At a Break

Today is the lull before the storm.

Yesterday was a very cathartic day.  I went to Chemistry, as always (every day at 8am!), came home, and saw an email that told me I had won the Freshman Learning in the Light of Faith essay contest.  Guidelines can be found at the essay contest website.  Yes, there is a grand prize of $500.  Winning was totally unexpected!  41 essays were entered.  Here is the essay, written the day before the deadline:

Quandary

It is soot black. Rural Idaho has no streetlights; one would be hard pressed to say the two-rut weed patch meandering around the country is any sort of a road, let alone a street.  No moon shines.

If the outside is soot, inside the garage is soot burned a thousand times over, coated with pitch, ensconced in the blackness of a glistening stallion, and laying at the bottom of a five hundred foot pit.  Black as night.  Blacker than night.

Stumbling through the garage, my toe is stubbed by an unknown solid.  By feeling around with hands I can deduce the texture and shape of a wooden box.  Why is it there?  What purpose does it serve?  I can’t tell in this overwhelming darkness.  Everything seems jumbled up, patternless. 

Secular scientists the world over comfortably establish the metaphorical ground on which they stand and then reach out into the darkness carefully until touching something.  By feeling around the object they may deduce various physical properties about the object or even its identity.  However, there is no illumination.  It is meekness as a disciple-scholar that allows one to bring the lights up and see not only the box but also how it fits into the garage’s overall pattern.

First year biology, Brigham Young University.  Evolution unit.  Nobody is late for today’s class: Discussion on Science, Evolution, and Creationism.  Apparently there are not many people disinterested in this subject; most, like me, are listening intently.  As we read the BYU evolution packet I remember Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s assertion that “Restoration theology is expansive, not constraining” (Maxwell 6).  I must remember to keep an open mind about evolution and the processes whereby organisms adapt.

Scientists have documented natural selection really happening.  During a drought on Isle Daphne Major of the Galápagos, medium ground finches’ beaks increased in depth considerably, heightening their ability to survive eating harder seeds (Freeman 506-08).  Over time, this natural selection leads to evolution.  The process is occurring.  The problem I was left to grapple with is how this process fits into the larger plan presented by the Bible and Book of Mormon, which I know are true with far more certainty than evolution.  How is this reconciliation possible?

The answer is through meekness.  Both Maxwell and Cecil O. Samuelson Jr. cite meekness not as just one of many characteristics of a disciple-scholar, but as the chief characteristic of a disciple-scholar (Maxwell 12-15; Samuelson 44).  Nephi, the Book of Mormon prophet, is a quintessential example of meekness.

While journeying in the wilderness, all of Lehi’s sons lose the use of their bows.  When Lamen, Lemuel, and even the stalwart Lehi murmur, Nephi humbly makes another bow and asks his father, “Whither shall I go to obtain food?” (1 Nephi 16:23).  This meekness is one of the characteristics of Nephi that qualifies him for his glorious vision in chapter 11.  Nephi’s vision sheds light upon the mysteries of Lehi’s dream.  The big picture is shown and the individual events are explained.

At the end of the lecture the only pragmatic statement on evolution was that Adam and Eve are the primal parents of our race.  At first I wished something more tangible could be given out, but perhaps this quandary is best put to rest by the words of a wise roommate on the subject: “It’s not hard.  That’s what faith is all about.  You know the important stuff; you don’t need to know everything yet.”

Still dark.  Almost as quiet.  Unable to get anywhere without running into another quite-solid object, I call out quietly.  To my surprise, the deep baritone tone of my father’s voice rings out strong and true.  “I’ll get the light, son.”

Gradually, light fills the room from the dimmer switch.  A path materializes out of the darkness and confusion melts away.  Noticing my interest at the suddenly clear box, my father reminds me, “That’s our Christmas box I made.”  The box fits neatly into a clear grid pattern.  As I thread my way through the narrow, before-unseen path, my father puts his arm around me and together we walk inside.  I don’t yet need to see what else I could have bumped into.

Secular science explores boxes in the dark.  I would rather explore boxes in the light with the Maker close by, exploring the ones that He tells me about, listening to how the box fits into the larger pattern, and meekly trusting Him explicitly.

Works Cited

Freeman, Scott. Biological Science. 2^nd ed. New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005.

