A Second Look: James Madison & the Tea Party

The current government shut down over the Affordable Healthcare Act speaks directly to issues found in the nation’s beginnings. Among the many ironies of Tea Party foolishness is that while its adherents are enemies of federalism and shape minor deities of the nation’s founders, the nation’s founders very purposefully opted for federalism. This post from […]

Meet the Opposition to Labor Rights

I was going to post today (and will another day) on a number of rhetorically sly and fallacious argumentative ploys I’ve encountered lately, but you may have noticed that I am singularly focused these days on the GOP’s reactionary assault on labor rights and working people. It is a critical moment in U.S. social history, […]

James Madison and Madison, Wisconsin

Conservative deification of the Founders regularly overlooks their choice, in a constitutional, federal government over the prior confederation, of stronger, more centralized national government. In argumentative recourse to the Federalist Papers, conservatives neglect, as history does, the Anti-Federalist Papers. The Federalists won the day. It was their constitution, with the addition of a Bill of […]