Founding Fathers

What a surprise: The Sun's editorial board and op-ed writers are slamming the courageous, committed leader of the Roman Catholic Church in our archdiocese ("O'Brien's quixotic fight," Feb. 8). Why? Because, it would seem, birth control is an absolute good, pregnancy is unhealthy for women and children, and most Catholics - we are told - don't agree with the Church's view on contraceptives anyway. Let's imagine for a moment that the religious leader speaking out were neither Catholic nor Christian.

Nullification fever is spreading across the rural counties along the Mason-Dixon Line, with Cecil, Harford and Carroll counties passing resolutions in the last month declaring their view that Maryland's new gun control law is unconstitutional. Cecil's council kicked off the trend with a resolution stating its intent that no county resources be used to enforce the law. Harford took a more moderate tack, with its councilmen merely urging more study of the constitutionality of the law. But Carroll County on Wednesday took matters to a new level - perhaps no surprise, given the commissioners' previous efforts to disprove global warming.

THE GREAT British philosopher and essayist Alfred North Whitehead once observed that there were only two instances in history when the political leadership of an emerging nation behaved as well as anyone could reasonably expect. The first was Rome under Caesar Augustus. The second was the United States under the collection of statesmen known as the Founding Fathers. Expecting Iraq and its leaders to meet that high standard of performance is, to put it mildly, asking a lot. To be sure, it would be marvelous to witness an Iraqi version of James Madison - who is generally regarded as the father of the U.S. Constitution - emerge to orchestrate the current cacophony in Baghdad, where delegates struggle against the odds to draft a constitution.

It was appalling to see columnist Dan Rodricks criticize Dr. Ben Carson for flirting with Republican politics ("Ben Carson's biblically based conservatism," March 31). I wish Mr. Rodricks wouldn't always look at the world through the prism of liberalism but be open-minded enough to also see things through the eyes of conservatives. What's wrong with Dr. Carson dabbling in Republican politics? Rush Limbaugh's conservative, common-sense ideas could help liberals like Mr. Rodricks to understand what made this country great.

Washington -- FOR 200 YEARS, we have been gloating over the wisdom our founding fathers displayed when they rejected a monarchy and opted for directly elected political leadership instead.Occasionally a social snob bemoans our lack of royal pomp and pageantry, but we have always resolutely believed the absence of a hereditary king or queen made for a more democratic government.Silly us.Here we are, detached bystanders a whole ocean away from the most historically dramatic scandal of the decade.

LET'S FIND that wise man or woman who first uttered the saying "Don't make a federal case out of it." Then let's bring him or her - or a descendant, if that person is dead - to Baltimore and have a chat with our mayor and police commissioner. Mayor Martin O'Malley and police Commissioner Ed Norris are feeling especially chipper these days. The reason? "Federal day" might finally come to the Charm City-That-Reads-When-Its-Citizens-Are-No t-Dodging-Bullets-Fired-By-Criminals. Sun reporters Del Quentin Wilber and Gail Gibson wrote about "federal day" in a Thursday story.

American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation By Jon Meacham Newsweek editor Meacham asserts at the start of this treatise on religion and its role in the nation's development: "If totalitarianism was the great problem of the 20th century, then extremism is so far the great problem of the 21st century." Meacham's discussion, while compelling when focused on the Founding Fathers and the middle ground that they sought in their dealings with faith and freedom, falters when he discusses later presidents and their religious views.

President Obama said in his State of the Union address that we need to restore trust in the government. Our country was founded on distrust of government. Read the Declatation of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the writings of the Founding Fathers. Distrust of big government is the basis of freedom. Ted Hartka, Phoenix

Editor: Mr. [Patrick] McGrady's position that there is little room for compromise in politics is reckless. Compromise is American. Compromise is what allowed our founding fathers to settle on, adopt, and ratify our Constitution. It is a fundamental tenet of our political system. All too often, extremist politicians use "principle" as their excuse to refuse offers of compromise and moderation. And lately, it has become popular to cloak that principle explanation under the misguided notion that it is what the founding fathers would have done.

LONDON - The events of the past few days amply demonstrate the absurdities of which the American political system is capable, but there is an underlying principle: The framers of the U.S. Constitution did not trust people. They did not even trust educated, property-owning people like themselves, which is why the division of powers between the various branches of the U.S. government is deliberately designed to stymie almost any attempt at sweeping political change. "Power tends to corrupt," as Lord Acton remarked in a not very different context.

