary sources from both sides)

• The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain by Ibn Abd al-Hakam (early Muslim source)

• The Chronicle of Theophanes (Byzantine perspective)

In Tuesday’s post I explained why these cases should be straightforward wins for the Second Amendment under existing Supreme Court precedent. Today let’s look at the other side of the coin: what the government (states and localities defending the bans) will actually argue before the Court.

They are not without arguments. But most of them run head-first into the framework established by Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022).

The Government’s Likely Main Arguments

1. “These are weapons of war” / Military-style rifles They will emphasize that the AR-15 is derived from the military’s M16/M4 and therefore falls outside Second Amendment protection. “This is not the musket your Founders had in mind.”

2. “The AR-15 is unusually dangerous” There is a historical provision for banning weapons that are dangerous and unusual and the government is going to try to use this with the claim that the AR-15 (and similar semi-automatic rifles) are unusually dangerous. They will also point out that the Founders couldn’t have foreseen these sorts of rifles.

3. “AR-15s are not commonly used for self-defense” They will try to shrink “in common use for lawful purposes” down to “in common use for self-defense in the home,” then cite statistics claiming most defensive gun uses involve handguns.

4. “These bans are consistent with historical tradition” They will point to Founding-era laws regulating “dangerous and unusual” weapons, or 19th-century laws on concealed carry, Bowie knives, or trap guns, and argue that modern semiautomatic rifles are analogous.

5. “Public safety demands it” Mass shootings, high-capacity magazines, and the rifle’s effectiveness in rapid fire will be front and center. They will essentially ask the Court to engage in interest balancing: “Even if there is a right, it must yield to modern public safety concerns.”

Why These Arguments Should Fail

• The “weapons of war” claim was already addressed in Heller. The Court made clear that the Second Amendment protects weapons in common use among the people, not just those suitable for militia service. The AR-15 is the most common rifle platform in America and that fact matters more than its military lineage.

• The historical tradition of banning arms in the Founding era and early Antebellum era is extremely limited and focused on dangerous AND unusual. That is, it’s not just that the arm dangerous nor just that it is unusual. It is both. The AR-15 is most certainly not unusual; rather it’s very common and present in probably 20 million households.

• The attempt to narrow “lawful purposes” to self-defense alone contradicts the plain language of Heller and Bruen. Lawful purposes include hunting, sport shooting, competition, and training. The AR-15 dominates those categories.

• There is no clear historical tradition of banning an entire class of commonly owned arms. The Founding generation did not prohibit citizens from owning the most effective firearms available at the time. Trying to stretch obscure 19th-century laws to cover millions of modern rifles is exactly the kind of loose analogical reasoning Bruen warned against.

• Finally, Bruen explicitly rejected interest-balancing tests. The Court is no longer supposed to weigh “how important is this right versus how bad is the problem.” The test is history and tradition. Public safety concerns must be addressed through means that don’t violate the constitutional right.

Bottom Line

The government has plausible-sounding arguments that will appeal to those who already dislike the Second Amendment. But under the Supreme Court’s current framework, they are on very weak ground.

I continue to expect a decision somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2 striking down these bans. The real fight will be over how broadly the opinion is written. A strong, clear opinion could sweep away similar bans in multiple states. A narrower one would still be a win, but would leave more litigation ahead.

This is a big one. I’ll keep following it as the briefing schedule develops.

Further Reading

• Supreme Court Order List (June 30, 2026) - Today’s Orders

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) - full decision

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) - full decision

• Larry Correia – In Defense of the Second Amendment

• The Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel - The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900

#SecondAmendment #SCOTUS #Bruen #Heller #GunRights #AR15

On June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court granted certiorari in two cases, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, that directly challenge bans on AR-15 platform rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms. The Court merged the two cases and told everyone to consider the first (and only) question from the Viramontes petition.

The petition itself is refreshingly clean. It has only one Question Presented:

Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.

This Should Be a Straightforward Win

In my view, this is a very simple case under existing Supreme Court precedent.

1. Banning a firearm is a de facto violation of the Second Amendment. That means the government bears the burden of proof and must defend the ban as constitutional.

2. Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022) are crystal clear: firearms that are in common use for lawful purposes are protected by the Second Amendment.

3. The AR-15 platform is the most popular rifle in America. Millions of law-abiding citizens own them for self-defense, sport shooting, hunting, competition, and training.

4. There is no historical tradition from the Founding era that allowed the government to ban entire classes or types of firearms in common use. None.

Put together, these cases should be straightforward under the framework the Supreme Court has already established.

The Common Dodges and Why They Fail

We already know some states and lower courts will try to twist the Supreme Court’s words. They have attempted to narrow “in common use for lawful purposes” down to “in common use for self-defense only,” then argue that AR-15s are rarely used for home defense and can therefore be banned.

This kind of word game has been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court.

Heller and Bruen do not limit the right to self-defense alone. Lawful purposes include sport shooting, hunting, competition, and training, all areas where the AR-15 platform is used all the time. The Court has also explicitly discarded interest-balancing tests. The question is not whether judges think the gun is “too dangerous” or “not necessary.” The test is historical tradition. And the historical record contains no tradition of banning entire classes of commonly owned arms.

What This Means

If the Supreme Court applies its own precedents consistently, these bans should fall.

I would not be surprised by any outcome from 5-4 to 7-2 in favor of the plaintiffs. I would be utterly shocked by a 5-4 decision for the government, or by a near-unanimous 8-1 or 9-0 ruling for the plaintiffs. A 6-3 decision feels like the most probable result.

This will be one of the most significant Second Amendment cases since Bruen, with the decision expected in 2027.

I’ll be watching this one closely.

Further Reading

• Supreme Court Order List (June 30, 2026) – Today’s Orders

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022)

• Larry Correia – In Defense of the Second Amendment

In all of human history up to the summer of 1776, one assumption undergirded nearly every culture, government, education system, and social norm: humans are not equal.

From the dawn of civilization, hierarchies were the iron law of existence. Pharaohs and emperors ruled as living gods. Kings claimed divine right, their authority descending directly from heaven itself, a doctrine that made resistance to the ruler tantamount to rebellion against God. Slavery was ubiquitous across all cultures, societies, and kingdoms. Indentured servitude was common, and vast populations lived under the heel of monarchs, aristocracies, or warrior elites everywhere. Even in the celebrated ancient experiments with broader rule, such as Athens’ democracy or the Roman Republic, equality was strictly limited. Athenian “citizens” were a tiny fraction of the population; women, slaves, and foreigners had no voice. Rome had its Senate and popular assemblies, but power flowed through patrician families, and the system rested on conquest, clientage, and rigid class distinctions.

Rule by the strongest, the best-born, or the divinely anointed was simply how the world worked. The strong dominated the weak. Birth determined destiny. The idea that ordinary men possessed natural rights that no king or parliament could legitimately violate was almost unthinkable. A very small group of men had said such things—the Enlightenment philosophers—but they had been mostly ignored by the powers that be.

Then, on July 4, 1776, a small group of men in Philadelphia declared something audacious. It was something that had never truly been asserted at the founding of a nation before.

They wrote a document that shook the world to its very foundations: the Declaration of Independence. They declared that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Section 1: What They Actually Said

The Declaration is a masterpiece of Enlightenment reasoning wrapped in moral fire. Jefferson’s famous preamble distills ideas drawn from John Locke and the broader natural rights tradition. The philosophical foundation was clear: rights come from Nature’s God, not from kings or majorities. Governments exist to secure those rights, and when they become destructive of them, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” that government.

