A life in words

  • The Constitution Is Cool

    The Constitution Is Cool

    Like a neglectful car owner who postpones the next oil change, we don’t talk about the U.S. Constitution enough, don’t listen to its hum and sputters enough, and aren’t doing enough to set in order the problems impairing the long-term functioning of a free government. One of the few institutions where people are talking seriously…

  • Recommended listen: Can President Trump Invoke the Insurrection Act Over the Objections of State Governors?

    People call the president a “conservative”, but this is only true in the culture war sense; the rest is about blindly trampling the status quo, both dysfunctional things like neglected immigration enforcement, and vital principles like a limited executive and free speech. This is a good listen on the history of the Insurrection Act, and…

  • Mount Si hike 9 Aug 2025

    Mount Si hike 9 Aug 2025

    Finally got up on Mount Si for the season today. 3:22 for the round trip including break at the top—pretty good! Next time, without breaking a sweat? We shall see!

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)