Free Republic

It's big news here. I'm not sure of the details but Paul W. Smith WJR radio this morning was livid. Apparently the race baiting media has found a story in the least likely spot. Hillsdale College.

President Obama’s lecturecommencement speech to the Naval Academy graduates on Friday left behind such a poor and lingering aftertaste, I thought this commencement speech from Sen. Ted Cruz to the graduates of Hillsdale might make a nice sort of belated palate cleanser. Sen. Cruz’s message was all about the inherent virtues of freedom, the American meritocracy, and the accompanying economic mobility, in which people’s rises and falls are directly related to their “talent, passion, perseverance, and willingness to fight for the American dream.” The best part about it all, of course, is that by pursuing and developing your own unique...

Mark Steyn, a nationally-recognized journalist and prominent conservative figure, brought a standing-room-only audience to its feet multiple times during his speech concerning America’s descent into big government Tuesday night at the George Roche Sports Complex. “People can change…and big government can force people to change quicker than you think,” Steyn said. He argued that the American legacy of small government does not render the nation invulnerable to the spread of European-style statist rule. “We have to get serious about the nature and view of government that many, and quite possibly a majority, of American’s now hold,” he said.

ONCE UPON A TIME, hardly anyone dissented from the idea that, for better or worse, the United States of America was different from all other nations. This is not surprising, since the attributes that made it different were vividly evident from the day of its birth. Let me say a few words about three of them in particular. First of all, unlike all other nations past or present, this one accepted as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. What this meant was that its Founders aimed to create a society in which, for the first time in...

This new 10-week online course taught by Hillsdale College professors will examine American progressivism: its historical roots and principles; its rejection of America’s founding principles and Constitution; its political successes in the New Deal, the Great Society, and in recent years; the ongoing political debate between progressives and conservatives; and the chance of a constitutional revival. Constitution 201 Schedule: Each lecture is pre-recorded and lasts approximately 40 minutes. Lectures and other study materials will be released by noon each Monday according to the schedule. Once released, they are available to view at your convenience. You will receive an email each...

In 1935, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was fretting about finding a constitutional basis for the Social Security Act. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone advised her, "The taxing power, my dear, the taxing power. You can do anything under the taxing power."... So how did the power to tax under the Constitution become unbounded? The first enumerated power that the Constitution grants to Congress is the "power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." The text indicates that the taxing...

FEDERAL STUDENT financial assistance programs are costly, inefficient, byzantine, and fail to serve their desired objectives. In a word, they are dysfunctional, among the worst of many bad federal programs. These programs are commonly rationalized on three grounds: on the grounds that assuring more young people a higher education has positive spillover effects for the country; on the grounds that higher education promotes equal economic opportunity (or, as the politicians say, that it is “a ticket to achieving the American Dream”); or on the grounds that too few students would go to college in the absence of federal loan programs,...

Statesmanship, for Franklin D. Roosevelt, entailed the “redefinition” of “rights in terms of a changing and growing social order.” Fulfilling the promise of Progressivism, President Roosevelt’s New Deal gave rise to unlimited government. In contrast to Franklin D. Roosevelt and his ideological successors, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan sought the restoration of limited government. Today, our choice is clear: Will we live by the principles of the American Founding, or by the values of the Progressives? Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his campaign for the presidency in 1932 by emphasizing the Progressive understanding of history and by...

Progressivism is the belief that America needs to move or “progress” beyond the principles of the American Founding. Organized politically more than a hundred years ago, Progressivism insists upon flexibility in political forms unbound by fixed and universal principles. Progressives hold that human nature is malleable and that society is perfectible. Affirming the inexorable, positive march of history, Progressives see the need for unelected experts who would supervise a vast administration of government. Progressivism is rooted in the philosophy of European thinkers, most notably the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. Progressivism takes its name from a faith in “historical progress.” According...

Abraham Lincoln’s fidelity to the Declaration of Independence is equally a fidelity to the Constitution. The Constitution takes its moral life from the principles of liberty and equality, and was created to serve those principles. We are divided as a nation today, as in Lincoln’s time, because we have severed the connection between these two documents. Lincoln’s “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union” contains the central theme of Lincoln’s life and work. Drawing upon biblical language, Lincoln describes the Declaration of Independence as an “apple of gold,” and the Constitution as the “frame of silver” around it. We cannot...

Hillsdale College First Principles on First Fridays lecture: “Obamacare's Assault on Religious Liberty” Funding for this month’s First Principles on First Fridays program has been provided by the Philip M. McKenna Foundation.Paul A. RaheCharles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage, Hillsdale CollegeDownload the Flier.Tuesday, April 10, 201212:00 - 1:00 p.m.Please note that this month’s program will take place on a Tuesday in deference to Good Friday.Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage and is Professor of History at Hillsdale College. He earned his Ph.D. from Yale University...