This was explosive in 1776. The second part is not a petty rant. The long list of grievances against King George III was real, and he was a tyrant. It is a moral indictment, showing a “long train of abuses and usurpations” designed to establish “absolute Despotism.” From dissolving legislatures to quartering troops to cutting off trade, the signers laid out how the King had broken the implicit contract.

Section 2: The Real Risk

These were not demagogues with armies at their backs. Many were lawyers, merchants, planters—men with everything to lose if King George won. They pledged their “Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor.”

And many paid dearly: homes burned, families harassed, businesses ruined, imprisonment, and in some cases death. Five signers were captured and tortured. Others lost sons in battle or saw their wealth evaporate in support of the cause.

They signed anyway. In an age of kings and empires, they bet on an uncertain war and an even more uncertain experiment in self-government. They bet their lives against the most powerful empire on Earth.

Section 3: The Universal Idea

What made the Declaration truly world-changing was its appeal beyond America. It became a template and inspiration for independence movements and reformers globally. The language of natural rights and consent planted seeds for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the spread of self-government.

The monarchies of Europe recognized the danger immediately. The American experiment was not just a colonial rebellion. It was an ideological virus. If colonists could successfully assert that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed and that people had the right to dissolve tyrannical rule, what was to stop the same ideas from spreading to France, Spain, Austria, or Russia? The success of the American Revolution sent shockwaves through the courts of Europe.

Those fears were dramatically confirmed by the French Revolution. What began with similar rhetoric inspired by America quickly radicalized into the Terror, regicide, and a continental war. The crowned heads of Europe united in coalitions against the French Republic precisely because they understood the threat: once the principle of popular sovereignty took root, no throne was truly safe.

The tension is real: the men who signed the Declaration were themselves having to grow into the radical implications of their own words. They were products of a world built on hierarchy, and 1776 thrust them into uncharted territory. Some, like Nathaniel Greene, actively worked to live out the principles more fully. Others managed only partial steps or struggled to reconcile the ideal with the realities they knew. Thomas Jefferson, the great philosopher that created this truly radical document, is perhaps the most obvious example.

But the power of the idea they had unleashed proved stronger than the limitations of their time. Over the generations that followed, Americans (and people around the world) used the Declaration’s own words as a measuring stick to demand fuller realization of those principles.

Section 4: The Deeper Meaning for Today

Two hundred and fifty years later, in what feels like a Late Republic moment of division, institutional distrust, and concentrated power, the Declaration remains our North Star.

Calvin Coolidge expressed this powerfully on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration in 1926. He argued that the Declaration was not the beginning of political wisdom, but in many ways its culmination. He told us that it is the clearest statement of principles toward which mankind had been striving for centuries. If all men are created equal, then there is nowhere further we need to go in terms of first principles. The task is not to transcend or “evolve beyond” the Declaration, but to live up to it.

It is not a guarantee that we will always get it right. It is a perpetual challenge: Do we still believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed? Are we willing to defend the principles of liberty and equality under law, or will we trade them for security, comfort, or partisan victory?

The document that launched the American Revolution is revolutionary, and remains revolutionary, precisely because it calls us back to these permanent truths rather than into new experiments in human engineering.

Conclusion

From Washington’s refusal to be king, to Madison’s constitutional machinery built for flawed men, to the quiet reverence of families walking through the Bicentennial Train in 1976, the America 250 series has been a reminder of what we inherited and what makes this nation truly extraordinary in the world.

On this 250th anniversary, as fireworks light up beaches and skies across the country, including here on the beach in Ocean Shores, Washington, let us recommit not just to celebration, but to vigilance. The Republic is not self-sustaining. It requires citizens who remember the radical promise of 1776 and who are willing to pledge something of their own lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to keep it.

The Declaration was not the end of the story. It was the beginning. The question for us, 250 years on, is whether we still possess the Spirit of 1776. Do we have the courage to be as radical in our defense of these truths as our Founders were in declaring them?

Further Reading

The Declaration of Independence — Read it slowly. It rewards careful attention every single time.

The Federalist Papers (especially Nos. 10 and 51) by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay.

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn — One of the finest books on the intellectual world that made 1776 possible.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood — A powerful exploration of just how revolutionary the American founding truly was.

American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier — Excellent on the drafting, context, and immediate impact of the document.

Calvin Coolidge’s speech: The Inspiration of the Declaration, on the 150th Anniversary (July 5, 1926) — Short, eloquent, and deeply insightful.

America 250: A Series Celebrating America

#America250 #AmericanHistory #Founders

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter has produced some of the most overheated reactions of the term. Critics are screaming about the end of democracy and the rise of an imperial presidency. Much of this hysteria reveals a deep misunderstanding of the Unitary Executive and basic constitutional design. Indeed, much of it is likely genuine, malicious misrepresentation of the Unitary Executive.

What the Court Actually Held

The Court ruled that the President may remove FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter without cause and overturned the 1935 precedent Humphrey’s Executor. The core holding is straightforward: If an official exercises executive power, the President must be able to supervise and, when necessary, remove them. The Constitution vests “the executive Power” in one President, not in a collection of semi-independent commissions.

A Long History of Congressional Overreach

Congress tried this before. The Tenure of Office Act of 1867 attempted to prevent the President from removing executive officers without congressional approval. It led directly to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson (though he was not convicted) when Johnson removed Secretary of War Stanton from his position. Johnson believed, correctly, that the law was unconstitutional. Congress repealed the law in 1887, and the Supreme Court confirmed its unconstitutionality in Myers v. United States (1926). Humphrey’s Executor was always an outlier that Slaughter finally corrected.

Common Hysterical Claims

• “Now the President can fill the entire executive branch with Republicans (or Democrats)!” Yes. And that is literally what the Constitution requires. The President is elected to run the executive branch. Voters hold the President accountable for results. The Senate retains its confirmation power for Officers of the United States.

• “This makes the President a dictator who can do whatever he wants!” No. There is still the Constitution, a co-equal Congress with the power of the purse and legislation, and the Supreme Court. Checks and balances remain firmly in place.

• “The world changes too fast for Congress to keep up, so we need independent agencies!” This sounds reasonable but is not constitutional. It has produced the modern Administrative State. That vast fourth branch that makes, enforces, and judges rules with little real accountability to elected officials.

The Unitary Executive is about Accountability

The Framers deliberately created a single, accountable executive. Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers that the President must have the authority to ensure faithful execution of the laws. Slaughter does not grant new powers. It simply ends a 90-year experiment in semi-independent agencies exercising massive executive power without real presidential oversight.

Blurring power and removing accountability makes things worse, not better. And so, Slaughter is, in fact, a major step in restoring the Republic and recovering from many of our Late Republic issues and problems.

Observations from the Late Republic
#Observations #UnitaryExecutive #AdministrativeState #LateRepublic #SeparationOfPowers

Further Reading

• The Federalist Papers, especially Nos. 67–77 (Alexander Hamilton on the Executive)

• Myers v. United States (1926) – The foundational case on presidential removal power

• Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) – The flawed New Deal precedent overturned in Slaughter

• Trump v. Slaughter (2026) – The actual opinion

• Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush - excellent scholarly treatment of the history

• Philip Hamburger, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? – Deep dive into the constitutional problems with the modern administrative state

These sources will give you the constitutional and historical background without the media hysterics.