Maxwell, Neal. “The Disciple-Scholar.” Learning in the Light of Faith. Ed. Henry B. Eyring. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1999. 1-18.

Samuelson, Cecil O. Jr. “The Importance of Meekness in the Disciple-Scholar.” Learning in the Light of Faith. Ed. Henry B. Eyring. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1999. 35-48.

On top of that great news, I took our Chemistry test and was very pleased with my score on the multiple choice section.  What I love about Chemistry is the sense of wonder emanating from our professor.  He truly sparks that natural curiosity about the world in his students.  I was wondering the other day about the hard water deposits on our glasses after we do the dishwasher.  Having just studied about solubility and acid-base reactions I was curious as to how detergent manages to tie up ions in the water.  I learned that the harder the water, the more detergent needs to be used.  Knowing what I know now I can equate that to Ksp and the five solubility rules.  I would be interested to learn more.

After the test I played some Super Smash Bros., which I haven't done for a while.  It was quite fun.  After that I took some soup up to a girl in our ward who is sick, then went to eat dinner at the all-you-can-eat cannon center (or cancer center, as my biology professor calls it).  Stuffed, our Freshman Academy community walked to the Marriott center, where one of our roommates performed in a celebration of Christmas with folk dances around the world.  Very fun.  After that I was privileged to go to the creamery with some friends, then come back and play catch phrase.  Overall, a very, very good day.

Today there is hardly anything going on.  Tests and assignments are mostly over.  It is the slow inhalation of air before the "final" push.  Finals are the week after next and everything is wrapping up in classes.

Furhermore, I got my Elks Lodge Scholarship form turned in a couple days ago and they just notified me that the Byrd scholarship checks are on their way.  These are both beneficial to my financial situation at college and I was excited to hear about them!

Until next time,

Sean

AP Grades

Lanahans Round 2

Once again it becomes necessary to turn again to governmental politics for tomorrow.

James Ceaser/Andrew Busch - Red Over Blue

The elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004 brought with them a major increase in Republican leadership. There are four major policy dimensions: the economy, welfare issues (health, education, etc.), national security, and what has variously been called "social" or "moral" concerns. The red-blue divide leads to dichotomous thinking. The gender and race gaps in voting are closing, and more and more it is the issues that take the lead in polarization. The political realignment theory discuss before is attacked by David Mayhew. Ceaser and Busch take a less "dramatic" version of the realignment theory and apply it to the election of 2004. Conservatism has gained enormous ground. To me this means that our country has become like a prevelent female attitude (females, please take no offense from this) - trying to get to age 20 or so as fast as possible, then spending the rest of her life trying to remain that age. Same with conservatism and our country.

Earl Black/Merle Black - The Rise of Southern Republicans

This is mostly about the Solid Democratic South and its shift. The shift in the south toward Republicanism has "restored competition to America's presidential politics [and] revitalized congressional politics." There was a Great White Switch when Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The South has become a most important high stakes component of the national two-party war.

John White - The Values Divide

The twenty-first century is an intensely personal political realm. The value divide between liberals and conservatives over lifestyle issues has become a chasm. There is a huge difference between those who attend church and those who don't. Duh. According to White, values matter today more than ever, but politics can't cope.

Mark Monmonier - Bushmanders and Bullwinkles

Gerrymandering and remapping are discussed in this segment. And I'm tired...and I'm done with this segment. Sorry for the lame post, but I'm...really...tired.

Lanahan Readings...Again

Mr. McKeehan is really loading it on us now. We have to read eight excerpts from our Lanahan book, four sections out of our book, complete two+ online political ideology surveys, then write a three page paper on it...all by Wednesday. Today's Monday.

So here goes...I've already read a few excerpts and done the essay, so this will be relatively short.

V.O. Key - Public Opinion and American Democracy

Key attempts to explain the relation between people's opinions and the political leadership's opinions. In his opinion public opinion is useful as a parameter the ruling elite can maneuver in. This concept refers to what Key calls "Opinion Dikes." He says this because public opinion never exercises any initiative. It is more static. He finishes by saying the responsibility for indecision, decay, and disaster rests with the opinion-leader group because they influence public opinion, which in turn provides broad ideals of what is acceptable for governmental leaders to accomplish.

