American populist angst has been rising for some time now. The optimist in me hopes that the Tea Party movement, and with it the rekindling within Americans of the vision of the founders and the defense of our Constitution can “fundamentally transform the United States of America” to coin a phrase from our old socialist [...]

There seems to be increasing skepticism these days about the worth of democracy. The following quote from a post by John Humphreys on the “Thoughts on Freedom” blog provides a good example of what I mean:
“Democracy has become a new faith. Simply saying the word supposedly makes an argument stronger, as though there is some [...]

Some New Zealanders might say that this is a question that only an Australian could ask, but it seems to me to be a good way to raise the issue that I want to discuss. (I hope that when I look back on this in a few days time it will still seem like a [...]

When Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested by the FBI on charges of corruption, he was allegedly seeking to sell Barack Obama’s soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat. Although the Constitution requires that special elections be held in the case of a vacant House of Representatives seat, it vests the power of appointing fill-in senators to the [...]