Forgive me for all the posts in the last few days and the upcoming days. I’m getting caught up on a bunch of Supreme Court doings, celebrating America 250, and doing some future prognosticating!

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s recent term, much of the hysteria has focused on Trump v. Slaughter and the reaffirmation of the Unitary Executive. That’s understandable, but the big-government left (and anyone who likes expansive state power) should actually be far more concerned about Wolford v. Lopez.

What the Court Actually Held

After the Bruen decision in 2022, Hawaii enacted a law that made privately owned property open to the public (gas stations, theaters, shopping malls, stores, restaurants, parking lots, etc.) “sensitive places”. It then went further and said that you could not bring a firearm, concealed or open carry, into these places even though you were a law abiding citizen with a valid concealed carry license. Unless the property owner put up signage explicitly allowing carrying a firearm. The state claimed they were simply enforcing private property rights.

In Wolford v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional. The core principle is straightforward and powerful: The government cannot use its regulatory power to effectively nullify constitutional rights on private property that is held open to the public.

The Much Bigger Implication

This isn’t really (or only) about guns. It is about the limits of government power over private property open to the public.

SCOTUS has now made clear that states and cities cannot simply designate broad categories of private property as “sensitive” and thereby ban the exercise of constitutional rights there. This has obvious and immediate implications for the Second Amendment, but it also reaches into First Amendment territory like speech, religion, and assembly. As well as many other rights protected by the Constitution.

If the government cannot turn a shopping mall or grocery store into a gun-free zone by fiat, it similarly faces serious limits on turning those same spaces into speech-free zones, protest-free zones, or religious expression-free zones. This is a major check on the administrative and regulatory state’s ability to carve out exceptions to the Bill of Rights wherever it finds it convenient.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

The reaction has been strangely muted on the progressive side compared to Slaughter. They’re focused on the narrow “sensitive places on private property” angle and largely missing the deeper structural point: the Supreme Court just put a significant new constraint on the ability of states and cities to regulate away constitutional rights on property that is functionally public in character.

This decision strengthens property rights and individual liberty simultaneously. It tells governments they cannot have it both ways. they can’t treate private property as public when it suits them for regulation, but then restrict rights as if it were purely governmental space.

Bottom Line

Wolford v. Lopez may end up being one of the sleeper hits of the term. While Slaughter restores accountability within the executive branch, Wolford limits the government’s ability to create constitutional no-go zones across vast swaths of everyday American life.

The administrative state and big-government advocates just took a bigger hit than many of them realize.

Observations from the Late Republic
#Constitution #SecondAmendment #WolfordvLopez #ConstitutionalRights #PrivateProperty

Further Reading

• Wolford v. Lopez (2026) – Full opinion

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) – The foundation this builds upon

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)

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Opening Hook

Philadelphia, May to September 1787. Behind closed windows in the sweltering heat of the Pennsylvania State House, fifty-five delegates gathered in secret. The United States, barely four years old as an independent nation, was already on the verge of collapse under the weak Articles of Confederation.

Many of the men who walked into that room believed the Convention would fail. Some thought the union itself was doomed. The states were squabbling, debt was crushing, trade was paralyzed, and Shays’ Rebellion had shown just how fragile the young republic really was. European powers watched with interest, waiting for the American experiment to disintegrate so they could pick up the pieces.

Yet from this crisis emerged one of the most remarkable acts of statesmanship in history.

Section 1: The Crisis They Faced

The delegates arrived with deep, seemingly irreconcilable divisions:

• Big states versus small states, each fearing domination by the other.

• North versus South, with sharply different economies and interests.

• Commercial interests versus agricultural ones.

• Advocates of a strong national government versus fierce defenders of state sovereignty.

Slavery loomed as one of the most difficult issues. Many delegates, especially from the North and Upper South, believed slavery was economically inefficient and morally wrong, and that it would naturally wither away over time.

Reality: If the weak Articles of Confederation remained in place, the American nation was so fragile that the European powers (especially Britain, France, and Spain) would almost certainly divide it up and reconquer at least big chunks of the continent.

The delegates were not starry-eyed idealists. They were practical, ambitious, often disagreeable men who understood they were operating in a dangerous world. They knew that if they could not find common ground, the United States would likely fracture, and the grand experiment in self-government would die in its infancy.

Section 2: The Brilliance of Compromise

The Articles of Confederation themselves were the ultimate anti-compromise, a document in which no state was required to give up any meaningful sovereignty, rendering the national government almost powerless.

Faced with these divisions, the delegates did something extraordinary: they compromised.

The pivotal moment came with the Great Compromise (also called the Connecticut Compromise). This was most notable for addressing everyone’s deep fear of Virginia, by far the largest and most powerful state. Large states wanted representation based on population. Small states feared being swallowed. The solution was elegant in its simplicity: a bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate with equal representation for each state. This single compromise saved the Convention and laid the foundation for the new government.

Other difficult bargains followed. The Three-Fifths Compromise and the twenty-year ban on the importation of slaves were pragmatic measures designed by delegates who expected slavery to gradually decline. Most believed these provisions would set it on a path to eventual extinction.

The Electoral College was another brilliant, if messy, compromise. It balanced popular will with protection against pure mob rule and gave smaller states a meaningful voice in choosing the President.

Throughout the document, the Founders deliberately included ambiguities, such as the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, that allowed the Constitution to be both firm in its principles and flexible enough to adapt to future challenges.

These were not perfect solutions. They were practical ones. The delegates understood that a flawed union was infinitely better than no union at all.

Section 3: Why This Was Extraordinary

These men were not demigods. They were flawed, ambitious, often disagreeable, and deeply divided on many issues. Some owned slaves. Some were idealists. Some were pragmatists. Many distrusted one another.

Yet they chose compromise over ideological purity.

They understood something that seems increasingly rare today: that perfect is the enemy of good, and that a flawed but functional union was infinitely better than no union at all. They were willing to accept imperfect solutions in order to build something that could endure.

This willingness to compromise was itself extraordinary. In an age of revolution and upheaval, they rejected radicalism in favor of careful, deliberate statesmanship. They designed a system not for saints, but for ordinary, imperfect people living in a dangerous world.

In stark contrast to much of modern politics, where compromise is often treated as betrayal or weakness, the Founders treated it as the highest form of statesmanship.

Section 4: The Deeper Lesson

The Constitution was not a libertarian or progressive manifesto. It was a practical, hard-won bargain designed for imperfect people living in a dangerous world.

It deliberately made change difficult, not because the Founders were reactionaries, but because they understood how quickly republics can descend into tyranny or chaos. The Constitution’s brilliance wasn’t in creating a perfect system, rather it was in creating one durable enough to survive imperfect leaders and citizens.

Conclusion

Two hundred and fifty years later, we still live under the system those men designed in that hot Philadelphia summer. The genius of 1787 was not perfection, but the willingness to compromise for the greater good.

In our own time of Late Republic crisis, the spirit of working together for the common good is one we need to rediscover. In 1787, the men that wrote the Constitution started with a single compromise to find a solution to what seemed an intractable problem. That led to further agreement and solutions. We need to find that spirit within ourselves again.

Further Reading

• Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen — The classic, highly readable account of the Constitutional Convention.

• The Summer of 1787 by David O. Stewart — Excellent narrative history that captures the drama, arguments, and compromises of that fateful summer.

• The Grand Convention by Clinton Rossiter — A thoughtful analysis of the delegates and the political genius behind the Constitution.

• Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis — Especially strong on the spirit of compromise and the difficult bargains the Founders made.

• Plain, Honest Men by Richard Beeman — A detailed and balanced look at how the delegates forged agreement despite deep divisions.

America 250

#Observations #LateRepublic #America250 #Founders

All Observations from the Late Republic posts

A Major Second Amendment Showdown Is Coming

This morning the Supreme Court consolidated two important “assault weapon” ban cases, Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois, 7th Circuit) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut, 2nd Circuit), into a single case and granted certiorari. They will hear arguments during the next term.

This is a huge development.

Both the 7th and 2nd Circuits had upheld state-level bans on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles. By taking the cases, the Supreme Court is signaling it is ready to address whether these bans are constitutional under the Bruen framework. Granting certiorari requires at least four justices. Those four were almost certainly Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.

Justices Barrett and Roberts have consistently sided with strong Second Amendment protections in every major gun case they have heard. That strongly suggests a 6-3 decision striking down these bans nationwide is the most likely outcome.

Why This Matters

“Assault weapon” bans have been among the most aggressive gun control measures passed in blue states since Sandy Hook. They target some of the most popular rifles in America. These rifles are functionally identical to millions of other semi-automatic firearms that remain legal, with a few surface differences.

By taking these cases, the Supreme Court appears ready to bring clarity and uniformity to this area of law. If the Court rules as expected, it will likely hold that commonly owned semi-automatic rifles are protected by the Second Amendment and that states cannot ban them simply by labeling them “assault weapons.”

This would be a major victory for the Second Amendment and a significant rebuke to the post-2012 wave of gun control legislation.

The gun control crowd has long treated “assault weapons” as low-hanging fruit. They are about to find out that the Supreme Court takes the Constitution more seriously than political narratives.

I’ll be watching this one closely. And I will certainly have more to say between now and the Court’s hearing. A decision is expected sometime in 2027.

Further Reading

• Supreme Court Order List (June 30, 2026) — Viramontes v. Cook County & Grant v. Higgins consolidated and cert granted

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) — The foundational modern Second Amendment case.

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) — The landmark decision establishing the proper test for evaluating gun laws.

• In Defense of the Second Amendment by Larry Correia — A clear, no-nonsense defense of the right to keep and bear arms from a firearms instructor and author who actually understands the practical realities.

• The Second Amendment: A Biography by Michael Waldman — A more moderate/center-left perspective on the history and interpretation of the Second Amendment (worth reading to understand the other side of the debate).

#America #2A #SecondAmendment #SCOTUS

While George Washington provided the living example of virtuous leadership and restraint, James Madison attempted something equally ambitious. He tried to design a system of government that could endure even when filled with ordinary, flawed human beings.

The Brilliant, Frail Architect

James Madison was in many ways an unlikely founder. Small in stature, frequently ill, and painfully shy in public, he lacked the physical presence and natural charisma of Washington or the magnetic charm of Jefferson. Yet few men in American history have thought more deeply about how governments succeed or fail.

Several forces shaped the young Madison: an intense education at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), deep study of classical history and Enlightenment thinkers, direct experience with the weak government under the Articles of Confederation, and a fierce commitment to religious liberty. By his early thirties, he had become one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful political minds in America.

Learning from Rome

Madison drew heavily from the Roman Republic. He saw it as history’s greatest example of a mixed constitution. One that combined elements of monarchy (the consuls), aristocracy (the Senate), and democracy (the tribunes and popular assemblies). The consuls especially fascinated him: powerful executives who held near-kingly authority during their short term, yet were bound by law, time limits, and institutional checks.

But Madison was not merely copying Rome. He was designing something new and more formal for the American situation. Where Rome’s system had evolved organically and often blurred lines between institutions, Madison sought clear, deliberate boundaries. He created a much stronger and more explicit separation of powers, particularly by establishing an independent judiciary. This was something Rome never clearly formalized. And, in fact, the Senate often pulled the judiciary power back from the Praetors.

He also addressed the practical political reality of his time: the smaller states feared domination by the largest and richest one, Virginia. This fear helped produce the federal compromise of a strong national government balanced by powerful sovereign states and an upper house (the Senate) where every state had equal representation regardless of size.

Madison and the other Founders were not utopian dreamers. They were hard-headed realists who had studied history closely. They knew what men were really like: imperfect, greedy, short-sighted, ambitious, and often shallow. They had studied the fall of Rome, the tyranny of King John, Cromwell’s military dictatorship, and countless other examples of republics collapsing into chaos or despotism. They designed the Constitution for fallen men, not for angels.

The Science of Republics

Madison’s most important intellectual contributions came in the Federalist Papers, particularly Federalist 10 and Federalist 51.

In Federalist 10, he tackled what had destroyed so many previous republics: factions. He rejected the idea that factions could be eliminated in a free society. Men would always form groups based on differences in property, religion, ideology, and ambition. The solution, Madison argued, was not to suppress factions, but to control their effects. A large republic with many diverse interests would make it harder for any single faction to dominate the whole.

In Federalist 51, Madison laid out the mechanical genius of the Constitution. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” he wrote. By dividing government into separate branches and giving each the means and motive to resist the others, the system would use human nature, rather than fight against it, to protect liberty.

Madison was not hoping for virtuous leaders in every generation. He was building a machine that could function even when filled with ordinary, self-interested men.

A System Built for Imperfect Men

Madison’s greatest achievement was designing a system that could survive leaders who lacked virtue. The Republic has endured presidents of wildly varying quality, including men like Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding, who were far from exemplars of personal or moral excellence. That the country survived and even thrived under such leadership is powerful evidence that Madison’s machinery worked as intended.

Madison worried in later years about the rise of political parties and the slow concentration of power. He understood that no system is eternal. It still requires vigilance.

Conclusion

In our own time of Late Republic strain, Madison’s realism about human nature may be one of the most relevant lessons the Founders left us. He did not design the Constitution for angels. He designed it for men as they actually are: imperfect, ambitious, and often shortsighted.

The Constitution was deliberately built to resist rapid change. This frustrates people when they want the government to do something quickly, but they should be glad it is hard to change things, not upset. Rapid, sweeping change in government has historically been associated with revolution, tyranny, and collapse. Madison and the other Founders understood this danger well.

The remarkable endurance of the American Republic for two and a half centuries is a testament to the strength of that design. But Madison would be the first to warn us that no constitution is self-sustaining forever. The machinery still requires vigilant citizens willing to defend its principles and its boundaries.

#America250 #Founders

Further Reading

If you want to dig deeper into James Madison and the intellectual foundations of the American Republic, these works are excellent:

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay — Essential primary source. Focus especially on Federalist 10 and Federalist 51.

James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham — The best single-volume biography. Balanced and deeply researched.

The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy by Drew R. McCoy — Excellent on Madison’s later years and his growing concerns about the direction of the Republic.

Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis — Very readable look at the relationships and conflicts among the Founders, with strong sections on Madison.

The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis — Focuses on the four key men (Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jay) who drove the creation of the Constitution.

Original Meanings by Jack N. Rakove — Outstanding scholarly work on how the Founders understood the Constitution they created.

For the last five decades, we’ve been told that meat, especially red meat, is somehow bad for us. We are told, even today with a much better understanding of biology and nutrition, that the “ethical” and “healthy” choice is to move away from meat. We are assured that our ancestors were mostly peaceful plant-eaters until some terrible fall into carnivory.

This is absolute modern myth-making.

