Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Life is Precious

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Below is a busstop campaign for Chicago's Shedd Aquarium from a few years back. I took this picture at the time because I knew there wa...
Saturday, March 10, 2012

Christian Reflections, C.S. Lewis

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Why is a subjectivism about values incompatible with democracy? The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overar...
2 comments:
Thursday, October 27, 2011

p. 314-316 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Plato shows that tyranny and democracy are the same. What is the missing element that the founders referenced and Lincoln realized? Who wa...

p. 307-308 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How does Jaffa argue that 1854 was a more grave crisis than even the Civil War itself?
Wednesday, October 26, 2011

p. 306 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was the Democratic political landscape in 1860 and why were the slave states totally at the mercy of KS-NE? Start at yellow highlight...
Tuesday, October 25, 2011

p. 302 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How are so many impassioned modern-day commentators against slavery the heirs of Taney and Thoreau? (See previous post to see the impact of...

p. 292-297 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did Taney use Kant's categorical imperative in his Dred Scot opinion? How did abolitionists ironically side with Taney's use of...
Monday, October 24, 2011

p. 301 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is the best evidence that the Founders did not mean to exclude blacks from "all men created equal"? Read this paragraph an...

p. 300 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is Lincoln's favorite standard maxim? Answer here starting with yellow highlight.

p. 296-297 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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H.D. Thoreau and the abolitionists shared a political philosophy with Taney--what was it, and how did it put these opposites on the same sid...

p. 294 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What are the definitions of barbarism and slavery as laid out in the Declaration of Independence? The answer begins with the yellow highli...
Wednesday, September 28, 2011

p. 47 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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What is the principle political danger to Western governments of reducing Christianity to a humanitarian moral message? Answer: Christia...

p. 42 & p. 44 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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Tocqueville identified something in Christianity that made it a political necessity, but that political necessity was previously an object o...

p. 36 & 39 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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What is the danger of the separation of church and state in thought ? Answer: "As Manent writes...'If the separation of church ...

p. 21 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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Why is theory inadequate? "In contrast to the tyranny of such an abstract democratic 'idea,' Tocqueville teaches us to practi...

p. 18-19 & 102 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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Why is the belief in man's self-sovereignty the first necessary step toward socialism? Answer: It tell us we have the authority to re...

p. 18 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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What did Tocqueville say that the despotic "schoolmaster state" wanted to spare us? Answer: T. said the schoolmaster state would...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011

p. 15-16 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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Why does Mahoney say that Tocqueville "belongs to an altogether different moral and political universe" than Locke and Hobbes? ...

p. 14 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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Tocqueville's critique of his asst, Gobineau (and a fine critique of Nietsche's position), who believed in pure scientism: No, I w...

p. 13 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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Ha! What did Tocqueville mean by "I have not yet become enough of a German"? Note this was the 1850's. The path to National ...

p. 5 The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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What makes us free and what else is necessary to make us sovereign? Or perhaps a better 2nd question: What is different about the sovereignt...

p. xi-xiii The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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What are the three terms, and how do they related to Jaroslav Pelikan and Mr. Emerson in Room with a View? (hint: Bach's Mass in B Mino...

p. x The Conservative Foundation of the Liberal Order, Mahoney

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What is the "culture of repudiation" and how does it undermine American liberty? Connect with C.S. Lewis on choice, Rieff on choi...
Thursday, September 15, 2011

p. 292 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Jaffa argues that Taney and Southerners reached their conclusions by applying a new morality. What was their morality and how did it work?

p. 294 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How is the hierarchy of man's relationships to God and to other men fundamental to the idea that the "powers of government are deri...

p. 285 - 292 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How does Taney trap himself in his own arguments?
Thursday, March 3, 2011

p. 288 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Taney argued that he was a constructionist who agreed with Madison's statement that judges should interpret the Constitution in "th...

p. 283-284 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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The mind of the South going into the Civil War was represented by a largely non-slaveholding populous, yet Jaffa writes that this group was...
Friday, February 11, 2011

p. 283 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Why is the right of Revolution connected with the Declaration whereas the right of succession is not?

p. 282 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How was Lincoln in complete agreement with one of his great southern adversaries, Alexander Stephens ? And why did this agreement make war ...

p. 281 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is Lincoln's 'central idea' speech, and why is it the barometer of all American public opinion at all times?

p. 281 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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After the election of 1800 Jefferson said that every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. Consider the 1st Amendment and...

p. 278 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did the South conceive of rights? What were they completely dependent upon?

p. 276 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Lincoln says he would rather live under the despotism of Russia than under the pretense of liberty.

p. 276 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was the science argument used by the South to defend slavery? How does Philip Rieff's distinction between science and technology c...
Tuesday, October 5, 2010

p. 267-269 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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In both his first inaugural and in his Lyceum speech 23 years prior, Lincoln establishes a rule for proving whether or not a people are capa...
Tuesday, September 14, 2010

p. 271-272 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did the seceding states help Lincoln politically, and how did they hurt him militarily? Read from here to the end of the paragraph on...

