Month: November 2023

What is the idea of a “living Constitution”? What does it mean to have a “living constitution?” A “living constitution” means that the constitution considered to be living can be changed. This is not a solid constitution. If people can change the law to fit today’s standards, that constitution is not a solid foundation for a government. If people can change the law nilly willy, how do you know what the law is? And people can change the law to fit their standards, and not the standards of other people. Now, if somebody wanted to change the law, they would have to get permission from most of the states, but they can still change it. A man named Kevin Gutzman once said “the “living, breathing” Constitution is actually a dead Constitution.” The idea of a Constitution that can just change with the time is dead. How can a dead Constitution protect your liberties?

What is nullification? According to Wikipedia, “Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal laws which they deem unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution. There are similar theories that any officer, jury, or individual may do the same.” So nullification is an act people can do to point out if they think that a law, etc. does not go with the Constitution.

Is there anyone you think is more of the archetypal American than Franklin? What is an archetypal? According to the dictionary, an archetypal is “a very typical example of a certain person or thing.” Why is Benjamin Franklin considered an archetypal American? It was because he was industrious. According to Bartleby, “He was industrious. Franklin continually put forth the idea of the industrious American. He had support from the middle-class who did not care if he was rich but he was a man who was self-made and worked hard. This American attitude was formed early and most of it by him.” He was considered an archetypal American because of his beliefs on self-improvement, religion, determination, and even somewhat of his sort of prideful spirit. At a young age, he found an interest in reading and writing, so he began printing. He was sort of an amateur in this profession of his. However, he showed much promise in this. He never gave up on trying to achieve his life goals. This man is worth modeling yourself after. This is why he is a perfect model of an archetypal American. I do not think that anyone could be more of an archetypal American than Benjamin Franklin. This is why:

Why do I think that Franklin is the perfect example of an archetypal American? He was a middle class person who did not care about being rich. He did not care about having a lot of money. This is a good trait to have. You should not care about being rich or having a lot of money, but you should focus on the important things. He was also self-made. Now, what does it mean to be self-made? According to Wikipedia, “A “self-made man” is a person whose success is of their own making. In the intellectual and cultural history of the United States, the idea of the self-made man as an archetype or cultural ideal looms large, but has been criticized by some as a myth or cult.” Your success is of your own doing. Do not ask other people do do things for you, do it yourself and you will become a better person. Franklin was also a hard worker. Now this is important. If you want to do things in life, you need to work hard for it. Franklin never gave up trying to achieve his life goals, and neither should you. If you hit an obstacle, remove it or work around it. I am absolutely sure that Franklin met several obstacles in his time, and knowing his position when he died, I assume that he defeated the obstacles. He never gave up reaching for his life goals, and neither should you. Franklin was also industrious. What does it mean to be industrious? It means to be diligent, to work hard. This is what Franklin was best at. Franklin is the perfect model of an archetypal American, and I do not think that anybody could be better at that than him.

Compact and nationalist theories of the Union. What was the compact theory of the Union? According to Wikipedia, “In United States constitutional theory, compact theory is an interpretation of the Constitution which holds that the United States was formed through a compact agreed upon by all the states, and that the federal government is thus a creation of the states.”  So the compact theory is just an interpretation of the Constitution which says that the federal government was formed by the states. What was the nationalist theory of the union? According to Wikipedia, “It holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power.” This simply states that each nation should be in charge of itself without any outside interference.

Can smaller political units contribute to the cause of liberty? I think they can. Smaller states tend to have more economic freedom. Now, a question is raised: Are large states necessary for security? I do not think so. Think of it this way, how safe were the large states involved in the 20th century? And you do not need great military power in order to keep a nation safe. You could use diplomacy, or economic power. Smaller states can really contribute to the cause of liberty if they have the necessary ‘equipment’ for it.

Note: This essay includes most of my successes in my life. This is meant to be read by a company who wants to hire me for a job. They can then see my main successes and see if they want to hire me for a job.

To begin with, my dad owns sixteen acres worth of land. Me and my family have several animals that live there, and we feed and water them every day. This is easy because our land is just down the road from where we live. My dad owns about forty sheep (I have not counted them recently), so I help him with putting up fences, separating boys and girls so that we can butcher the sheep, but we do not butcher them. However, we load them up into our van so we can take them to a butcher. I also own rabbits. I breed them and then I sell the babies. I have been doing this for several years now. My brothers own chickens and ducks, and we have a guard dog. There is always something new to do there.