The archaeological and anthropological evidence tells a very different story.

Somewhere between 1 and 2 million years ago, our ancestors (likely Homo erectus or earlier hominins) learned to control fire and began cooking meat regularly. According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, this often involved scavenging or stealing kills, or portions of kills, from other predators, and then cooking what they had taken. This was one of the most radical transitions in human evolutionary history.

Two Enormous Consequences

First: Dramatic increase in caloric efficiency.
Both raw meat and raw fruits/vegetables are tough, fibrous, and relatively hard for our bodies to fully digest. Our fellow great apes spend up to 18 hours a day foraging and chewing just to get enough calories. Cooking meat (and to a lesser extent, certain plants) breaks down proteins, collagen, and tough fibers, making nutrients far more bioavailable. Suddenly our ancestors didn’t need to spend their entire waking lives eating. This freed up enormous amounts of time and energy.

Second: Brain growth.
The human brain is an extremely expensive organ. It consumes about 20% of our total energy despite making up only ~2% of our body weight. Cooked meat provided the dense, high-quality calories and nutrients (especially fats and proteins) necessary to support that energy-hungry brain. Over time, this dietary shift correlates strongly with significant increases in brain size and complexity in the human lineage. We have significantly more brain mass per pound of body weight than any other great ape.

Cooked meat didn’t just help us survive.
It helped make us human.

A Modern Irony

The dietary guidelines produced and beloved by the administrative state are objectively wrong and stand biology on its head. You know, the ones that heavily emphasize grains, fruits, and vegetables while treating meat (especially red meat) as something to be minimized. This stands in direct opposition to everything archaeology, anthropology, and human biology tell us about the diets that actually produced modern humans.

Our ancestors didn’t become human by eating like modern vegans recommend. Or even the American Heart Association recommendations. They became human when they learned to cook meat. The modern dietary guidelines pushed by the administrative state are only possible in today’s industrial world of cheap refined grains, year-round fruits and vegetables from global supply chains, and heavily fortified processed foods. Our biology evolved in a very different nutritional environment.

We can debate the ethics and environmental impacts of modern meat production. Those are legitimate conversations. But pretending that meat itself is somehow unnatural or antithetical to human health is historical and biological illiteracy.

Our ancestors learned to control fire and cook meat somewhere between 1 and 2 million years ago.

That discovery didn’t just feed them.

It helped turn them into us.

Further Reading

• Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009) — The definitive popular book on the cooking hypothesis and the scavenging-to-cooking transition.

• Wrangham’s academic papers on the “cooking hypothesis,” including the idea that early humans were stealing kills from other predators before cooking them. For example, this piece at NIH: Cooking as a Biological Trait

• NPR coverage is pretty good, also. For example “When Fire Met Food”

• Polymathic Being: “Veganism: A First-World Luxury” by Michael Woudenberg

#FifthBranch #Veganism #EatingMeat #HowWeBecameHuman

A bit before 2145 local time on 25 June 1996, a fuel truck was driven into the parking lot of Building 131 at the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It was followed by a white car.

The truck driver jumped into the white car, which immediately drove off. Moments later, an explosion estimated at ten tons of TNT detonated. At the time, roughly 2,000 US Air Force personnel were housed there. Nineteen Airmen were killed. Over 500 people were wounded.

The evidence strongly suggests the explosives were smuggled into Saudi Arabia by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, operating out of the Bekaa Valley with direct assistance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Saudi Hezbollah al-Hejaz, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, conducted reconnaissance on the complex at least forty times prior to the attack.

The FBI believes the operation was planned over a three-year period with approval at the highest levels of the Iranian government. The goal was to drive US military forces out of Saudi Arabia.

Over time, US courts weighing the evidence have found Iran guilty of the bombing and the murder of US Airmen:

• 2006: A U.S. federal court found Hezbollah and Iran guilty and ordered Iran to pay $254.5 million to the families of those killed.

• 2018: Iran was again held responsible and ordered by a US Federal Court to pay victims $104.7 million.

• 2020: A U.S. District Court cited evidence that Iran aided Hezbollah and ordered Iran to pay $879 million in damages.

In 1991, my unit was in Building 131 as we redeployed to the US after Operation Desert Storm.

Further Reading

• Beirut Rules by Fred Burton and Samuel L. Katz

• The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

• The Secret War With Iran by Ronen Bergman

#AmericanHistory #TheLongWar #KhobarTowers

I know, now, that it was officially called the American Freedom Train, but everyone I knew just called it the Bicentennial Train.

We lived in a small town near Sacramento at the time. My dad had been out of the Army for a couple of years. I was eight years old. The whole family went, which was Dad, Mom, my little brother (2 1/2 years younger), and me.

The train was parked in Old Sacramento, right along the river. My memory failed me on when exactly the Train was in Sacramento. So I did some google searching and discovered the Train was in Sacramento in November, 1975. I do remember that we stood in line for what felt like forever to an eight-year-old kid and was likely at least two hours, maybe longer. But we waited with everybody else. It was a wonder that we all wanted to see.

When we finally got inside, it was like stepping into another world. The cars had that old-time train feel: dark wood paneling and seats with heavy felt-covered cushions. Every car was a little museum. One after another, they told the story of 200 years of America: the founding and the Revolution, the Civil War, wagon trains heading west, the building of the transcontinental railroad, and America’s wars, the Depression, much more.

I remember how quiet everyone was as they walked through. Moms and dads pointed things out to their kids in hushed voices. Teenagers moved in little groups, whispering to each other. There was a real sense of reverence in those cars.

After we finished walking through the train, we wandered into Old Sacramento itself. It had been reconstructed to look like it did in the 1850s, with wooden sidewalks, old brick buildings, and the most wonderful part: Old time candy stores. We got to go in the old candy store and mom and dad let my brother and I each fill a bag with candy. It felt like stepping back in time.

That whole day stuck with me. History wasn’t just something in books anymore. It was something you could walk through on an afternoon with your family.

Looking back fifty years later, I’m grateful my parents took us. I’m glad I got to stand in that long line, walk through those quiet train cars, get some old school candy, and wander through Old Sacramento. I believe that was one of the pivotal days creating my deep and abiding love of America.

Soon after that, I started reading anything I could find at the library about the American Revolution and the Founders. One of the books I vividly remember was The Story of the Bonhomme Richard.

Some memories stay with you for a reason.

#America250 #America200 #Bicentennial Train

Further Reading
The Story of the 1976 Freedom Train

For those unfamiliar, federal law requires schools to integrate special education students into general education classrooms to the “maximum extent appropriate.” For students with milder needs, this can work. For many others, it means assigning a full-time caregiver, politely called a “para-educator,” to handle their needs throughout the school day.

I was largely unaware of the true scale until my wife spent five years working as a para-educator. What she experienced horrified me. The level of care required for many students went far beyond any reasonable definition of “education.” It was intensive, daily caregiving, often one-on-one, funded by taxpayers who have almost no idea this is happening.

Worse, these para-educators frequently lack meaningful specialized training for handling severe disabilities or challenging behaviors. Many enter the role with little more than a high school diploma and on-the-job learning. According to MDPI, as a result, they are quite often subjected to physical and verbal abuse from the very students they are assigned to support. Bruises, bites, scratches, thrown objects, and constant verbal aggression are common realities that get minimized or ignored in public discussions.