Lawrence Jacobs/Robert Shapiro - Politicians Don't Pander

The title says it all. The authors argue that politicians create a version of public opinion that coincides with their own objectives, and the media takes this view and makes it appear to the public that the politician's version of public opinion is in fact true public opinion. Gradually this effect shapes public opinion itself into what politicians want. The authors say that only the "heat of an imminent presidential election and the elevated attention that average voters devote to it motivate contemporary politicians to respond to public opinion and absorb the costs of compromising their policy goals." This seems to suggest that parties have different agendas and policy goals than do the people, which is a reasonable assumption. Politicians use to crafted words to simulate responsiveness. They create the appearance of responsiveness.

Walter Dean Burnham - Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics

Walter Dean Burnham talks about "critical realignments" and several key characteristics of this types of elections. First, they are associated with short and intense disruptions of traditional patterns of voting behavior. Second, the elections are characterized by abnormally high intensity, including the intensity of ideological polarizations. This intensity causes incumbent leadership to become more dogmatic, which in turn contributes to the intensity. Abnormally high voter turnout is also present. These realignments are like a train going slightly off course and then snapping back on to the rails with a bang. They occur with startling periodicity. These realignments are the result of the inability for parties to make gradual adjustments along vecotrs of emergent political demand.


That's all for tonight, folks.

Low Stress! Wahoo!

Today in AP English we had our gargantuan day. We totally finished our vocabulary book, turned in our take home Jane Eyre test, wrote two essays on Jane Eyre in class, took a Barron's How to prepare for the AP English Test vocabulary test, turned in a three page paper I wrote yesterday on a play I read yesterday (Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller), and thoroughly enjoyed being released from class. So now a load has been released. I just have to work on the two websites, listen to Jazz, eat ice cream, and prepare for Preference tomorrow.

I mean, Prefernce.

Jane Eyre

I am taking a test on Jane Eyre right now and I found this quote that I thought I would share:

After marrying Mr. Rochester, Jane goes to spring the news on the servants, and says,

"The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent, phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment."

These are the kind of people you want to hang around with. ;)
I really enjoy the way this book is worded. The eloquence of the novel cannot be said to be readily available in the modern world. I feel that more writers should aspire to this type of writing.

Now back to work. I have to finish this take home test, read "The Death of a Salesman", then write a three page paper on it. Today. At least I don't have to get my Sterling Scholar binder ready for tomorrow! I'm looking forward to the completion of all of these assignments!

LDS-ity

Well, today I wasted a TON of time when I should be reading Jane Eyre for tomorrow's AP English test. I guess that's what comes having the LDS website as my homepage. They just released a new website that talks specifically about Jesus Christ. That led me to go to the LDS Tech site forums, which then led me to reading several pages on Mormon.org and then I read some pages on this Gordan B. Hinckley website and this one as well. Then this and this Thomas S. Monson website. Then I wondered about the More Good foundation, which sponsored the last four websites, and so I signed up there, then followed a link to LDS.net, and signed up there, which had this interesting news story. I also watched a small video on that website which talked about how to blog, which is what inspired me to write in mine. Now I've got to go read prepare for the test tomorrow, but first...some ice cream.

Valentine's Dance

As many of you know, today is Valentine's day. In honor of this special occasion, the school music department hosted a Dinner Dance, in which spaghetti and Jazz, breadsticks and Rock, and mints and music mixed for a few mellifluous moments. I performed in (I would list all of the numbers, but even I don't expect my memory to be that good! In fact, I've probably left out a bunch that I played in...in other words, please enjoy this list of a small sample of the performance tonight):

• Boo-Ray (percussive joy)
• Stick Schtick (percussive joy)
• Sea Sounds (we all got some good "vibes" from this piece)
• Embraceable You (choral in Utah, and we don't even have an ocean!)
• Smoke on the Water (Rockish piece played by the Jazz Band)
• Too Young (Ballad)
• It's Only a Paper Moon (Jazzy piece)
• Do Nothin' 'till You Hear From Me (likewise)
• In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (ditto)
• That's Cool (Cool Jazz)
• Steam Heat (choral in Utah, and we don't even have an ocean!)
• We had a few skittish people up on stage, didn't we?
  
• and much, much more!

