Why the Federalist Papers are a Primary Text at Monticello College

The May 7th issue of the Wall Street Journal printed an article with this title :

OPINION

May 6, 2012, 7:03 p.m. ET

Peter Berkowitz: Why Colleges Don’t Teach the Federalist Papers

At America’s top schools, graduates leave without reading our most basic writings on the purpose of constitutional self-government.

Berkowitz begins his article:

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of The Federalist for understanding the principles of American government and the challenges that liberal democracies confront early in the second decade of the 21st century.

 

Yet despite the lip service they pay to liberal education, our leading universities can’t be bothered to require students to study The Federalist—or, worse, they oppose such requirements on moral, political or pedagogical grounds. Small wonder it took so long for progressives to realize that arguments about the constitutionality of ObamaCare are indeed serious.

 

He then lays out the origin of this forgotten road map to freedom,

 

The masterpiece of American political thought originated as a series of newspaper articles published under the pseudonym Publius in New York between October 1787 and August 1788 by framers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison.

 

The aim was to make the case for ratification of the new constitution, which had been agreed to in September 1787 by delegates to the federal convention meeting in Philadelphia over four months of remarkable discussion, debate and deliberation about self-government.

 

By the end of 1788, a total of 85 essays had been gathered in two volumes under the title The Federalist. Written at a brisk clip and with the crucial vote in New York hanging in the balance, the essays formed a treatise on constitutional self-government for the ages.

 

The Federalist deals with the reasons for preserving the union, the inefficacy of the existing federal government under the Articles of Confederation, and the conformity of the new constitution to the principles of liberty and consent. It covers war and peace, foreign affairs, commerce, taxation, federalism and the separation of powers. It provides a detailed examination of the chief features of the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

 

It advances its case by restatement and refutation of the leading criticisms of the new constitution. It displays a level of learning, political acumen and public-spiritedness to which contemporary scholars, journalists and politicians can but aspire. And to this day it stands as an unsurpassed source of insight into the Constitution’s text, structure and purposes.

Berkowitz continues with a list of Ivy League and similarly rated undergraduate and graduate schools that lightly touch on or completely skip the reading of the Federalist.

Touching on the treatment of the Federalist by progressive ideology and the corruption of political science in general, he ends by pointing out the forgotten value and common sense of reading the Federalist Papers,

And thus so many of our leading opinion formers and policy makers seem to come unhinged when they encounter constitutional arguments apparently foreign to them but well-rooted in constitutional text, structure and history.

 

These include arguments about, say, the unitary executive; or the priority of protecting political speech of all sorts; or the imperative to articulate a principle that keeps the Constitution’s commerce clause from becoming the vehicle by which a federal government—whose powers, as Madison put it in Federalist 45, are “few and defined”—is remade into one of limitless unenumerated powers.

 

By robbing students of the chance to acquire a truly liberal education, our universities also deprive the nation of a citizenry well-acquainted with our Constitution’s enduring principles.

Why are the Federalist Papers a primary text at Monticello College?

If you have to ask, we need to talk.

Full Berkowitz article below:

Peter Berkowitz: Why Colleges Don’t Teach the Federalist Papers

At America’s top schools, graduates leave without reading our most basic writings on the purpose of constitutional self-government.

By PETER BERKOWITZ

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of The Federalist for understanding the principles of American government and the challenges that liberal democracies confront early in the second decade of the 21st century. Yet despite the lip service they pay to liberal education, our leading universities can’t be bothered to require students to study The Federalist—or, worse, they oppose such requirements on moral, political or pedagogical grounds. Small wonder it took so long for progressives to realize that arguments about the constitutionality of ObamaCare are indeed serious.

The masterpiece of American political thought originated as a series of newspaper articles published under the pseudonym Publius in New York between October 1787 and August 1788 by framers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison. The aim was to make the case for ratification of the new constitution, which had been agreed to in September 1787 by delegates to the federal convention meeting in Philadelphia over four months of remarkable discussion, debate and deliberation about self-government.

