"The American Constitution and Ayn Rand's 'Inner Contradiction'" has been written for two reasons. First, to provide patriotic Americans with an overview of the Constitution's most important provisions as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. At the same time, I want to demonstrate something unknown to virtually all Americans: that foundational to every political, social, economic, and legal system are ethical principles, and that from our nation's earliest days to the present there has been an ethical leitmotif running through the Supreme Court's most important decisions affecting individual rights and limited government. Not all their decisions, but many-and some of the most important ones. Like many other Americans, for years I've been deeply concerned about our nation's future. My fears have been exacerbated in the past three years because of the often lawless, anti-American, recklessly incompetent reign of Barack Obama. Worse, his presidency will continue for another year. Even worse, he might be reelected. In light of that possibility, consider a recent report in The Weekly Standard of a survey commissioned by the American Revolution Center, which found that nearly 83 percent of Americans failed a simple test of knowledge about the founding of the United States of America. Many of our fellow citizens believe that the founding principles of this nation are passé, that the Declaration of Independence's ringing endorsement of republican institutions, individual rights, and limited government is outdated, that the Constitution's creation of a representative republic belongs to a time gone by, and that the Bill of Rights is not a restraint on government but rather a source of newly found, invented "rights." Along with this woeful ignorance, and largely because of it, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights-rooted in republican institutions, individual rights and limited government-are under an unprecedented attack by Barack Obama and his far left Democratic Party, aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, unions, academia, and entertainment industry. To say nothing of many courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States in more than a few cases. Employing and legitimizing the exercise of statist power, the Supreme Court of the United States has facilitated state legislatures and Congress in their sacrifice of individual rights to the common good, and made a mockery of the Founders' creation of a limited government. But with a few notable exceptions there is hardly any knowledgeable, explicit and principled defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to be found anywhere. Not on radio, television, or in Hollywood. Not in the press. Not at the grassroots. Certainly not in academia. Nor, sadly, emanating from many Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians. Most of the media's pontificating so-called constitutional experts, especially those on national television, usually do more harm than good because they spread disinformation that is neither knowledgeable nor principled. And note, for example, the Republican presidential candidates' pitiful and embarrassing "debates." While many Tea Party activists and other patriots have been valiantly fighting for core constitutional values, many of them are disarmed because they've been taught little about American constitutional law. In order to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, everyone fighting for America today needs to know much more about these two documents than most of them know. Those who are committed to fighting for America's future are obligated to acquire at least a basic understanding of the Constitution's origins and birth, its written text, the manner in which it has been deliberately violated, and the consequences of how it has been deliberately misinterpreted by its enemies.
About the Author: For over two decades (1972-1993), Holzer was a full-time tenured professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, where he is now professor emeritus. Professor Holzer is the author of approximately three hundred articles, essays, and reviews. He frequently publishes commentary on current legal and political issues in print and electronic media. Several of Professor Holzer's out-of-print books-The Gold Clause: Government's Money Monopoly; Sweet Land of Liberty? The Supreme Court and Individual Rights; The Layman's Guide to Tax Evasion; Speaking Freely: The Case Against Speech Codes; and Why Not Call It Treason? Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Today-are available from various Internet booksellers, including Amazon. With his wife, lawyer and novelist Erika Holzer, Professor Holzer is co-author of Aid and Comfort: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, a book that definitively answers the question of whether Fonda's trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and her activities there, constituted constitutional treason. With Erika Holzer, Professor Holzer also co-authored Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing, and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service. These two books are also available at Amazon Professor Holzer's judicial biography, The Supreme Court Opinions of Justice Clarence Thomas, 1991-2006: A Conservative's Perspective, was published in January 2007 by McFarland & Company, a noted publisher of scholarly, reference, and academic books. The second edition, covering the years 1991-2011, was published by McFarland in 2012. Ayn Rand is best known for her four novels: We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. Her brilliant nonfiction, however, contains essays ranging across a broad spectrum of thought, among them ethics and political philosophy. From the perspective of constitutional lawyer, Holzer says, "no American political philosopher has written more illuminating essays than Rand's Man's Rights, Collectivized Rights, and The Nature of Government. Ayn Rand was a friend and client of the Holzers, Apart from conducting legal business, much of their time together was spent discussing political philosophy in general, and constitutional law in particular. Ayn Rand's influence on Holzer's thinking is evident in this book.