The United States is the only country founded, not on the basis of ethnic identity, territory, or monarchy, but on the basis of a philosophy – a philosophy of representative, democratic, limited government. That philosophy, moreover, is spelled out explicitly in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and earlier works they echo, such as Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (a “little book on government” that is “perfect as far as it goes,” in Thomas Jefferson’s words). Those documents reveal the ideas on which the Founders built this nation. They also reveal how far we have strayed from those ideas.
Property Rights
Oakland fined this couple $915,000 for preventing fires. That’s 18 times the penalty for actual arson
Imagine buying a piece of property, being ordered by the government to clear it of fire hazards, and then being handed a near-million-dollar bill by that same government for doing exactly what it asked. It sounds like a dystopian satire of bureaucratic overreach, but for Matthew Bernard and Lynn Warner, it is a harrowing legal...
August 19, 2026