By the end of 1788, a total of 85 essays had been gathered in two volumes under the title The Federalist. Written at a brisk clip and with the crucial vote in New York hanging in the balance, the essays formed a treatise on constitutional self-government for the ages.

The Federalist deals with the reasons for preserving the union, the inefficacy of the existing federal government under the Articles of Confederation, and the conformity of the new constitution to the principles of liberty and consent. It covers war and peace, foreign affairs, commerce, taxation, federalism and the separation of powers. It provides a detailed examination of the chief features of the legislative, executive and judicial branches. It advances its case by restatement and refutation of the leading criticisms of the new constitution. It displays a level of learning, political acumen and public-spiritedness to which contemporary scholars, journalists and politicians can but aspire. And to this day it stands as an unsurpassed source of insight into the Constitution’s text, structure and purposes.

At Harvard, at least, all undergraduate political-science majors will receive perfunctory exposure to a few Federalist essays in a mandatory course their sophomore year. But at Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley, political-science majors can receive their degrees without encountering the single surest analysis of the problems that the Constitution was intended to solve and the manner in which it was intended to operate.

Most astonishing and most revealing is the neglect of The Federalist by graduate schools and law schools. The political science departments at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley—which set the tone for higher education throughout the nation and train many of the next generation’s professors—do not require candidates for the Ph.D. to study The Federalist. And these universities’ law schools (Princeton has no law school), which produce many of the nation’s leading members of the bar and bench, do not require their students to read, let alone master, The Federalist’s major ideas and main lines of thought.

Of course, The Federalist is not prohibited reading, so graduates of our leading universities might be reading it on their own. The bigger problem is that the progressive ideology that dominates our universities teaches that The Federalist, like all books written before the day before yesterday, is antiquated and irrelevant.

Particularly in the aftermath of the New Deal, according to the progressive conceit, understanding America’s founding and the framing of the Constitution are as useful to dealing with contemporary challenges of government as understanding the horse-and-buggy is to dealing with contemporary challenges of transportation. Instead, meeting today’s needs requires recognizing that ours is a living constitution that grows and develops with society’s evolving norms and exigencies.

Then there’s scientism, or enthrallment to method, which collaborates with progressive ideology to marginalize The Federalist, along with much of the best that has been thought and said in the West. Political science has corrupted a laudable commitment to the systematic study of politics by transforming it into a crusading devotion to the refinement of method for method’s sake. In the misguided quest to mold political science to the shape of the natural sciences, many scholars disdainfully dismiss The Federalist—indeed, all works of ideas—as mere journalism or literary studies which, lacking scientific rigor, can’t yield genuine knowledge.

And thus so many of our leading opinion formers and policy makers seem to come unhinged when they encounter constitutional arguments apparently foreign to them but well-rooted in constitutional text, structure and history. These include arguments about, say, the unitary executive; or the priority of protecting political speech of all sorts; or the imperative to articulate a principle that keeps the Constitution’s commerce clause from becoming the vehicle by which a federal government—whose powers, as Madison put it in Federalist 45, are “few and defined”—is remade into one of limitless unenumerated powers.

By robbing students of the chance to acquire a truly liberal education, our universities also deprive the nation of a citizenry well-acquainted with our Constitution’s enduring principles.

Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. His latest book is “Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War” (Hoover Press, 2012).

A version of this article appeared May 7, 2012, on page A17 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Why Colleges Don’t Teach the Federalist Papers.

The Student Loan Crisis

No time to write this week, but I did want to share with you a revealing video from FEE,

The Foundation for Economic Education.

Click Here for Video

At Monticello College we are working to bring the price of college tuition down and quality of college education up.

Here are the tuition rates and the first year curriculum at Monticello College:

Fourth Turning – Skies Darkening

By Jim Quinn 
September 2, 2010

William Strauss and Neil Howe published The Fourth Turning in 1997. This was before the internet bubble, before the housing bubble, before 9/11, before the two wars in the Middle East, and before the financial collapse of 2008. They made a strong case for their generational theory of history. Everything that has happened since 1997 supports their theory.