p. 263 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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In what regard can we say that "legislating morality" is the only way to secure the consent of the governed? ...Certainly the la...
Monday, September 13, 2010

p. 256 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Did the states make the Union or did the Union make the states? What was the Jeffersonian/Madison view, and on what did they base their arg...
Sunday, September 12, 2010

p. 238 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What were the decisive tensions at play in Lincoln's 1st inaugural? What did he know and why couldn't he say it without destroying...

p. 240 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was Aristotle's complaint about the Sophists?

p. 239-240 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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The economic situation of the Southern states in the Civil War was analogous to the economic position of the British during the Revolutionar...
Saturday, September 11, 2010

p. 232 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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The Civil War was not a matter of states rights vs. the national government. Make the case of that argument using the Fugitive Slave Law o...

p. 219-220 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Absolutely astounding defense of Rev. Jacob Gruber who had spoken at a Maryland camp meeting in Hagerstown, MD on the "national sin....

p. 230 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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The South argued against majority rule, or "tyranny of the majority." Lincoln opposed this as well. What's the proper northe...

p. 218 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What did Lincoln say that enraged the South the most and how, precisely, did Alexander Stephens say the exact same thing?
Friday, August 27, 2010

p. 217 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was the great rift between Taney/Davis vs. Alexander Stephens? Given the various rifts between prominent Southerners regarding the Con...
Tuesday, August 24, 2010

p. 211 - 212 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Davis asks how it was that if Negros were free and equal, King George was denounced in the Declaration for stirring up insurrection among th...

p. 202 & 205 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Describe the split in the Democratic Party Convention held in Charleston, South Carolina in May, 1860. Note that the Democrat Buchanan reje...
Monday, August 23, 2010

p. 197 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Buchanan agreed with Lincoln that there is no right of succession. So what put Buchanan squarely on the side of Calhoun (who did believe in...

p. 196 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What does it mean to say that majority rules requires unanimous consent? What is America's unanimous consent? What about our natural ri...
Sunday, August 22, 2010

p. 193-195 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Four states refused to ratify the Constitution. What was the difference between those four states in 1789 and the Southern states in 1860?

p.191-192 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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In the Federalist, Madison wrote for the first time in history about a government that was "partly federal, partly national." Wha...
Saturday, August 21, 2010

Lincoln and Marriage

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On p. 255 of Harry Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa quotes Lincoln from his Indianapolis speech February 11, 1861: [For the South...

p.188-190 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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State the heart of the argument for succession as a Constitutional right. How do you refute that argument?

p.183-185 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How is no-fault divorce analogous to Southern nullification? "But a compact to form a government, like a marriage, although entered vo...

Marriage, Carrots, and Redefining Marriage

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This post is my attempt to answer libertarian supporters of the redefinition of marriage (or "gay marriage" as its proponents say)...
2 comments:
Saturday, August 14, 2010

p. 30 Nation of Bastards Farrow

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"This is not Bolshevism at work. It is not even Foucaultism at work. It is capitalism at work, reaping in its decadent phase what it ...

p. 22-23 Nation of Bastards Farrow

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The key absurd question to put to any gay marriage supporter: Do you believe that the distinction throughout all of human history that marri...

p. 22 Nation of Bastards Farrow

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What's the absurd question we are asked to believe?

p. 21 Nation of Bastards Farrow

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What decision by the Ontario Supreme Court demonstrates the degree to which gay marriage also erases the definition of parenthood? What is t...

p. 20 Nation of Bastards Farrow

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What is close-relationship theory and how does it define marriage? "...it offers a radically different account of the nature and func...

p.183 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was the 1833 Tariff Law? How did South Carolina respond? What were the issues at stake? Who claimed victory and why? Contrast Calhoun/...
Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Best of Li'L Abner, by Al Capp (from the introduction) copyright 1978

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I had grown up in days when anybody who ate regularly (the upper class) felt no responsibility for the poor souls who didn't, and helped...

p.178 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Before the war, Buchannan and Lincoln both saw the survival of the South hinging on what one thing? (hint: the mathematics of the territorie...

pp. 170-171 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was the issue that divided North and South as BOTH Buchannan and Lincoln saw it? Lincoln at Cooper Institute, February 1860: "T...

Acts 25:12

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You have appealed to Caesar? To Caesar you shall go!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010

pp. 165 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is Lincoln's argument against pro-slavery theology? How might you apply it to modern-day affirmative action? Extra credit: apply ...

pp. 155-157 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did Jefferson Davis translate the meaning of the Declaration? "...according to Davis, the equality proclaimed therein was one of...

pp. 154-155 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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In what way was Christianity an engine of freedom in the United States, and a barrier to freedom in Europe? "...When the slavery ques...

p. 152 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was Cockran's insight of 1910? This insights leads me to ask 2 questions: 1) What do we cherish? and 2) What is the purpose of the...

p. 151 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What in the Judeo-Christian tradition did the American South regard as "untranslatable"?

pp. 132-133 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is the theme of Shakespeare's histories from Richard II - Henry V? What is the tension between morality & politics, and moralit...

