Daniel Aaron Lazar » US GOV: Constitution Primer

Interpreting The Constitution In The Digital Era

Dan Lazar — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:48:47 +0000

GPS monitors can track your every movement. Brain scans can now see lies forming in your brain. And advancements in genetic engineering may soon allow parents to engineer what their children will look and be like.

These new technologies are “challenging our Constitutional categories in really dramatic ways,” says George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen. “And what’s so striking is that none of the existing amendments give clear answers to the most basic questions we’re having today.”

Listen to this episode of Fresh Air, where Rosen, the co-editor of the Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, details how technological changes that were unimaginable at the time of the Founding Fathers are challenging our notions of things like personal vs. private space, freedom of speech and our own individual autonomy.

The conservative mission to destroy the Constitution in order to save it

Dan Lazar — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 04:54:07 +0000

Slate’s Dalia Lithwick offers some insights into the Tea Party’s proposal to amend the “divinely inspired” Constitution.

Explaining The American Filibuster

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:57:37 +0000

If high-school government class taught us anything, it’s that getting bills passed through Congress is a game of numbers: The bill with the most votes wins.

Turns out it’s not that simple. These days, the polarized state of American politics means that major bills need at least 60 votes to avoid an inevitable filibuster by the opposition.

Political scientist Gregory Koger’s new book, Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate, addresses the institutionalization of the filibuster — and describes congressional loopholes by way of which fast thinking and hard work can beat the numbers. Koger teaches American politics at the University of Miami. He joins host Terry Gross for a conversation about what has happened to simple majority rule.

Listen to Koger discuss the filibuster in an interview with Terry Gross

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Dan Lazar — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:36:39 +0000

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.

From the Guardian

On TJ…

Dan Lazar — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:54:24 +0000

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of TJ

Where are the Jeffersons of Today

Questions on TJ Documents

Beyond the Assigned Reading…

The Shady Side of TJ

Was the Sage a Hypocrite?

TJ and Hamilton: The Best of Enemies

Order v. Liberty

Dan Lazar — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:46:33 +0000

You may think that the Constitution is your security it is nothing but a piece of paper. You may think that the statutes are your security but they are nothing but words in a book. You may think that elaborate mechanism of government is your security but it is nothing at all, unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion to give life to your Constitution, to give vitality to your statutes, to make efficient your government machinery.

-Charles Evan Hughes, Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court, 1930-1941

Dr. Larry Graggs Article

Order v. Liberty Responses

Contemporary Connection…

Lecture on Alien & Sedition and Espionage and Sedition Acts

My Lesson Plan to Connect Alien & Sedition Acts to USAPA

Time Magazine calls Alien & Sedition Acts the Patriot Act of the 18th Century

Librarians are More Rebellious Than Many Think

Feel free to read all 342 pages of this masterpiece here

Naturally, the ACLU would love nothing more than to see the demise of the USAPA