Watch The Inner Light and the 2 eps with Moriarty. Excellent classic sci-fi, no therapy.

From your mouth to God’s ear.

Dickens reference for the win. Well played and sadly relevant.

So true!

The fed gov has grown when the ppl have ordered it to provide additional services like food inspection, disaster relief, pollution control, Social Security, etc. But the list of Things The Gov May Not Do is still long. The gov is still meant to be WEAK when it comes to messing with our rights.

Other than the Post Office, you would hardly know the federal government existed, at the founding. That’s how they wanted it. Civic issues were mostly handled by state or local governments, or loose associations of neighbors.

It’s like the Founders trained a big dog to bark at intruders, but put it on a really short leash to keep it from chewing the furniture (our rights). At first, the gov did not even have a standing army and could not collect an income tax.

The Const. lists a few things the gov must do, and MANY things it MUST NOT DO. For example, the gov MUST NOT make laws establishing a national religion, or unduly curtail speech, or let soldiers live in your house, or lock you up without a real trial. Much of the Const. is about LIMITING the Gov.

We like to think of America as strong. But the gov was basically meant to be strong only in terms of defense against other nations, and to be as WEAK AS POSSIBLE in terms of interfering with the rights of the people.

The gov performs a few essential services like provide for the common defense, collect import taxes, make laws, have judges and courts, run a postal service, etc. These are jobs the people order the gov to perform FOR the people. These are jobs a gov can do better than individuals.

The Constitution had to establish a government to be independent from England, but sought to create the weakest possible government, one that was strictly limited in its ability to tread on the rights on the people. The people tell the gov what to do, not the other way around.

www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...

Good decision yesterday from a three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit, barring (for now) implementation of a Louisiana law requiring prominent display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. It’s unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Well written.

Cited yesterday to mean the president cannot unilaterally coopt the national guard in LA. States have some rights there.

Yep! No lie. You could boil your water in a tin can on a car hood. 🤪

Same here in New Orleans, but Celcius.

Most recently it seems to mean that the feds mostly cannot coopt the states to do its bidding.

This was another caution against too much power accreting to a central government. Its interpretation by the Supreme Court has swung back and forth over the decades, sometimes limiting the Federal gov a lot, sometimes not.

Amendment-a-Day: Tenth: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

No audio or video … that you know of … yet. Mooahahahaha!

Charged with pursuing “personal interest of will, power, and pretended prerogative to himself and his family, against the public interest, common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of this nation."

Really stunning.

Today, June 2, 2025, the Supreme Court let stand, for now, some laws limiting AR-15 type weapons and large capacity magazines. The Second Amendment continues to evolve.

The 9th has been invoked (usually in conjunction w other rights) to support other Constitutionally-protected rights not explicitly named in the BOR, such as a right to privacy, have children, marriage, travel, etc.

This fear was considered by some (Madison, Hamilton) as a reason not to spell out ANY rights in a “Bill Of Rights.” That argument lost (a BOR was adopted), but the 9th Am. was added to quell the fear.

Amendment-a-day: Ninth. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Added to address fears that spelling out *some* rights would mean any rights NOT spelled out were not guaranteed.

Amendment-a-day: 8th. “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Brief, aimed directly at King George’s tyrannical practices. Poor people can spend years in harsh prisons for minor offenses, or none. America must work on this.

❤️

What can one say, other than to note that 20 bucks probably went a lot farther in the 1700s than now?

Amendment-a-day: Seventh: In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.