It was fun, the food was good, the dancing was slow in more ways than one, the auction made some money, I assume, and the performers had fun, and the night was pretty much worth the effort we have seen over the past weeks and months, I'd assume.

Our First Government Test

Tomorrow is our very first AP Government test. I will use this blog as a studying aid.

Philosophers
Thomas Hobbes - Englishman

• In a State of Nature mankind is brutish and selfish and the system is very individualistic
• Social Contract - we give up some rights for protection
• Solution (I guess) was to have one ruler: a monarch

John Locke - Englishman in the 1600s - 2nd Treatise on government

• Natural Rights - Life, Liberty (not racial liberty), Property (he was coming out of a feudalistic society)
• People's obligation to rebel and institute a new government because
• Government is responsible to the people
• Solution is to have a body created by the people as the ruler
• Absolute monarchy is indeed inconsistent with civil society - it is worse than a State of Nature
  

Montesquieu - Frenchman - The Spirit of the Laws

• England transitions from Divine Right to Constitutional Monarchy
• 3 functions to government - Legislative, Executive, Judicial
• Popularly elected legislators
• Popular army as counterbalance to both executive and legislative
  

Rousseau - Frenchman - The Social Contract

• Mankind is naturally neither good/bad but corrupted by society
• Moral/Able leaders are needed

Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince and Republics & Monarchies

• A prince must know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state.
• A prince should be feared, not hated or loved. Fear should be his aim.
• The only way to establish and maintain a democracy is to have no "gentlemen" about - lazy, corrupt, etc people
• Let republics only be established where equality exists.

John Stuart Mill - On Liberty

• Humans have a right to their own thoughts and the expression of those thoughts
• However, they cannot infringe upon other's same rights

Pluralism

• Public policy emerges from competition among groups
• Power flows from resources, which can include intangibles
• Power is distributed among various sources

Amendments

1. Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition
2. Right to Bear Arms
3. Quartering of Soldiers
4. Unreasonable Search and Seizure - Warrants upon probable cause
5. Trial and Punishment - Due Process of Law - Just Compensation of Aquirings
6. Speedy/Public Trial - Assistance of Consul - Confront/Compulse Witnesses
7. Trial By Jury if > $20
8. Cruel/Unusual Punishment - Excessive Bail/Fines
9. Other Rights Not in the Constitution
10. Powers Not Delegated in Constitution Reserved to States/People
11. Private Parties Cannot Try a State
12. Electors Vote for both President and Vice-President
13. Slavery Abolished
14. Citizenship Rights - State Due Process Clause - Equal Protection
    
15. Voting Not Based on Race
16. Income Tax

Cybercorps and More

Today after school we had Cybercorps (a computer club where we fix the school's computers). It was perhaps our longest session, because we were there until close to 6:00 p.m. from when school gets out at 2:40 p.m. I've been at the school until 10:00 p.m. before working on our FBLA website (the week before it's due and it's not done we pretty much enter into the server room at 8:00 a.m. and leave there at 10:00 p.m....it's a lot of hard, hard, long, work, but it paid off with two 1st place wins in State and two awesomely exciting trips to Nationals in Nashville and Chicago - I never thought I would travel to those places in my life, let alone in high school).

So anyway, the UBSCT is coming up and we had to install a bunch of new software on the computers to facilitate the testing...we wrote a batch file that installed Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flash player, turned off automatic Windows Updates, installed Java, and then installed a proprietary program for the testing. It took a while. Then I had to come home and read four Lanahan readings for government tomorrow, and finish memorizing Hamlet's To Be or Not to Be...let's see if I can do it from memory here (I don't have the punctuation memorized, but I'll give it my best shot):

To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to endure
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep; perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause; There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,


And that's all we're required to memorize, so that's all I did.

Now I've got to go read a chapter in our Government textbook.

Lanahan Readings for AP Government Tomorrow

Round 2 from the Lanahan readings:

Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority:

The Tyranny of the Majority is an apt title for this work. This reading appears to be the introduction to a collection of law review articles. In it Guinier defines the difference between a majority rule and a majority tyranny. She argues that in our society, the minority groups are not given a voice when the majority group feels secure in it's position. As soon as defectors transition to the minority, the majority must give the minority a voice because sooner or later the minority will turn into the majority, and if the majority does not apply the Golden Rule, neither will the minority when it is their turn for power. As soon as the majority becomes a permanent majority, and doesn't have to worry about a constantly shifting majority, the minority voice goes out the window.

