Tag: Alexander Hamilton

Evangelical Sellouts

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment
Robert Jeffress prays in the Oval Office. (The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

While I have not blogged in months, I have continued to use my social media account to bring attention to Donald Trump’s unsuitability to be the President of the United States, something that increased exponentially when he finally started making it clear that he isn’t really pro-life. Along with my posts aimed at Trump, however, have been many aimed at the evangelical leaders who have so staunchly and adamantly endorsed him. In response to those posts, I have had several people ask me, “Well who are we supposed to vote for? Voting for Kamala Harris would be even worse.” And, from a conservative political perspective, that’s true. The policies that Harris has supported and would pursue were she to be given the keys to the Oval Office are not, for the most part, policies that an evangelical Christian could support—certainly not when it comes to the issues of abortion and homosexual marriage and transgender rights. As a result, more than one person has essentially suggested that I am criticizing Trump without offering any alternative.

So, let me set the record straight. First of all, my position on voting for Trump in November 2024 is the same as it was when it came to voting for Trump in November 2016. If you want to read what, exactly, that position was, you can read this post. How I felt about Hillary Clinton then is essentially how I feel about Kamala Harris now.

Secondly, the reason that I keep posting about Trump and criticizing the support for him is two-fold. One is to call out the evangelical leaders who have supported him all along, essentially joining with the GOP establishment to ensure that none of the other candidates for the Republican nomination in 2024 had a chance. Second is to remind those of us who are conservative Republicans that we have to do better.

In an August 2023 article for Christianity Today, Jonny Williams wrote,

Trump’s political career has been morally fraught from the start, and a plurality of evangelical supporters stuck with him through the Access Hollywood tape, the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, revelations of Trump paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, his impeachments, and the Capitol insurrection.

That is, incomprehensibly, true. And, let’s be honest, the selection of Mike Pence as his running mate in 2016 and 2020 helped soothe the fears of many evangelicals and non-evangelical conservatives. But even if we want to give the benefit of the doubt to those who supported him in 2016 and decided to again in 2020, Trump should have all but eliminated himself as a consideration for those voters with his reprehensible behavior on January 6, 2020. But it seems that historian John Fea, as quoted by Williams, is right: “‘most conservative evangelicals gave up on the politics of character in 2016’ and still consider their relationship to Trump as a pragmatic bargain.”

And therein lies the rub. So many people who used to, I thought, be intelligent and intentional about deciding who to cast a vote for have, for reasons that I still do not comprehend, decided to follow Trump no matter what. Even when the Republican party had numerous candidates throw their hats in the ring in pursuit of the GOP nomination in 2024, the majority of Republican voters never even gave any of them a serious thought. And Trump not only knows that, he is counting on it.

Marc Short, a long-time aid to Mike Pence, told NOTUS, “Partnering with Pence gave assurances to a lot of Christian conservatives. And I think today he sort of assumes they have nowhere to go and perhaps takes their support for granted.” Short is correct about Trump’s assumptions and Trump has proven to be correct in taking their support for granted. What is not correct in that scenario is that Christian conservatives have nowhere else to go. They do. Or at least did. Had they shifted to another candidate when they had the chance, Trump’s political career would be over. And while they should be informed enough and smart enough to figure that out for themselves, the real blame lies, I believe, with those leaders who should have known better but stayed loyal to Trump anyway.

In the September 18, 2023, episode of The Briefing, Albert Mohler said that Trump’s position on abortion was “becoming increasingly clear and increasingly troubling.”  In that same episode, Mohler said, “We just need to track these issues very accurately, seek above all things to think consistently according to a biblical worldview, and try to understand all these swirling and controversial headlines around us, seeking actual words to understand actual arguments and to understand the actual consequences of policies once someone is elected President of the United States in November of 2024.”

Now, keep in mind that this was just a few weeks after the first GOP debate of the 2024 election cycle. Eight candidates had participated in that debate—including Pence—and there were several other candidates who had not been allowed to participate in the debate. So it is not as if Mohler and others did not have options. Yet, Mohler never supported anyone but Trump in the 2024 cycle. And even though he has called out Trump’s increasingly pro-choice positions, he has given no indication that he will vote for anyone but Trump.

Franklin Graham did not endorse any candidate during the Republican primaries, but he has continued to support Trump, too. In fact, he spoke just before Trump did at the Republican National Convention in July and, according to the Wall Street Journal, even owns one of the Bibles that Trump hawked to raise money for his campaign.

Robert Jeffress is such a Trump acolyte that he turned over the pulpit of his First Baptist Church in Dallas to Trump for Christmas Sunday in 2021. And he has endorsed Trump again this go-round, too. In fact, Tim Alberta has written about Jeffress’s “shrine” to Donald Trump.

Glancing to my right, his left, I took note of the irony. The corner of Jeffress’s office was a shrine–his secretary used that specific word to describe it–to President Donald J. Trump. There was an eight-foot tall poster memorializing the “Celebrate Freedom” concert in D.C. (the one where the choir sang “Make America Great Again”). There were boxes of Trump cuff links and a golden Trump commemorative coin. There were dozens–dozens–of framed photos of Jeffress and Trump: praying over him, talking with him, shaking hands with him, giving thumbs-up with him…In the sweep of my reporting on the former president and his many sycophants, I had never seen such a temple to Trumpism.

Of course, in 2019 Jeffress said on a radio program that Christians who do not support Trump are “spineless morons.” And in July 2023, Jeffress said that conservative Christians would continue to support Trump because “They are smart enough to know the difference between choosing a president and choosing a pastor.” Maybe. But it sure would be nice if the pastors of evangelical megachurches would have at least some moral expectations for the candidates they are going to throw all of their weight behind.