We are currently in the early stages of the Fourth Turning. In the last two chapters of their book, they describe the possibilities during a Fourth Turning. In the last section of the book they provide guidance on how to prepare responsibly for a Fourth Turning. Without preparation, the Fourth Turning is much worse. Below is a description of Fourth Turning possibilities, the preparations that were recommended by Strauss & Howe, and my assessment of how prepared we are as a country.

“What will America be like as it exits the Fourth Turning?

History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong – the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to uncurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin.

Since Vietnam, many Americans suppose they know what it means to lose a war. Losing in the next Fourth Turning, however, could mean something incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence – and perhaps even our nation – might never recover.

If America plunges into an era of depression or violence which by then has not lifted, we will likely look back on the 1990s as the decade when we valued all the wrong things and made all the wrong choices.”

“However sober we must be about the dark possibilities of Crisis, the record of prior Fourth Turnings gives cause for optimism. With five of the past six Crises. it is hard to imagine more uplifting finales. Even after the Civil War, the American faith in progress returned with a new robustness. As a people, we have always done best when challenged. The New World still stands as a beacon of hope and virtue for the Old, and we have every reason to believe this can continue.

By the middle 2020s, the archetypal constellation will change, as each generation begins entering a new phase of life. If the Crisis ends badly, very old Boomers could be truly despised. Generation X might provide the demagogues, authoritarians, even the tribal warlords who try to pick up the pieces.

History is seasonal, but its outcomes are not foreordained. Much will depend on how tall we stand in the trials to come. But there is more to do than just wait for that time to come. The course of our national and personal destinies will depend in large measure on what we do now, as a society and as individuals, to prepare.”

 Preparations Needed (1997–2006)

In their chapter on preparations for the Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe essentially tell Americans to grow up. Give up the bad habits that had become part of our life during the Unraveling. We needed to prepare as if a blizzard was headed our way.

“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impossible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle.

Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance. Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.”

Their suggested preparations as a country and as individuals were:

America’s Recommended Preparations

• Prepare values: Forge the consensus and uplift the culture, but don’t expect near-term results.
• Prepare institutions: Clear the debris and find out what works, but don’t try to building anything big.
• Prepare politics: Define challenges bluntly and stress duties over rights, but don’t attempts reforms that can’t now be accomplished.
• Prepare society: Require community teamwork to solve local problems, but don’t try this on a national scale.
• Prepare youth: Treat childrenas the nation’s highest priority, but don’t do their work for them.
• Prepare elders: Tell future elders they will need to be more self-sufficient, but don’t attempt deep cuts in benefits to current elders.
• Prepare the economy: Correct fundamentals, but don’t try to fine tune current performance.
• Prepare the defense: Expect the worst and prepare to mobilize, but don’t precommit to any one response.

 How America Prepared

No consensus on values was forged. The culture became more decadent and materialistic between 1997 and 2006. Get rich quick became the rallying cry. Institutions became larger and more unwieldy. Federal and state governments doubled in size between 1997 and 2006. They became addicted to tax revenue from the Internet and housing booms. They enacted thousands of new rules, regulations and laws.

The debris has not been cleared. The country failed miserably in preparing politics. Blunt truthfulness about our national problems was needed from our leaders. Public purpose and collective duties should have been preached by our leaders. Instead, personal rights and entitlements were promised to every constituent. Corrupt politicians in Washington DC have fed the slide into cynicism, apathy and malaise with their false rhetoric and spineless inability to own up to the truth about the financial obligations that cannot be honored.

Society has not prepared for the Fourth Turning by stressing teamwork, civic duty, and self sacrifice for the betterment of our country. Local communities have not improved schools, housing, or transportation. People have continued to group themselves along party lines. The Millennial generation who will do the heavy lifting during this Fourth Turning have not been raised to understand how important their efforts will be needed in the next 15 years.

We have not educated them properly and they have not been made to understand their importance. The elderly have not become more self sufficient. They have become more dependent. More entitlements have been passed for the elderly, making our fiscal picture much worse than it was in 1997. The elderly are prepared to wage a generational war for their goodies.

