Generation Joshua 2006 book club

The Generation Joshua book club is getting ready to ramp up again for 2006. This is an excellent way for rhetoric stage students to read great books, discuss them with other students and with an adult “master” (as teachers used to be called, back when they really were masters of the subject matter they taught), and write a paper on the book under study. The books for this spring include:

1776 by David McCullough
The American Cause by Russell Kirk
Men In Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America by Mark R. Levin
More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell
How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer
The West’s Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? by Tony Blankley

For more information and to sign up, visit the Generation Joshua homepage.

Cato unbound

I discovered Cato Unbound today (hat tip: Pajamas Media). It seems it is to be a cross between 1) an online magazine, a la National Review Online, with invited leading thinkers writing on the big topics of the day, and 2) resulting commentary, a la Wall Street Journal Editorials, addressing the ideas and issues raised in the essays, and 3) blog, with comments and letters from readers, and posts from all over the blogosphere about the debate, featured as well.

This month’s big question was, If three amendments could be added to the Constitution, what would they be? It was answered by Nobel laureate and Cato Institute distinguished senior fellow James M. Buchanan. The replies from other leading thinkers to his essay have already begun coming in. Don’t you love the new media!

If Cato Unbound turns out as advertised, this resource could be a valuable teaching tool for rhetoric stage students, analyzing the essays, researching, and writing their own replies; and also logic-checking and rebutting, if necessary, the related reader responses and blog posts.

Why logic, rhetoric, and apologetics

Michael Medved asks if $40,000 a year is a good value for parents to pay to elite colleges, given that parents think that money is being used to provide their children a top-flight education and opportunity in life. Unfortunately, the professors have no such illusions — they are in the business of indoctrination:

“On my radio show, [Professor] Savage said that conservative homes keep kids away from liberal ideas, but once they encounter enlightened thinking they instantly see its superiority.”

“Enlightened” is code for secularist and humanist, and comes from the “Age of Enlightenment,” following on the heels of the Renaissance and Reformation in France, in which the French men of letters, such as Voltaire, opposed the Church and faith as primitive, and advocated secularism and “reason;” i.e. the wisdom of man.

Options: parents can send children to an elite conservative college, such as Hillsdale or Grove City, or have them do apprenticeships to prepare for careers. But liberal ideas are flush in our society, and our children will meet them sooner or later. Better to prepare them in the rhetoric stage with their origin, history, and answer (apologia) found in the word of God.

The president’s message

Found on the inside cover of a Bible that was given to a soldier during the Great War (WWI) with a special message from the president, Woodrow Wilson:

“The Bible is the word of life. I beg that you will read it and find this out for yourselves,--read, not little snatches here and there, but long passages that will really be the road to the heart of it. You will find it full of real men and women, not only but also of the things you have wondered about and been troubled about all your life, as men have been always; and the more you read the more it will become plain to you what things are worth while and what are not, what makes men happy,--loyalty, right dealing, speaking the truth, readiness to give everything for what they think their duty, and, most of all, the wish that they may have the approval of the Christ, who gave everything for them,--and the things that are guaranteed to make men unhappy,--selfishness, cowardice, greed, and everything that is low and mean.

“When you have read the Bible you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.”

Woodrow Wilson

No one thought this encouragement the equivalent of state establishment of religion then. Has the definition of state establishment changed? If not, then what has? Good discussion question for rhetoric stage students.

The case for property

In what has to be the Dred Scott or Roe v. Wade decision of the 21st century (yes, the Supreme Court does make terrible mistakes at times with far-reaching consequences) last week the Supreme Court ruled that cities may seize property from one private owner in order to transfer it to another private owner, completely mangling the historic and traditional definition of public use of private land. Michelle Malkin has the blogosphere’s reaction here and here.

This colossal error in judgment turns the clock all the way back to the year 1215, when private property rights first took a step out from under absolute rule of a monarch. Homeowners can’t take much comfort from the United States Conference of Mayors, who immediately issued a statement praising the Supreme Court’s decision. In an effort to curb the effects of this judicial fiat, the Virginia Legislature is seeking to provide constitutional protections for private homeowners. (And you thought the U.S. Constitution already did that.) Let’s petition all of our state legislatures to follow suit. But are homes the only private property at risk? A case in California a few years back suggests not.

Now would be a good time to educate our rhetoric stage students why private property ownership is such a cornerstone of free Western society. God established the principle of private property by commanding, Thou shalt not steal, nor covet anything that is thy neighbor’s. (In a rare piece of irony, the Supreme Court has also just ruled that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in courthouses.) Frederick Bastiat’s The Primacy of Property is a good place to start, followed by the Foundation for Economic Education’s The Property Rights Origins of Privacy Rights. Another excellent research topic would center on the Constitution’s checks and balances on the judicial branch – is that branch the only branch without any? Although it seems that the judiciary is the new absolute tyrant, Mark R. Levin argues in Men in Black that this condition is a far cry from the founders’ intent.
***
Update: On the lighter side (if there is one) Scrappleface reports Court allows Ten Commandments on seized land. Well, we have to laugh about something.
***
Update again: see Our rights proceed from Leninists on the similarity between Justice Steven’s majority opinion and Lenin’s 1917 argument for government confiscation of the landed estates.

Economics for the citizen

“Last fall semester, I didn’t teach for the first time in 37 years. No, I haven’t retired. It was my semester-off reward for two terms as department chairman at George Mason University. A break is well deserved after a chairmanship — a job not unlike that of herding cats. During fall semesters, I typically teach our first-year Ph.D. microeconomics theory course. Out of a love for teaching, I’ve decided to not completely take off but deliver a few lectures on basic economic principles to my readership. We’ll name the series ‘Economics for the Citizen.’”

Lucky us, Walter Williams just completed the tenth and final essay in his Economics for the Citizen series. I have linked to the first essay, the links for essays 2 through 10 are found in the right sidebar of the first essay.

Also visit When Material Wealth is Not Enough for an interesting topic starter for discussion or research paper.

Rhetoric stage students study economics in their second year of applied history studies. Add these essays following Economics in One Lesson, for those following the CCH curriculum. (We are redoing applied history at CCH; active link coming soon!)