To reach the Convention Center, you must first walk the gauntlet of dead baby parts. It's one of the newer and more gruesome tactics in the fight over reproductive choice, protesters hoisting large color placards depicting aborted fetuses torn in chunks as a group of men preaches an unending sermon on the evils of abortion. As rhetorical tactics go, it is a bludgeon. The street preachers have other things on their minds, too: Muslims are bad, homosexuals are worse, and if you vote Democrat, you're going to hell in the fast lane.

Wasn't this country founded out of the pursuit of religious freedom? If so, why is that basic right under constant attack, especially from the radical left? The birth of our country and the pursuit of religious freedom are indelibly entwined in the very fabric of this great nation. While the U.S. was and maybe still is predominantly Christian, we have first and foremost been the sanctuary for all religions and belief systems. The Founding Fathers were extremely tolerant and protective of the rights of others.

What a surprise: The Sun's editorial board and op-ed writers are slamming the courageous, committed leader of the Roman Catholic Church in our archdiocese ("O'Brien's quixotic fight," Feb. 8). Why? Because, it would seem, birth control is an absolute good, pregnancy is unhealthy for women and children, and most Catholics - we are told - don't agree with the Church's view on contraceptives anyway. Let's imagine for a moment that the religious leader speaking out were neither Catholic nor Christian.

Editor: Mr. [Patrick] McGrady's position that there is little room for compromise in politics is reckless. Compromise is American. Compromise is what allowed our founding fathers to settle on, adopt, and ratify our Constitution. It is a fundamental tenet of our political system. All too often, extremist politicians use "principle" as their excuse to refuse offers of compromise and moderation. And lately, it has become popular to cloak that principle explanation under the misguided notion that it is what the founding fathers would have done.

If it's a new day, there's probably at least one new Michele Bachmann gaffe. Today's comes courtesy of an interview Bachmann did with ABC News, in which she categorized John Quincy Adams (who was the sixth president) as a "founding father" when it was his dad, John Adams (the second president), who was actually one of the founding fathers.  Bachmann's been getting beat up in the media today over the statement, but watching the clip, I don't think this is one of her worst mistakes.

I agree with the basic premises of Jay Hancock's article in the Dec. 26 edition of The Sun relative to the government's failure to plan ahead ( "This decade, let's focus on the future for a change" . He stresses the "...need to focus government and business alike on the next decade, not the next election or quarter" and indicates a "...need for the right government rules to make it work: property rights, courts, national defense (and)...

RARELY IS IT a good idea for government to operate in secret. The Founding Fathers understood this when they drafted the Bill of Rights. They wanted to ensure the public's right to know how its legal system operated."

This is an excerpt of a Thursday Chicago Tribune editorial:Once again, the nation has been convulsed by a heinous act of violence apparently committed by a child. Two children, in fact, one of them 11 years old and the other 13.Somehow, the authorities say, the two boys acquired a small arsenal and used it Tuesday to shoot down 15 students and teachers at the Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark. Four of those students and one of the teachers died as a result of their wounds.And while the origins of the guns used in the Jonesboro shootings remain unclear, the fact that Arkansas law permits children to own firearms suggests another question: Even by the most expansive reading of the Second Amendment, can the Founding Fathers have had 11- and 13-year-olds nursing schoolboy grievances in mind when they wrote that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"?

Congressional Republicans used to enjoy the luxury of ignoring Ron Paul's cantankerous objections to the political premises they shared with their counterparts across the aisle. The question now is whether in the new Congress to be seated in January the longtime Texas representative will be allowed to chair the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology on the House Financial Services Committee. Mr. Paul is the ranking minority member now, so the job would seem to be his after the GOP sweep in the midterm election, but the Republican leadership will decide whether to give the leading critic of the Federal Reserve Bank a prominent role in overseeing the Fed itself as well as the U.S. Mint and the U.S. relationship with the World Bank.

Two hundred and thirty-four years after the members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, the question of how the founding fathers of 1776 would have governed the America of 2010 is suddenly front and center in our political discourse. A dominant view among conservatives is that the Supreme Court confirmation process underway in the Senate should turn on how closely nominee Elena Kagan hews to the doctrine of "originalism," or the belief that we must interpret the Constitution exactly as its authors understood it. The tea party movement takes its symbolism and rhetoric from the events that preceded the separation from Great Britain.