The Hidden Caregiving Reality

For students who cannot walk, talk, see, hear, feed themselves, or regulate behavior, a para-educator provides mobility assistance, toileting, feeding, medical monitoring, and constant behavioral support. In practice, the SPED system has become a taxpayer-funded daycare and respite program. It dramatically relieves the parental burden for families of children with profound disabilities.

This support is humane and necessary in some form. Raising a child with severe disabilities is an immense, round-the-clock challenge. But the public largely does not understand that a significant and growing portion of local school budgets now funds this intensive caregiving, often in general education classrooms. The broader citizenry remains unaware. Nor do most taxpayers realize the toll this takes on the under-trained paras themselves.

Nationally, special education serves about 13-15% of students but consumes a disproportionate share of resources. Per-student costs for SPED are typically 1.5–2x higher than general education, and far more for severe cases. Federal IDEA funding was supposed to cover 40% of excess costs but chronically delivers only around 10-12%. This leaves states and local districts to fill the gap from general funds. In California, the numbers are especially stark, with local taxpayers picking up the majority of the bill.

Administrative Bloat: The Davis Example

Even the raw administrator numbers don’t tell the full story. Staffing roughly tripled in key categories while compensation per role soared dramatically.

My alma mater, Davis Senior High School in Davis, California, is located in an affluent university town with a highly educated population.

1985 (~1,400 students):

• 1 principal, 1 vice principal, 1 athletics director

• 3 counselors, 1 nurse, 1 librarian

• 4 office/secretarial staff

A typical high school principal earned roughly $40k–$55k. In today’s dollars, that is roughly $124k–$170k.

2026 (~1,750 students):

• 1 principal plus 3 vice principals plus 1 athletics director

• 6 counselors, 2 nurses, 2 psychologists, 1 librarian

• 12 office/secretarial staff

• High school principals and top admins in California now earn $150k–$200k+ base, with total compensation much higher. District-wide admin costs have ballooned.

Student population grew 25%. Admin and support layers and their costs rose 400–500% or more.

Yet outcomes haven’t improved at all, let alone proportionally. We had strong graduation and literacy rates in the 1980s. Today, even students graduating in the top 20% of their class are showing up at CSU and UC campuses needing remedial math and English. High graduation rates (around 95%) and respectable CAASPP proficiency numbers hide the truth: actual academic preparation has declined. The expanded bureaucracy seems dedicated more to managing SPED inclusion, compliance mandates, equity initiatives, and meetings than to driving rigorous classroom instruction.

Entrenched Conflicts of Interest

And this doesn’t even touch the crazy political layer. In many districts, school boards, city administrations, and city councils are riddled with conflicts of interest. Board members often have family or professional ties to the district. City officials wear multiple hats that blur lines between oversight and spending.

In the district I now live in, for example, the mayor is also the school district operations director. When the people approving budgets and bonds are the same ones, or closely tied to those, managing operations and benefiting from expanded staffing and contracts, real accountability vanishes. This creates a cozy ecosystem where more spending benefits the insiders: administrators, unions, and service providers. Meanwhile, taxpayers and general education students bear the costs.

The Republican Question — and the Fifth Branch

The issue is not whether families of children with severe disabilities need support. Of course they do. The real question citizens of a republic must answer is this: What level of support, funded how, structured how, and at what cost to other priorities?

Under the current design, broad “inclusion” mandates push many high-needs students into general classrooms, often with dedicated paras. This creates real disruptions for the 85%+ of students without such intensive needs. Teachers and paras report spending disproportionate time on management rather than instruction. Resources are pulled from core academics. And the general public has almost no visibility into the trade-offs, including the safety risks to staff.

We should demand transparency: clear public breakdowns of SPED versus general education spending, excess costs by disability category, classroom impact data, staff injury rates, and honest accounting of the caregiving component. We also need strict conflict-of-interest rules with real teeth and independent audits at the local level.

To a large extent, this is a direct result of the permanent entrenchment of the Fifth Branch, the Administrative State, as I discuss in my recent article. Fundamentally, the people making the day-to-day decisions about how government education should be run are nearly 100% unaccountable to the sovereign citizenry.

How the Administrative State Became a Shadow Government

Citizens and legislators then need to debate practical reforms:

• Better federal fulfillment of IDEA funding promises

• More flexible placement options (including targeted settings when inclusion demonstrably harms overall outcomes or staff safety)

• Separate funding streams for intensive medical/caregiving needs, distinct from academic education

• Substantially better training, pay, and support for para-educators

• Stronger cost controls, outcome accountability, and genuine separation between oversight bodies and district insiders

• Prioritizing excellence in mass education while still providing humane support

My wife’s years as a para-educator opened my eyes. She witnessed the caregiving demands, the lack of preparation, the routine abuse, the classroom impacts, the governance problems, and the complete disconnect between skyrocketing costs and stagnant or declining results. And it is not sustainable, transparent, or, simply put, good for the vast majority of students, the staff, or ultimately the system itself. Taxpayers footing the bill deserve a real say in how this is structured.

This isn’t about lacking compassion. It’s about honest governance in a republic: weighing competing goods with open eyes instead of hiding difficult trade-offs behind emotional appeals, opaque budgets, and insider conflicts.

What do you think happens when citizens finally see the numbers?

Further Reading

More details here on Para Educator issues, spending issues, and student outcomes

Getting Down To Facts - Para Educator Trends and Recommendations

Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy (New Hampshire brief) — Clear example of rising spending with flat/declining performance.

Brookings Institution (2025 state-level analysis) — Weak overall relationship between per-pupil spending and outcomes, with large variation across states.

Observations from the Late Republic

#Observations #FifthBranch #Education

George Washington: The Indispensable Man

The popular image of George Washington as a brilliant military genius who outfought the greatest empire on earth is largely myth. Washington was neither a Caesar nor a Napoleon. He lacked their ruthless hunger for personal power and their operational military genius. What made him extraordinary was something far rarer in history. He repeatedly took power when his country desperately needed him, exercised it with restraint, and then willingly gave it up.

In this, he consciously modeled himself after the Roman hero Cincinnatus. According to legend, Cincinnatus was a farmer who was appointed dictator by the Senate during a grave emergency. He defeated Rome’s enemies in just sixteen days, then immediately resigned his dictatorship and returned to his plow. The American Founders so deeply admired this ideal of the citizen who serves only as long as necessary and then returns to private life that they later named the city of Cincinnati, Ohio after him.

Washington came closer to living that ideal than any other successful revolutionary leader in history.

The Forging of Character Through Failure

George Washington was not born great. He was born ambitious and determined in a world that gave him neither wealth nor high social standing.

As a younger son in a respectable but modest Virginia family, Washington had to make his own way. He began his adult life as a surveyor on the dangerous frontier. He was good at it, but it was not enough. He craved military glory and the respect that came with it.

The French & Indian War gave him his opportunity, and it nearly ruined him.

In 1754, at only twenty-two years old, Washington led an inexperienced force into the Ohio Country. He stumbled into a skirmish with French troops. He surrendered at a small stockade called Fort Necessity, and signed humiliating terms the French later used as propaganda. A year later, serving under British General Edward Braddock, he survived a catastrophic ambush along the Monongahela River. Two horses were shot from under him and four bullets passed through his coat. Yet Washington remained strangely untouched amid the slaughter. Like Napoleon and Patton after him, he seemed to have an almost supernatural ability to stand in the fiercest fighting and emerge unscathed. This episode marked the beginning of his reputation for exceptional courage under fire.

