Fearless Philosophy Blogpost of the Month (June 2005)

I know it is late but here it is finally, the Fearless Philosophy Blogpost of the Month for the Month of June (now that we are almost halfway through July). June was a very busy and exciting month to be a blogger. I joined the newly minted Life, Liberty, Property blogging community and quadrupled the number of outgoing links (more exposure) for this site. The topic on everyone’s mind in the last two weeks of June it seemed was the disastrous SCOTUS ruling we un-affectionately refer to as Kelo. With all the posts on this topic, I opted to select three posts which are not about Kelo (at least directly). There were many posts on Kelo which would be worthy of this honor, however. If you haven’t already had enough of this topic, I would highly recommend for you to read the Carnival of Liberty II (especially the winning post). With all of that said, let’s take a look at my top 3 picks.

Third Place goes to Mindwyrm of Uncommon Insanity and his post What is Liberty? This is a very fundamental and important question we should ask. Mindwrm writes:

Freedom is defined as the capacity to exercise choice; free will. Liberty has it's meaning as the right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing. Looks to be pretty much the same thing, right? Wrong. Freedom is just the capability to make a choice. Every person in the world has that…oppression isn’t the taking of freedom. It’s the denial of liberty.”

Though we came to very different conclusions on the Ten Commandments cases (click here for my post; click here for Mindwyrm’s), he makes a compelling argument about what the meaning of liberty is.

Second Place goes to T.F. Stern of T.F. Sterns Rantings for his post Entitlements are Killing the American Spirit. Like the title suggests, Stern explains why the ‘American Spirit’ is suffering because of ‘entitlement’ programs. Stern then directs the blame of this notion of entitlement (rightly) mostly toward today’s senior citizens.

Some of you senior citizens, you survivors of the Great Depression; what happened to the “can do attitude”, did you leave it on the night stand next to your dentures? Do you stand behind the AARP crap, “Give us our prescription drugs, give us universal health care, give us everything because we have earned the right”? Think about the demands to have “government sponsored” entitlements. Doesn’t this fly in the face of everything your generation stood for? Did you wake up one morning and say to yourselves, “I’m tired of fighting the good fight, and anyway, I paid my dues.”

What kind of example are we setting for the next generation? Are we telling them that when you reach a certain age you become useless, unable to obtain necessary items or worse; that you would permit another to do what you could have done for yourself, had you any pride left within you at all? God, I hope not!

That last sentence is priceless isn’t it?

And the winner is…The Fearless Philosophy Blog Post of the Month of June goes to Eric Cowperthwaite of Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave and his post Originalist vs. "Living Document" Eric’s post turned out to be quite timely with the Kelo ruling and the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’connor, both events happened shortly after publishing this post. In the third post of my blog I tried to explain the way judges should approach the Constitution and other existing laws on the books. Eric does a much better job of this in his post:

The amendment process, in fact, is the answer to the "living document" argument of constitutional theory. Much of the ills that the Left argues against today, the bureaucracy and congress that favor the corporate state over the individual, the military-industrial complex, the gross extension of police search and seizure powers, the intrusion into social issues that should be matters of purely local and state law are, indeed, the result of the "living document". We can point at any number of laws and regulations passed by congress and any number of decisions made by the courts that have "interpreted" the constitution, rather than being based on its original meaning. Surprisingly, the Left does not (or chooses not to?) see that one is the consequence of the other.”

Congratulations to all of this month’s winners!

Past Winners:
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005