The preparation of our economy for the Fourth Turning has been a complete and utter disaster. We needed to raise the national savings rate in preparation for the difficult times ahead. Instead it went to 0%. We needed to reduce debt. We doubled it. We needed to balance the budget. The deficits are beyond comprehension. We needed to under consume.

We consumed at hyper speed levels. Lastly, we needed to prepare for the inevitable major war that always accompanies a Fourth Turning. We needed to conserve our resources and build up our forces for the coming test. Instead, we wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on worthless wars of choice in the Middle East. Our military is stretched to the breaking point. We are completely unprepared for a new major conflict.

Individual Preparations

• Rectify: Return to classic virtues.
• Converge: Heed emerging community norms.
• Bond: Build personal relationships of all kinds.
• Gather: Prepare yourself (and your children) for teamwork.
• Root: Look to your family for support.
• Brace: Gird for the weakening or collapse of public support mechanisms
• Hedge: Diversify everything you do.

How Individuals Prepared

Only you would know whether you are prepared for the Fourth Turning. Can you be counted on by your neighbors? Do you have a reputation as a person of honor and integrity? Are you a good citizen? Lone wolves will not fare well during a Fourth Turning. Team, brand and standard will be new catchwords. Appearances will matter. Society will deal justice in a brutal way. You need to know people who can help you. Personal relationships will be crucial. Face to face interaction with neighbors, fellow workers, the public, and the police will determine whether you are a good guy or bad guy.

People who work well in teams will more successfully navigate the Crisis. Children will need to be taught to excel in groups. They are likely to be indoctrinated by the government when danger rises. Your family members will be essential to your survival. Being a loner will not bode well for you during the Fourth Turning. Young and old will likely occupy the same household as other supports will disappear. Government benefits are likely to be dramatically cut. Dependence on authority should not be assumed.

You will need to protect your wealth. Healthcare services could be limited. Being physically fit will be important. Being a generalist that can do many things well will make you more valuable during the Crisis. Having less debt will allow you more flexibility. The USD is likely to be devalued, so hedging your bets will be important. If the financial markets crash, will you survive?

As a country, we were completely unprepared for the onset of the current Fourth Turning. We were warned in 1997. We had time to prepare. Instead, we did the exact opposite of what needed to be done. We pressed the accelerator to the floor. Our actions have ensured that this Fourth Turning will be more deadly and brutal than it needed to be. Considering the two previous Fourth Turnings were Depression/WWII and the Civil War, the next 15 years will be grim. As Strauss & Howe point out, this test cannot be avoided:

“Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning the way you might today distance yourself from news, national politics, or even taxes you don’t feel like paying. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted. The Fourth Turning necessitates the death and rebirth of the social order. It is the ultimate rite of passage for an entire people, requiring a liminal state of sheer chaos whose nature and duration no one can predict in advance.”

The economic news worsens by the day. Worldwide tensions grow. There are fingers of instability throughout the system. All it will take is a grain of sand falling on the wrong part of the pile to initiate an avalanche of pain and suffering. Our Archduke Ferdinand moment awaits.

“Thus might the next Fourth Turning end in apocalypse – or glory. The nation could be ruined, its democracy destroyed, and millions of people scattered or killed. Or America could enter a new golden age, triumphantly applying shared values to improve the human condition. The rhythms of history do not reveal the outcome of the coming Crisis; all they suggest is the timing and dimension.

A Fourth Turning harnesses the seasons of life to bring about a renewal in the seasons of time. In so doing, it provides passage through the great discontinuities of history and closes the full circle of the saeculum. The Fourth Turning is when the Spirit of America

re-appears, rousing courage and fortitude from the people. History is seasonal, but its outcomes are not foreordained. Much will depend on how tall we stand in the trials to come.”