These early disasters taught the proud, hot-tempered young Washington hard lessons about overconfidence, logistics, and his own limitations. He began the long work of mastering himself, controlling his temper and building a reputation for honesty and reliability.

It was during this difficult time that Washington discovered the story of Cincinnatus. This ancient example became one of the guiding stars of his life.

By the time the American Revolution began more than twenty years later, Washington was no tactical genius. But he had become something much rarer: a man forged by failure who possessed the self-mastery his country would desperately need.

Interwar Years: The Making of a Virginia Gentleman

In the years between the end of the French & Indian War and the beginning of the American Revolution, Washington transformed himself from an ambitious young officer into one of the most respected men in Virginia. He returned to Mount Vernon, married the wealthy widow Martha Custis in 1759, and became a successful planter and businessman. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and slowly built the reputation of a solid, reliable member of the colonial gentry.

Yet he watched with increasing alarm as Britain imposed new taxes and regulations on the colonies. By 1774, Washington had emerged as a leading voice of resistance in Virginia. When the colonies needed a commander, they chose him.

The Revolutionary War — Endurance, Not Genius

In June 1775, Washington arrived at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia wearing his Virginia militia uniform. Two days later, he was unanimously chosen as Commander-in-Chief. He was not chosen because he was the best battlefield tactician. Several officers, most notably Benedict Arnold, were widely regarded as more brilliant in combat.

The war that followed proved the wisdom of that choice.

Washington lost far more battles than he won. He was repeatedly outmaneuvered by better-trained British generals. The army suffered devastating defeats in New York, desperate retreats across New Jersey, and brutal winters at Valley Forge and Morristown. Supply shortages, short enlistments, disease, and political interference constantly threatened to dissolve the force.

Yet Washington proved himself a brilliant leader of men. His soldiers developed a deep, personal loyalty to him. As a combat veteran myself, I can tell you that generals who willingly go where the fighting is fiercest, and somehow emerge unscathed, earn a special kind of respect from the rank and file. Washington had that quality in abundance. His men respected his courage, his willingness to share their hardships, and his quiet competence. Even in defeat, his mere presence often steadied the troops.

Washington’s real military achievement was not tactical genius, but strategic endurance. While battlefield commanders like Benedict Arnold were superior in combat, Washington understood that keeping the army alive was the true requirement for victory. Arnold’s later treason, driven largely by resentment at being passed over for promotion, only highlighted why the Continental Congress had chosen character and steadiness over raw tactical talent.

His one clear flash of operational brilliance came on Christmas night 1776, with the surprise crossing of the Delaware and the victory at Trenton. It was a brilliant tactical stroke, aided by luck, terrible weather, and British complacency. But Trenton was the exception, not the rule. By Yorktown, Washington had won the war. But he had done so by surviving, not by battlefield genius.

The ultimate test came during the winter of 1782–83 at Newburgh, after Washington had actually won the military campaigns and Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown. Unpaid and angry officers threatened rebellion against Congress. Some urged Washington to seize power or accept a crown. In one of the most dramatic moments of the war, Washington confronted the officers, shamed their disloyalty, and reaffirmed civilian control. Once again, he chose the Republic over personal power.

By 1783, Washington had done what almost no successful revolutionary general in history had managed. He kept the cause alive through eight brutal years and won the war without becoming a tyrant.

The Reluctant President

In 1787, Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention. His presence gave the proceedings crucial legitimacy. Without Washington, it is likely the Constitutional Convention would have failed to create a new government to succeed the original Articles of Confederation. When the new government was formed, he was the only man the country could imagine as its first President. Once again, he answered the call despite his deep desire to remain at Mount Vernon.

As President, he set enduring precedents: the cabinet system, civilian control of the military, and neutrality in foreign affairs. His handling of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 was especially telling. Rather than ignore the unrest or use it as an excuse to expand federal power permanently, he personally led a militia force to restore order, then pardoned the leaders and stood the army down once the crisis passed.

The Final Refusal

After two terms as President, George Washington did what almost no successful revolutionary leader in history has ever done. He walked away from power.

In his Farewell Address, he warned the young nation about the dangers of permanent political parties, foreign entanglements, and excessive debt. Then he returned to Mount Vernon, not as a king and not as a permanent elder statesman, but simply as a private citizen.

Like the Roman Emperor Diocletian centuries before him, who shocked the world by voluntarily abdicating the throne and retiring to grow cabbages, Washington chose to step completely out of public affairs. He knew the story of Diocletian well. He understood that one of the greatest threats to a republic is the man who cannot bring himself to leave the stage.

This final act of relinquishing power may have been his greatest gift to the Republic.

Washington understood something that very few men who taste supreme power ever grasp. Republics die when their leaders refuse to let go. By choosing to be Cincinnatus rather than Caesar or Napoleon, he set a precedent that helped the American experiment survive its fragile early years.

He was not a tactical genius. He lost far more battles than he won. But he kept the Revolution alive when it could easily have died. He led men who loved and trusted him through unimaginable hardship. And, most importantly, he repeatedly refused to become the thing that has destroyed so many republics: the indispensable man who refuses to step aside.

In our own time of Late Republic decay, marked by career politicians, permanent bureaucracies, and leaders who cling to power at all costs, Washington’s example stands in sharp and humbling contrast.

#America250 #Founders

On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, Union troops announced that the Civil War was over and the enslaved people of Texas were free. For them, it was the true day of emancipation.

America was the first nation in history to declare, in its founding document, that all men are created equal. That radical idea challenged thousands of years of accepted practice across the world. Many of the men and women of the Founding generation genuinely believed slavery would wither away over time. They made compromises to protect the institution for a couple of decades, giving slaveholders time to adjust their economies and transition away from it.

Two things upended that expectation: Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which made large-scale cotton production enormously profitable, and England’s Industrial Revolution, which created a massive new market for cotton. What had been a dying institution suddenly became hugely lucrative. The moral arc that many Founders assumed would bend toward freedom was disrupted and altered by countervailing forces.

The United States did not invent slavery. Slavery had existed in nearly every society throughout human history. And still does in many places. Slavery is not specific to race, tribe, or culture. All have practiced it and some still do. What was new was a country that explicitly rejected it as a moral wrong in its founding charter and eventually fought a war to end it.

It took eighty years and a brutal civil war to fully live up to the founding promise, but we did live up to it. America ended the sin of chattel slavery on its soil. Men, women, and children who had been held in bondage were freed.

Juneteenth is worth celebrating because it marks one of the great moral achievements in human history. A nation founded on the idea of liberty took that idea seriously enough to eventually extend it to everyone within its borders.

As we approach America’s 250th birthday, Juneteenth is a reminder that this country was built on the greatest expansion of human freedom the world had ever seen. We didn’t always live up to our ideals immediately, but we did move toward them. Often at great cost.

That’s something to be proud of and to celebrate.

Happy Juneteenth.

#America250 #Juneteenth #AmericanHistory

I recently ran an experiment. I took something I wrote several years ago, before Generative AI was used broadly. In fact LLMs were being trained at the time. It’s a straightforward, practical piece about a major storm hitting Western Washington. I fed it into several popular AI detectors.

The results? 65% to 85% “AI-generated.” And the irony is thick enough to choke on.

It is entirely possible, in fact, extremely likely, that this very piece (and all the others I’ve published over the years) was scraped from the internet and used as training data for the large language models now being accused of producing it. My own pre-AI human writing is probably helping the machines sound more like me, only to be flagged years later as suspiciously AI-like.