The Audacity of the State, by Douglas Farrow

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This drawing is my attempt to sum up this article by Douglas Farrow.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010

pp. 134-135 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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"It is true that during four centuries, beginning at least with Magna Carta, the organism of parliamentary democracy was slowly being f...

pp. 126-127 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How does Macaulay's "defense" of religious liberty in the Toleration Act of 1689 parallel Lincoln's statement that blacks ...

Witness by Whittaker Chambers, from the foreward

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The crisis of Communism exists to the degree in which it has failed to free the peoples that it rules from God...The crisis of the Western W...

p. 18 Fellow Teachers, Rieff

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"Our higher schools have the burden of teaching the art of critical interpretation; but they cannot, at the same time, serve as bases f...

p. 18 Fellow Teachers, Rieff

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Rieff makes an argument in principle against a teacher taking sides while arguing that the politician is always wrong to struggle for neutra...

pp. 125 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What did Churchill say about politicians that contradict themselves? Connect with Rieff and note the difference between Churchill's me...
Sunday, August 8, 2010

pp. 121-123 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Connect the use of the courts in the gay marriage movement, and the natural right of revolution with this statement by Jaffa: "It canno...

p. 117 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was self-contradictory about James II returning the Church of England to Rome? What aspect of that contradiction led to the overthrow ...

pp. 114-115 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What natural right is always given up when civil society forms a government? How is private property central to the American compact? And wh...

pp. 108-109 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Perhaps the slogan of modern secularists (and there really is no such thing...everyone makes something most important and therefore has a re...

pp. 97-98 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Read Carl Becker's quote at the beginning of the chapter, and then Becker quote at bottom of p. 97. Now, what is critical for Becker? A...

p. 97 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Who was the first modern philosopher? Quote: He [Becker] fell into the same fatal dualism that has characterized all the descendants of ...

pp. 95-97 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is the "fundamental distinction" that must be eliminated as part of the new morality? Quote: What deserves particular not...

p. 95 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did 19th c. technology corrupt/change the American notion of rights? Now, go back to p. 94 and consider Marx whose philosophy was based...

*p. 93-94 & 98 & 433 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is Calhoun's "concurrent majority"? Compare to Rousseau's "general will." How are these both related to H...

p. 91 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is the "historical school" embraced by Marx and Calhoun, and why was it opposed by Aristotle, Jefferson, and Lincoln? Relev...

p. 92-93 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did the line between pietism/triumphantism and atheism begin to fade? Relevant Passages: Calhoun accepted Hegel's belief that hi...
Saturday, August 7, 2010

*p. 86-90 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Chief Justice Rhenquist as nihilist. Jaffa says that Rehnquist uses the same argument to defend original intent as Calhoun did to defend sl...

pp. 82-83 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How can Carl Becker argue that to ask whether natural rights is true or false is a meaningless question? And how does Jaffa answer Becker? ...

p. 77 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is the difference between the old revisionists (circa 1920) who said the Civil War was unnecessary, and the new revisionists who are al...

p. 75 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is first necessary to be a revisionist and declare that the Civil War was unnecessary? Relevant Passage: Revisionist historians thus ...

p. 74 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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Why did Aristotle say there can be no such thing as political science? (Actually I'm not sure he directly "said" that.) rele...

pp. 10-13 Suspicion & Faith, Westphal

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Why should we learn not to refute the atheism of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud? Relate to Mark 8:27-9:1 . What is the difference between thes...

p. 6 Suspicion & Faith, Westphal

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How does Westphal describe the Promethean protest against instrumental religion?

p. 60 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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The election of 1800 was the first of its kind the world had ever seen. How so? How did it impact everything that came after it in America...

pp. 33-34 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What are the outcomes of the Alien and Sedition Acts? What must we not "read back into" these outcomes? Relevant Passage: These...

p. 57 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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How did the Federalists and the anti-Federalists define their differences at the Founding? How do we compare that to today? Relevant Pass...

pp. 49-50 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What are the natural order of wants? What is the connection between rights and wants? Why is property acquisition central to the Founders? ...

pp. 37-38 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What was the contradiction of the seceding states in 1860-1861 from a Jeffersonian standpoint? What did the southern states mean by compact...

p. 27 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What did Jefferson mean by happiness? Relevant Passage: But the "public happiness" of which Jefferson speaks in the Summary View...

pp. 10-12 A New Birth of Freedom, Jaffa

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What is the parallel Jefferson makes betwee the Saxons and the American colonists? Relevant Passages: But for Jefferson, no less than for ...