To solve this problem Guinier suggests a procedural rule for voting in which the minority is still given rights. I agree with this idea. It is called cumulative voting. Each person is given the same number of votes as the number of issues they are to vote on. They are then free to "stack" their votes all on one item, or to spread them out however they wish. By forming coalitions, minority groups can stack votes and win at least one of the items on the ballet. By doing this they sacrifice the other items, which are then won by the majority. The majority of the items is won by the majority, which is as it should be, in my opinion. However, she has a valid point. The minority is often overrun in a society like ours, where our strict majoritarianism viewpoint is dominated by a winner-take-all attitude.

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite:

Mills begins this excerpt by declaring that the majority of individuals living in the United States today has doubts as the efficacy of their lives, their work, and their effect on the government. The government is ruled instead by a "power elite", who occupy such pivotal positions such that their inaction has far more drastic consequences then what they actually decide. He doesn't actually place Congress in the power elite. They are the second sub level of the elite, controlled by their heads. He writes much about hierarchies of power and of institutions that compose the elite. One would think that institutions of learning or powerful families compose the elite, but Mills names "the big three": the economic, the political, and the military domains. These three areas effectively influence all of the other sidelined institutions because their decisions have immediate, powerful consequences. As Mills puts it, "religious, educational, and family institutions are not autonomous centers of national power; on the contrary, these decentralized areas are increasingly shaped by the big three, in which developments of decisive and immediate consequence now occur."

Every thing has become centralized. I tend to agree with this pronouncement. Mills seems to be describing a process in this paper, more so than a state of things as they are currently. He would have to be describing this process in order for his ideas to bear any relevance to our world today (the book was written in the 1950s). If what Mills says is true about how the larger corporations are increasingly affecting the political system and the political system acts to intervene in the economy, the triangle of power becomes an unchangeable matrix that are so intertwined one cannot be disavowed without huge ramifications. I don't like it. I would rather have a system where each component of the government was as autonomous as it could be, either succeeding or failing without too much of an impact on the government. I can foresee problems arising from this type of a system.

Mills goes on to say that the power elite of America is formed from the "warlords, the corporation chieftains, [and] the political directorate". Mills remarks that these power elite are not part of a conspiracy, not part of any plan, but are just part of the system which has grown up and they continue to use their positions to consolidate them even more.

Richard Zweigenhaft/G. William Domhoff, Diversity in the Power Elite:

Building on Mills's thesis, Zweigenhaft and Domhoff talk about the non-traditional power elite (Jews, women, blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, etc). Their main point is how centuries of multiculturalism has affected the power elite and what effect it has had on the power elite's relation to the rest of society. Side note: They called Mills iconoclastic. The authors go on to examine how the chances of minorities getting past the "glass ceiling" in the corporate world has been examined by several big wigs and even been examined by sociologists studying how sports has affected development of skills deemed essential in the business world. I just came across one of the most humorous lines I have read today: "Many women managers are convinced that their careers suffer because of discrimination against them by golf clubs". I think that's a bit extreme! A lady named Sally was applying to be a manager at Microsoft. She thought she did well in the interview, had an excellent resume, and had impeccable references. Unfortunately, she was contacted a week later by a harried executive apologizing for her failure to be hired. "Those awful golf clubs!" She exploded. "They're the entire reason I wasn't hired!" As you can see, this situation seems a bit ludicrous to me at the moment. Maybe I'll read on and see what the authors mean!

The authors then begin to talk about African Americans in the power elite. It is their opinion, and I agree, that multicultural diversity has strengthened the power elite.

In conclusion, the authors say that the diversification of the power elite has not changed the nation's economic differences a bit.

Robert Dahl, Who Governs? and A Preface to Democratic Theory:

Dahl begins by talking about political inequalities, and how in a patrician oligarchy the inequalities were all collected into a single group. If you were better than somebody else politically, you were also better then them socially, materially, etc. However, now, it is more diversified, lending our government to be a plurally governed society. He is essentially refuting Mills's argument that there is a power elite by saying many groups rule the government because of their dispersed inequalities.