This panic and response to knowledge technology isn’t new. Not even close.

In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates launches a passionate attack on the new technology of his day: writing.

What’s remarkable is not just that the fears are the same, it’s how consistently humans repeat the exact same pattern with every new tool for recording and spreading ideas.

The Luddite Fear: “The old tool is just fine”

The Luddite fear is rarely just “new thing bad.” It’s almost always:
“The current tool we have is perfectly fine, in fact, it’s superior. This new tool is dangerous and inferior.” In the 19th century just such arguments were made about the mechanization of writing by the typewriter.

And you can see that same argument was made against the tool they’re now defending the last time around.

I’m old enough to have watched this cycle a couple times. I came into the world as computers and word processors were replacing the typewriter.

I saw the typewriter→computer→internet cycles and I’m watching the latest. Typewriters were just fine and word processors were automating the act of writing. Word processors were just fine until the internet and blogging. The internet and blogging were just fine until AI.

The Professional Panic: Socrates’ Real Fear

When Socrates attacked writing, he was defending something he saw as sacred: the living, breathing practice of philosophy through face-to-face dialectic. He feared writing would destroy the rigorous oral tradition and replace it with something dead and static.

This is the exact same fear we see repeated with every new writing technology. Scribes feared the printing press. Typesetters feared desktop publishing. Journalists feared blogs. Writers today fear AI.

The people closest to the old way of doing things are usually the first, and loudest, to see the threat. And the threat is to their profession. Technology is, absolutely, a labor replacement. But do you think the world would be better off if it took an army of scribes to update the accounting books of a business rather than one person with a computer and internet based tools like QuickBooks?

The Gatekeeper Fear: “This Will Destroy Quality and Standards”

The third recurring panic is the most elitist: the deep anxiety that the new technology will cheapen knowledge, destroy excellence, and let the unworthy masses produce (and consume) intellectual garbage. And the gatekeeper will no longer be the gatekeeper. That is the deep down fear, of course.

Socrates warned that writing would create people who possessed “the appearance of wisdom without the reality.”

This same fear has repeated for centuries:

• The printing press horrified the clergy because suddenly any literate person could read the Bible themselves, without the Church as gatekeeper.

• Cheap paperbacks and pulp magazines were denounced as vulgar trash.

• The internet and blogs triggered contempt about “unbathed bloggers in their parents’ basements, writing in pajamas with no editor.” The backlash was so strong that one company proudly named itself Pajamas Media, now PJMedia.

• Today we hear the same arguments about AI: “Anyone can have AI write a book now,” “It will destroy literature,” “We’re replacing real authors with soulless spam.”

The underlying belief is almost always the same: If the tools become too accessible, the wrong people will flood the field and true excellence will be lost.

Conclusion

Technology has consistently improved our ability to create and communicate. And humans have consistently feared what it might bring. I’m sure some caveman a million years ago was opposed to fire for the same reasons Socrates was opposed to writing. There is always a fear of the new. As one wag says, “humans are most conservative about what they know best.”

Every single time humanity has developed a better way to capture, preserve, and spread knowledge, a vocal group has warned that it would lead to intellectual collapse. And every single time, they have been wrong about the long-term outcome.

Writing didn’t destroy wisdom. It spread it far beyond Athens and helped contribute to Rome, one of the greatest civilizations to ever exist. The printing press didn’t end scholarship. It ignited the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, directly contributing to America. The internet didn’t kill journalism or literature, it created new forms and vastly expanded who could participate. We really have no idea how much that will change the world.

AI will be no different.

It will disrupt. It will devalue some old skills. It will create new problems. But it will also dramatically expand humanity’s ability to create, explore, and share ideas. It will drive the current democratization even further than today.

The real question isn’t whether these new tools will change things. They always do. The real question is will we get good at wielding the new tools while keeping our own voice, judgment, and standards intact.

Light a cigar. Relax. The machines aren’t coming for your soul.

They’re just the latest chapter in a very old story.

And the story keeps going.

#AI #Socrates #LudditeFears #Gatekeeping #Typewriter #GutenbergBible #wordprocessor

You can visit it and bookmark it at Foundations!

Far too many people believe that being prepared in the modern world means buying a pistol, slapping it on their belt, and calling it good. That mindset is dangerously incomplete. Real preparedness is about building genuine capability, not collecting gear. Medical skills, physical resilience, and proper training matter far more than any single tool.

Over the last several posts we have laid out the essential foundations. Here are the key takeaways from each.

1. Mindset, Training, and the Gear Trap

So You’ve Got the Gear… Now What?

• Gear is only the starting point. Most stop here and never build real skill.

• True preparedness combines consistent training, deliberate practice, realistic plans, and the right mindset.

• Mindset is everything. Be polite and professional, but have a plan to act if necessary.

2. Emergency Medical Training and Equipment

The First Pillar

• Medical capability is the single most important skill for a Modern Minuteman. You will almost certainly need it long before a firearm.

• Begin with Stop the Bleed, then advance to higher-level trauma training (TECC). Learn to stop life-threatening bleeding and keep someone alive until help arrives.

• Build and carry a compact, proven Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK). Real-world use has shown its value repeatedly.

3. Physical Fitness and Resilience

The Second Pillar

• Medical skills are worthless if you lack the strength or endurance to reach someone in need or function under stress.

• Prioritize functional strength: the big three lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press), regular rucking with 30+ pounds, and daily walking as a baseline habit.

• Consistency beats perfection. Build sustainable habits that serve you for decades.

4. Firearms and Self-Defense Training

The Third Pillar

• The firearm comes third for good reason. Medical skills are almost certainly going to be used before a firearm. And without fitness and resilience, you are likely to not be very capable in an emergency, gun or no.

• Try before you buy at a range. Rent options in 9mm and choose one that fits you for both practice and concealed carry. We live in a golden age of excellent concealed carry pistols.

• I personally transitioned from 1911s to the Sig P365XL for everyday carry. Build fundamentals first (at least 1,000 quality rounds with a consistent range plan), then pursue quality defensive courses that cover law, decision-making, and realistic scenarios. Know your state’s laws on self-defense and concealed carry.

The Bigger Picture

Being prepared is not about playing operator or accumulating tactical toys. It is about becoming quietly competent — the kind of person who can actually help when things go wrong, whether in a medical emergency, natural disaster, or worse.

Our country would be far stronger with more trained, fit, medically capable, and responsibly armed citizens. This ideal is much closer to what the Founders had in mind than a dependent, untrained population.

The Modern Minuteman is not defined by what sits on his belt. He is defined by what he can do when it counts: stop the bleeding, move with purpose, make sound decisions under pressure, and protect what matters.

Next Steps

• Revisit any of the four foundation posts that speak to your weakest area.

• Take one concrete action this week: sign up for a bleeding control class, start a simple strength program, build your IFAK, or schedule range time.

• Download the free companion checklist (coming soon) that summarizes recommendations from the full series.

Future posts under the Modern Minuteman tag will build on these foundations with topics like integration in real scenarios, vehicle kits, family preparedness, and community resilience.

Start small. Stay consistent. Build real capability.

The Minuteman Foundations Series
So You’ve Got the Gear… Now What?
Emergency Medical Training and Equipment
Physical Fitness and Resilience
Firearms & Self-Defense Training

Modern Minuteman

Practical preparedness for everyday citizens.

Low-profile. Reliable. Quiet competence.

#Minuteman #EDC #Training #Preparedness #Mindset #Foundations

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