Also, I am a part of a program called Trail Life. A form of Christ-centered boy scouts. At the point I wrote this essay, I am First Officer, the highest rank of anyone in my troop, Troop 13:20 (except for the adult leaders). In Trail Life I have learned to be an amazing leader, and numerous outdoors skills, like hiking, camping, and an amazing amount of other things that are good to have for anyone my age or older. You can look at the Trail Life website here.

Another important success in my life is I am two years ahead in my school. At the point I wrote this essay, I am home schooled, and I am in 10th grade, but I am doing 12th grade homework. I know more than most other kids my age. I am a student in the Ron Paul Curriculum.

I think that my #1 success in life is being a Christian. I have been a Christian from a very young age, and I have continued to grow farther and stronger in my faith since then. I have grown up in a Christian home, and nothing can make me renounce my faith.

Marks of a True Conversion was a sermon written and spoken by George Whitefield. George Whitefield lived from 1714-1770, which means he was alive during the Great Awakening which lasted from 1720-1780. According to Wikipedia, “George Whitefield, also known as George Whitfield, was an Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford in 1732.” He was best known for being the central figure in the Great Awakening. According to Bartleby.com, “It (the sermon) is representative of the Great Awakening. It was a revival sermon, the goal was to gain conversions to Christ, the sermon used detailed imagery as rhetoric, it was Calvinistic. But, it didn’t focus on the role of the local church. It assumed the conventional preaching had not produced conversions.“

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was a sermon written by Johnathan Edwards. According to Wikipedia, “”Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is a sermon written by the American theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts, to profound effect, and again on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut. The preaching of this sermon was the catalyst for the First Great Awakening.” This was another sermon preached during the Great Awakening preached by Johnathan Edwards. According to Wikipedia, “Jonathan Edwards was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian. A leading figure of the American Enlightenment, Edwards is widely regarded as one of America’s most important and original philosophical theologians.”

If you had heard the sermons “Marks of a True Conversion” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, would you have assumed that you were the target? If you read or listened to these sermons, would you assume that you were the target of the sermon? According to Bartleby.com, “His (Edwards’) sermons were intended as a wake-up call for those who underplayed the majesty of a holy God and overemphasized their own worthiness as a decent, hard-working, successful citizens. Edwards believed strongly that only a genuine conversion experience should qualify a person for church membership.” His and Whitefield’s sermons were intended as ‘wake-up’ calls for people who were already Christians. In fact, the sermons were intended for Christians. The goal of these sermons was not to convert people to Christianity, but to strengthen the faith of those who were already Christians. This was the entire reason for the Great Awakening.

So, if I had heard the sermons “Marks of a True Conversion” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, would I have assumed that I was the target? I feel like I was the target of the sermon. The target audience of the sermon were people who are Christians, and this sermon was not meant to convert people to Christianity, because that means that the sermon would be completely different, but rather to strengthen the faith of those who were already Christians. That refers to me and everybody else who is a Christian who read or listened to this sermon.

What is the origin of money? Here is a little history lesson. Way back when money did not exist, people used to barter for things, like trading paper for a bag of apples. But there was a problem with this. If you had a frisbee, and you wanted a hat, you could trade that frisbee for a hat, but the trick was to find a guy who had a hat, and also wanted a frisbee. Also, if there was a barber, and wanted a meal, would he trade a free trip to the barber for a meal? What if the waiter was bald? Also, if all you had was a castle, and you wanted a loaf of bread, would you cut your castle into little sections and trade that for a loaf of bread? What would someone do with a chunk of a castle? So there were a ton of problems with bartering. Well, people began using things of value to replace for bartering, like gold. Then a man could trade his frisbee with someone for gold, then he could use that gold to buy a hat. People started to use gold as a form of exchange, and it was widely accepted. Years later, people were still using gold as a form of exchange, but gold was too heavy to carry around places, so the government started using paper money. People could trade in gold for the same value of paper, then they carried around paper money that represents gold. Then, if people wanted to buy something, they could trade in paper money for the same value of gold to buy things. But people began to realize that if paper money was worth the same as gold, then they could just trade paper money instead of trading it for gold then trading it. This is how paper money came into use. This worked well, because the government could not print more money without mining more gold, and it worked great. But then the government became greedy, and started to print more money without mining more gold, causing inflation (the prices of products rise without people’s pay checks rise, so things got more expensive, but people did not get any richer, to put it into simple terms). People spent their lives collecting paper money, only to lose it all to inflation. Be careful with your money.