Without question, one of the most moving and disturbing movies of the last several years has been Steven Spielberg's film, Schindler's List. Wrapped in a fascinating story about one German businessman's successful attempt to save 1,100 Jews from the Nazi extermination machine is a visual style that captures more clearly the cold brutality of Hitler's National Socialist totalitarianism than practically any documentary produced since the end of the Second World War. A colleague of mine at Hillsdale College, who spent time in the Jewish Ghetto in Kaunas, Lithuania, as a young boy during the war, told me that no film...

Welcome to Week 7 “Crisis of Constitutional Government” At the heart of the American constitutional crisis of the mid-nineteenth century stood the moral, social, and political evil of slavery. At stake in this crisis was the future of republican self-government.Abraham Lincoln saw the dilemma facing the nation as the “crisis of a house divided.” While the American Founders worked to put slavery, as Lincoln said, “on the course of ultimate extinction,” the institution had instead flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century. By the 1850s, efforts to expand slavery threatened to tear the nation apart.Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas...

The institutional separation of church and state—a revolutionary accomplishment of the American Founders—does not entail the separation of religion and politics. On the contrary, as the Northwest Ordinance states, “religion, morality and knowledge” are “necessary to good government.” For America’s Founders, reason and revelation properly understood are complementary. “Almighty God hath created the mind free,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Human beings are fallible, yet despite this fact, they are capable of self-government. With careful cultivation of one’s soul, attention to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” and the uplifting assistance of family,...

The separation of powers helps to ensure good government at the same time it guards against tyranny. Independent in function but coordinated in the pursuit of justice, the three branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—must each have enough power to resist the encroachment of the others, and yet not so much that the liberty of the people is lost. A political regime has three dimensions: the ruling institutions, the rulers, and the way of life of the people. In America, the rulers—the people themselves—and their ruling institutions—staffed by the people’s representatives—aim at securing the Creator-endowed natural rights of all citizens....

The separation of powers helps to ensure good government at the same time it guards against tyranny. Independent in function but coordinated in the pursuit of justice, the three branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—must each have enough power to resist the encroachment of the others, and yet not so much that the liberty of the people is lost. A political regime has three dimensions: the ruling institutions, the rulers, and the way of life of the people. In America, the rulers—the people themselves—and their ruling institutions—staffed by the people’s representatives—aim at securing the Creator-endowed natural rights of all citizens....

Week 4 lecture: Dr. Kevin Portteus: Constitution 101 - "Separation of Powers: Preventing Tyranny" About the Lecturer: Kevin Portteus is assistant professor of politics at Hillsdale College, where he has taught since 2008. Dr. Portteus is faculty advisor for the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, and teaches courses in American political thought and American political institutions. A visiting graduate faculty member in the American History and Government program at Ashland University, Dr. Portteus formerly taught at Belmont Abbey College and Mountain View College, in Dallas. Having published online through the Washington Times, Human Events, and BigGovernment.com, his book, Executive Details: Public Administration...

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 15, 2012, by William McGurn (News Corporation) at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Newport Beach, California MANY SCHOLARS ARE better versed on the history of public employee unions than I am, but there is one credential I can claim that they cannot: I am a taxpayer in the People’s Republic of New Jerseystan. That makes me an authority on how public sector unions—especially at the state and local level—are thwarting economic growth, strangling the middle class, and generally hijacking the democratic process to serve their own ends rather...

Welcome to Week 3 “The Problem of Majority Tyranny” Overview America was governed under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 to 1789. Unable to redress the problem of “majority tyranny,” the Articles were abandoned in favor of the Constitution, which created a “more perfect union.” David J. Bobb is director of the Hillsdale College Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, in Washington, D.C., and lecturer in politics. Dr. Bobb teaches courses in American politics and political theory to students participating in the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program. Through teaching the enduring principles of the American Declaration of Independence...

Constitution 101 Schedule Each lecture is pre-recorded and lasts approximately 40 minutes. Lectures and other study materials will be released by noon each Monday according to the schedule. Once released, they are available to view at your convenience. You will receive an email each week informing you that new material is available. The American Mind Larry P. Arnn Monday, February 20 The Declaration of Independence Thomas G. West Monday, February 27 The Problem of Majority Tyranny David Bobb Monday, March 5 Separation of Powers: Preventing Tyranny Kevin Portteus Monday, March 12 Separation of Powers: Ensuring Good Government Will Morrisey Monday,...