A musing Beam

In this two-part series, I plan on discussing the major issues I see with two prevalent types of fundamentalism: constitutional and biblical.  Though the two need not be related, it appears to me that one often leads to the other. This first installment is on a fundamentalist interpretation of the Constitution.  I have some expertise here, given that I have my JD and an undergraduate in English, so I will rarely be referring to other sources (outside the Constitution itself).  In this discussion, I am defining constitutional fundamentalism as a combination of "originalism" -- look at what the words meant when they were originally written -- and "strict constructionism" -- go strictly by the words on the page, with no reference to anything external, avoiding inferences. Original intent Ethical considerations Before I get into a more textual discussion, first I would like to point out that the founders were extremely flawed, and the document they made was, to mo

A couple of years ago, I posted about how my wife and I had embraced the Dave Ramsey plan.  (For my earlier post, see http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/2010/03/daving-it.html .)  I thought I would give an update about how that has gone. For those that don't know, Dave Ramsey is a financial guru who says we should spend less, save more, and not use debt to live beyond our means.  As he freely admits, this is hardly revolutionary.  As WE freely admit, we were doing anything but living within our means. When we began this program in March, 2010, we had well over $100k in non-mortgage debt.  Paying all of that off would be very close to impossible on how much extra income we had.  So, we had to do a few things that might be considered "extreme": 1) We sold our new car (cost us $1k to do so) and bought a used truck with cash.  Total expenditure: $5k.  Debt reduced by: ~$20k. 2) No vacation in 2010.  We didn't take any. 3) Second job.  Because I'm crazy, I did my n