What problems do price controls cause? According to the Dictionary, price control is “a government regulation establishing a maximum price to be charged for specified goods and services, especially during periods of war or inflation.” Price control causes many problems. Tons of economists think so. According to Hoover Institution, “The negative effects of price controls are many. By creating shortages, they often cause people to wait in line, they often cause the quality of products whose prices are controlled to fall, and they can lead to favoritism by suppliers. All those effects remain until the price controls are ended.” Every time price control was used anywhere, it ended very poorly.

If you had been a member of the General Court, how would the sermon Theopolis Americana have influenced your politics? The book Theopolis Americana was a sermon written by Cotton Mather. This book was an extended interpretation of the Bible verse Revelation 21:21, here is what it says: “The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.” According to Wikipedia, Cotton Mather was “a New England Puritan child prodigy, clergyman, theologian, and writer. Beginning his Harvard College undergraduate education at age twelve, he is the youngest person ever to be admitted there.”

Cotton Mather wrote this sermon to Massachusetts General Assembly (also known as the General Court). He was hoping that this sermon would persuade the General Court into changing how they viewed politics, how they change laws, and he was even hoping that he would change their way of thinking. His sermon was kind of messy and in some parts his ideas were way too extreme to be taken seriously (besides a few good points found in the sermon). The reason for this was that, like many other sermons in his day, he was trying to be general and vague. He tried to keep it civil because he could not afford to divide up the legislators by being more specific than need be. Many pastors may alienate a large amount of the congregation, and they may try to get him fired, or they might leave the church, reducing the income of the church, and this was something he could not afford.

Mather uses many criticisms in his sermon, like the free market. Many of his criticisms were heard of, or maybe even dealt with. Many of the criticisms include contract violations, commercial dishonesty, business corruption, and this includes the kidnapping of African slaves. He used Richard Baxter quotes to enforce his idea of how horrible it was to kidnap people from another country and force them to become slaves. And contract violations were already dealt with in England for centuries by the common law. Like I said, the General Court already knew of these criticisms, and probably just ignored him. He also describes his extreme dislike of alcohol and the excessive use of it. He explains that he is not against the use of alcohol, or that he encourages it, he does not do any of this. He just says that he does not like the excessive use of it, but he does not want to ban it, he never says this. However, he never gives an explanation for the excessive use of alcohol, and he did not tell the legislator what to do about it. He just simply states that he dislikes the excessive use of it, and expects the General Court to solve it themselves, depending on how they liked his sermon.

Honestly, if I were on the General Court, I would not have cared. The General Court was already aware of the things he criticized, and were doing what they could to stop it. He just told them things they did not already know.

According to Wikipedia, the benefit principle is “a concept in the theory of taxation from public finance. It bases taxes to pay for public-goods expenditures on a politically-revealed willingness to pay for benefits received. The principle is sometimes likened to the function of prices in allocating private goods.” The benefit principle was supposed to help the government decide what projects to take on, and who pays for it. But there are problems with the benefit principle. According to Hello Vaia, “Two main drawbacks of the benefit principle of taxation are: it’s often difficult to accurately determine the level of benefits each individual receives from public services, and it may exacerbate wealth inequality as lower income earners may pay a disproportionately higher amount for services compared to higher income earners.”

What was the Washington Monument Syndrome? According to Wikipedia, “The Washington Monument syndrome, also known as the Mount Rushmore syndrome or the firemen first principle, is a term used to describe the phenomenon of government agencies in the United States cutting the most visible or appreciated service provided by the government when faced with budget cuts.” Years ago, the Department of Interior was told it needs to make budget cuts, so they shut down the Washington Monument and did not allow access for tourists. They did this because they knew the public would scream for it to re-open. Now, their were some things that the Department of the Interior could have shut down besides the Washington Monument, but they purposefully chose the thing the public would scream the most for, so that the public would get the budget restored.

What are anti-poverty programs? These things include food assistance, housing assistance, family tax credits, etc. Anything that keeps millions of Americans for poverty each year. It also reduces hardships for other millions. These programs are just supposed to keep people out of poverty.

What are the primary problem facing a policymaker trying to design a program to benefit people in unfortunate circumstances? A policymaker is a person involved in formulating policies, especially in politics. According to standardfusion.com, here are some problems facing policymakers, “Inconsistent Document Creation and Editing, Poor Policy Maintenance, Lack of Accountability, Outdated Documents, Improper Policy Mapping.”