Tucson Festival of Books

The Tucson Festival of Books is the largest free book fair in the nation. It's a great adventure, and if you did not attend this year, you'll just be another year older when you do. 

Three of my books were highlighted: The Shopkeeper, The Shut Mouth Society, and Tempest at Dawn.

Lots of great presentations. This is C. J Box, Ellie Cosimano, and J. A Jance talking about book series. Great discussion.

Learning about the Constitution

We often hear laments that our politicians no longer honor their pledge to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.  This is backward.  The Constitution was never written for politicians.  Our political leaders have no motivation to abide by a two hundred year old restraining order.  Americans must enforce the supreme law of the land. The first outsized words of the Constitution read We the People.  It’s our document. It was always meant to be ours, not the government’s.  It is each and every American’s obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

In order to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, Americans need to understand it. Luckily, there are some great learning tools available. These include an online course at James Madison’s Montpelier Center for the Constitution, Hillsdale College Online Courses, Constitutional essays at Constituting America, and several good books, including The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, Tempest at Dawn, and Decision in Philadelphia.

James Madison’s Montpelier, Center for the Constitution

The Center for the Constitution at Montpelier conducts a series of seminars on the Constitution. For those who cannot attend in person, the Center has created a free course on their website. The interactive online course includes text instructions, video discussions with constitutional scholars, and quizzes to test the student’s knowledge. I have taken the first of seven sessions and found it to be accurate, not politicized, and paced to keep the student’s interest. The seminars and online course were originally designed for teachers, but work well for any inquisitive student of the Constitution. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are available after successful completion of the entire course. The course is free, but it cost $25 to claim CEUs.

Common Misconceptions About the Constitution

I was inspired to start this blog after listening to a political science graduate on a talk radio. I was startled to hear her say that she was never required to read the body of the Constitution, only the Bill of Rights. This brought to mind once again the three most widespread misconceptions about the Constitution.

1. The Bill of Rights is the most important part of the Constitution
2. The Bill of Rights guarantees our freedom
3. The Constitution is ancient and not applicable to the modern world

The Framers would vehemently disagree with the first myth. Viewing the Bill of Rights as the most important part of the Constitution would go against everything they believed. In fact, many of the framers opposed a Bill of Rights. Even those who supported a list of rights still believed the main body of the Constitution was the linchpin that protected liberty.

The framers had a very simple philosophy about protecting liberty—Limit government power. Period. All oppression comes from power, and excessive government power inevitably leads to oppression. They searched world history for an exception to this rule and found none.