Sir William Blackstone is often praised for laying the groundwork for American jurisprudence with his Commentaries on the Laws of England.  Blackstone's Commentaries were one of the most widely read books in the colonies, and his views of the laws of England were often incorporated into the laws of America.  One portion of Blackstone's Commentaries that has largely been forgotten by modern legal scholars but which played a significant role in forming the thought of founding fathers like James Wilson was Blackstone's answer to the question of where laws come from.  What follows is a condensed version of Blackstone's somewhat loquacious answer to that question.

As more and more Republican voters have become disgusted with the effects of all the various coronavirus mandates, Trump's reelection team has been attempting to whitewash Trump's role in the shutdowns, social distancing policies, mask orders, and other less than popular policies that have been put in place during this crisis.   In typical Trumpian fashion, the President's bootlickers are now claiming that the President was opposed to things like shutting down the economy, telling churches not to hold in-person services, separating workers into essential vs. non-essential categories, and so on.  They're now claiming that evil Democrat governors came up with these ideas all on their own, and that Donald Trump has been fighting against them from the beginning.

Conservatism is the philosophy that the wisdom of the past is still just as applicable today as it was then.  Conservatism is an ancient wisdom in itself, for every age has its conservatives and liberals, and it is always the conservatives who succeed and pass their wisdom down to the next age where some new brand of liberals will rise up to challenge that wisdom once again. 

One of the most fascinating things about the Old Testament is the fact that God established a republican government in ancient Israel.  Most people today think that Israel had a standard monarchical form of government, but that was not the case.  Israel (and Judah) never had a true monarchy.  Throughout their history, they were always a republican nation characterized by popular elections of their rulers.  (For more on this topic see my free eBook The Bible and the Constitution.)
 
When God established Israel’s government, He also taught the Jews how to choose the right kind of leaders.  Those instructions can be found in Exodus 18:21, Deuteronomy 1:13, and Deuteronomy 17:15-20.  The qualifications listed in these and other passages are not difficult. There were thousands of men in Israel who met them. God intentionally set the standard low so that the various offices could be filled. He gave the Jews a list of the barest minimum standards that would allow their government to function with good men in positions of leadership.

I did not watch this year's State of the Union address.  In fact, I have never watched a State of the Union address.  I always wait to read the transcript afterwards instead.  I have found that reading a transcript of a speech allows me to focus on the actual content of the speech without the distraction of the speaker's theatrics.  And when I read this year's State of the Union address from Donald Trump, I found that this practice of separating content from theatrics gave me a fairly unique perspective of a speech that many of my friends were describing as the greatest State of the Union address they've ever heard.

I am glad that Trump attended the March for Life instead of the Planned Parenthood gala like Obama did, and I'm glad that he gave a speech proclaiming that "Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God."  I just have one small question:

I wasn't planning to write this.  When I heard about Trump's brave new guidance for prayer in schools, I tried to just ignore it and get on with my life.  I figured that I had gotten enough of my friends mad at me for the time being and that I should just let this particular opportunity slide on by.  However, I saw so many of my friends posting about how wonderful Trump was for issuing these new guidelines that I finally decided to actually read the guidelines for myself and see what all the fuss was about.

Dear Bro. Charles,
 
By now, you have almost certainly heard about the contention between Pastor Dan and the deacons of First Baptist Church.  In fact, it would be nigh impossible for you to have missed it.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation being spread by both sides of the conflict, and I wanted to write you to ensure that you received an accurate account of the proceedings up to this time.  Of course, I won’t be able to go into a lot of detail, but I hope that this overview will help you to sort out truth from fiction among all the conflicting reports that you have read.

Alabama Representative Terri Collins, along with 66 cosponsors, has introduced a bill in the Alabama state house which would make abortion a felony in the state of Alabama.  As you are well aware, I have been trying to get abortion banned from Alabama ever since I moved back to the state 10 years ago.  You would think, then, that I would be ecstatic to see our legislature finally promoting a bill that would accomplish that goal, but this bill is a very dangerous bill.  Let me explain why.