There are two strata. A political stratum and a apolitical stratum. The ideas and skills of those in the political stratum are diffused into the general population. To me, if the political stratum were removed, and those from the apolitical stratum had to step in and fill their place, then if there was a difference in the major decisions and procedures of the time I would consider the rule to be based in the political stratum, as responsible as those politicians might be to their constituents. However, if there was little or no difference, the power would seem to me to be in the apolitical stratum, and the political ideas are diffused into the political stratum the same way in which the ideas from the politicians are diffused into the hoi polloi. As I read through some of the differences in here between the two strata, I cannot help but want to be included in the political stratum, as time-consuming as it sounds. Dahl gives some of his own ideas on the subject: he believes that "when movement into the political stratum is easy, the stratum embodies many of the most widely shared values and goals in the society". I agree, and contend that in this case, due to the nature of the system, the government is run more by the people than most would assume. Dahl also says, "the political stratum does not constitute a homogeneous class with well-defined class interests". It is this split, this heterogeneity, that allows the paradoxes that Hartz and Kammen talked about. It is these paradoxes that allows our government to be such a compromising nation. I imagine a tug-of-war rope with both sides walking horizontally as well as pulling. You notice that the middle of the rope, the measure of our nation's public policy, slowly moves in the direction of the majority. It is these paradoxes, combined with Guinier's tyranny of the majority, that defines our government.

In the excerpt from A Preface to Democratic Theory, Dahl alleges that "the making of governmental decisions is not a majestic march of great majorities united upon certain matters of basic policy. It is the steady appeasement of relatively small groups".

I really like this quote about our country from Dahl:

It is not a static system. The normal American system has evolved, and by evolving it has survived. It has evolved and survived from aristocracy to mass democracy, through slavery, civil war, the tentative uneasy reconciliation of North and South, the repression of Negroes and their halting liberation; through two great wars of worldwide scope, mobilization, far-flung military enterprise, and return to hazardous peace; through numerous periods of economic instability and one prolonged depression with mass unemployment, farm "holidays," veterans' marches, tear gas, and even bullets; through two periods of postwar cynicism, demagogic excesses, invasions of traditional liberties, and the groping, awkward, often savage, attempt to cope with problems of subversion, fear, and civil tension.

Study Habits

One thing I've learned is that in order for me to learn information I have to really get a good grasp of the material. I can't just memorize things; I have to understand the big picture and synthesize information somehow.

Ann G. Serow and Everett C. Ladd compiled an excellent book called The Lanahan Readings in the American Polity. It sounds boring, and in some cases it is. It is, however, a required reading for AP Government. I'm going to organize kind of what I get out of it so far in today's readings.

We have to read four excerpts for tomorrow:

1. #8 - Richard Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition
2. #10 - Michael Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself
   
3. #9 - James Madison's The Federalist 10
   
4. #15 - James Madison's The Federalist 51

1. To me it seems that Hofstadter's driving impetus in this essay is his view of the Founding Fathers as attempting to create a government that is based on the view of the masses while at the same time distrusting those same masses. The Founding Fathers viewed man as a "rapacious self-interest, and yet they wanted him to be free". In subscribing to this philosophy, the Fathers stood in the middle of two extremes. It reminds me of Hartz's essay (although written seven years earlier), and Michael Kammen later capitalized on this same idea in 1972. That is, the idea of paradoxes in government. How can a government be derived from the people and the liberties they innately have, but be at the same time be ordained to control the inordinate self-interest of the people? Hofstadter argues that the Founding Fathers thought that democracy was the most menacing thing to liberty; that is, the ability to own property, to protect that property, and bestow upon every man the same liberties as another to do with that property what he will, dependent upon his own inpinging upon the rights of others. It is only when combined with Locke's view of property that we received our inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution today. I enjoyed when Hofstadter brought up the point that, "it was the opponents of the Constitution who were most active in demanding such vital liberties as freedom of religion, freedom of speech..." In the end, the Founding Fathers, according to Hofstadter, established the government to effectively umpire their continual strife with property, because they agreed with Hobbes that mankind is inherently brutish. However, in order to control that brutish nature they necessarily had to place the nature of man against itself to keep one party from gaining too much control.

I had planned to write more on each of the essays, but I'm afraid I'm out of time. Until next time, this is S. Fisher, signing off.