Jim Quinn is Senior Director of Strategic Planning at an Ivy League university. This article reflects the personal views of Jim Quinn. It does not necessarily represent the views of his employer, and is not sponsored or endorsed by them.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/quinn/quinn38.1.html

Copyright © 2010 Jim Quinn

States Regaining Sovereignty Over State Land

Ken Ivory is a current Utah State Representative in the state legislature.  He is one of several who are promoting the original intent of State sovereignty over the land within a state’s borders.

He is one of two representatives I worked closely with at the last session of the Utah Legislature and he is a man on a mission.

He has asked if I had any friends or students who would be willing to put a few hours into research to help return federally controlled state land back to the state governments.

If you have a few hours to spare and what to give us a hand please contact me at:

sb@monticellocollege.org

and I will arrange for you to communicate with Rep. Ivory.

We could really use your help.

To My Valued Employees

Although you may have seen this before,  I am posting this letter as a reminder to us all to value the producers.  This is borrowed from Chris Martenson.com.

[Ed. note:  This letter was originally circulated on the internet in an anonymous form, and only later began to be attributed to a Mr. M. Crowley.  To protect Mr. Crowley's interests, we must note that Crowley & Associates of Wake Forest, North Carolina did not in fact write this letter. This website has received the following message from Michael Crowley:

From: Michael A. Crowley, PE
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:10 AM
Subject: In reference to the “To all my valued employees” letter currently circulating the internet:

This letter was forwarded to me by a colleague.  While the letter may indeed be authentic, I was not the author and I do not know the identity of the original author. 

I forwarded it to the “John McCain Joe the Plumbers” email group prior to the election.  Someone moved my contact information into the body of the message making it appear that I was the author of the letter.  I would appreciate your removing my contact information prior to forwarding this message.

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job.  As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges.
However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job.

What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for – it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc.

Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best.  However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest.  First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story.

This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear.  Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside.  You saw my big home at last year’s Christmas party.  I’m sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back story. 

I started this company 12 years ago.  At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years.

My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company.  I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission.  I didn’t have time to date.  Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying.

In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

 Meanwhile, my friends got jobs.  They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned.  They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes.

Instead of hitting Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70′s.

My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury.

I, however, did not.  I put my time, my money, and my life into a business — with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9 am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5 pm, I don’t.

There is no “off” button for me.  When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself.  I unfortunately do not have that freedom.  I eat, sleep, and breathe this company every minute of the day.  There is no rest.  There is no weekend.  There is no happy hour.

Every day this business is attached to me like a 1 day old baby.

 You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations…  You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail out all the people who didn’t. 

The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.  Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: 

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough.

I have state taxes.  Federal taxes.  Property taxes.  Sales and use taxes.  Payroll taxes.  Workers compensation taxes.  Unemployment taxes.  Taxes on taxes.  I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what?

I have to pay taxes for employing him.  Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time.

On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes.  You know what my “stimulus” check was?  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.

The question I have is this:  Who is stimulating the economy?  Me, the guy who has provided approx 30 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business?  Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?

Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.  The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here.  I mean, why should you?  That’s nuts.  Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work?  Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.  Here is what many of you don’t understand. To stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy.

Had the government suddenly mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what?  Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth.  My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries.

But you can forget it now. 

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you?  No, you defibrillate his heart.  Business is at the heart of America and always has been.  To restart it, you must stimulate it, not hold a pillow to its face.

Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington, the best and brightest believe the non-producers are the essential drivers of the American economic engine.

 It’s amazing what an American education will get you these days. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of hope and change that will put you in the grave.  So where am I going with all this?  It’s quite simple.  If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you.

I fire your co-workers.  You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future.  Frankly, it isn’t my problem anymore.  Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.

You see, I’m done.  I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive.

My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. 

While tax cuts to 90% of America sounds great on paper, don’t forget the back story:  If there is no job, there is no income to tax.  A tax cut on zero dollars is zero.

So, when you make the decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn’t?

Whose policies will endanger your job?  Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job.

While the media wants to tell you “It’s the economy Stupid” I’m telling you it isn’t.

If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the Constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever.  If that happens, you can find me in the South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

Signed, Your boss