Tim Clinton, who has been the head of the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) for years, is another Trump devotee. Like Jeffress, he was often pictured praying over Trump in the Oval Office. His support of Trump led to a change.org petition to separate the AACC from politics. The petition rightly called out Clinton for his silence in response to the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, saying, “As the leader of the flagship Christian Counseling organization, it seemed unconscionable to me that Dr. Clinton refused to condemn such harmful words and behaviors – the very kinds of words and behaviors that we work against in our offices and with our clients every day.” The petition did not generate much support, and it did not seem to have any impact, because Clinton is still head of the AACC and still passionately promoting Trump. He has even invited prominent evangelical Trump supporters to speak at the AACC World Conference. Clinton may not be a well-known name in some circles but he is considered to be a potential successor to James Dobson, so his influence is significant. Clinton and Dobson were both part of Trump’s “evangelical advisory board.”

Jack Graham is the pastor of Prestonwood Church in Plano, Texas, and a large radio ministry. He is an unabashed supporter of Trump, too, and posted on X before the Trump-Harris debate this month, “Last night Donald Trump gathered with thousands of Christians for prayer in preparation for the debate tonight. This is the best preparation imaginable. America needs God and @realDonaldTrump knows it.” The last part is debatable—no pun intended. And while prayer would indeed be wonderful preparation for a debate, Trump really didn’t do very well. According to a report from Baptist News, Graham was one of several pastors on an ”emergency call” with Trump the night before the debate with Biden in June and Graham told the others on the call that they knew that CNN’s moderators would not be fair during the debate. He further said of Trump, “He is a warrior for us. He’s standing for us and always has and representing the principles and the precepts of God’s word that we so strongly believe.” That Graham could still contend, after everything that the world has seen and heard of Donald Trump, that Trump represents the principles and precepts of God’s word is absolutely astounding.

Sadly, I could go on for quite a while with examples of evangelical leaders unapologetically supporting Trump. Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson and Eric Metaxas are all solidly behind Trump despite the fact that all have made comments about other politicians in the past that, if applied to Trump, who disqualify him from getting their support. But there are other prominent pastors, academics and theologians supporting Trump, too. According to Christianity Today, fully half of all Protestant pastors in the United States plan to vote for Trump. That means his support goes far beyond the pastors named here and the other recognizable names.

Trump does not play nicely with others, so to speak. He has zero respect for anyone who does not agree with him completely, for anyone who does not back him regardless of how preposterous he gets, for anyone who dares to suggest that he might not be the best option. He will turn on someone with lightning speed if they cross him. Just look at what he did to Mike Pence—who had been incredibly loyal to him throughout his presidency—once Pence refused to go along with the idea of not certifying the electoral votes. Look what he did to Nikki Haley when she had the audacity not to drop out of the GOP race. But not only does Trump not respect such people, he talks about them like a playground bully would speak of the class nerd or misfit. Suddenly Haley, upon whom Trump had lavished praise which she was ambassador to the UN, became “Birdbrain.” Even worse, Trump has no qualms about mocking someone’s ethnicity; he frequently made fun of and intentionally messed up Haley’s given first name, Nimarata (Nikki is her given middle name).

Back in January Trump announced that anyone who gave a contribution to Haley’s campaign would be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. I was so excited by the possibility that I gave Haley a donation. In fact, I gave one large enough to get one of the t-shirts she had made in response to Trump’s comments—t-shirts that read, “Permanently Barred.” Sadly, Trump couldn’t even keep his word on that threat, as I have been inundated by Trump’s campaign via e-mail, text and postal mail ever since Haley dropped out.  

Today is Constitution Day. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not give many requirements for being president. The only stipulations the framers included were that the president be 35 years old, a natural-born U.S. citizen and have resided in the U.S. for fourteen years. But it is also important to remember that the framers never intended for the people to choose the president anyway. The Electoral College was put in place precisely to prevent what we are seeing in the U.S. in recent years. In Federalist No. 68 Alexander Hamilton wrote that the Electoral College was designed to “afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder” and to “promise an effectual security against this mischief.” No one could look back on the last six presidential elections and suggest that there has not been tumult, disorder and mischief.

The people were to have some influence in who the president would be, Hamilton wrote, but  it was determined by the framers “that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”

While we could, and should, discard the restriction of men being the only ones involved, Hamilton correctly anticipated that the public at large has proven ineffective at deliberation and discernment. The media, which should aid in that endeavor, has done anything but. Hamilton has a lot more to say that is worth considering; I would encourage you to read—or read again—Federalist No. 68.

Historian Stephen Knott, author of The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, is correct about where we have arrived. He said, “the president represents the will of an impassioned majority. The president has become a cheerleader for popular feelings, putting at risk those who don’t share them.” That has, sadly, become true of presidents of both parties. In fact, it has become true of both parties, period.

Our republic is in trouble, and Donald Trump is not going to Make America Great Again even if he wins the election in November (which I actually see as increasingly unlikely). If there is to be any chance of making America great again it will require more than just the election of the right person to the White House, but it will certainly require that, too. And until the majority of Americans decide that character in the White House matters more than cheap gas or lower taxes, we will likely continue to see browbeating and intimidation.

Our framers would be sad but, more importantly, God has to be disappointed in those who are giving their all, and using His name in the process, to support the election of such a thug.

The Prophetic George Washington (Part 3)

~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

Washington continued his address by transitioning to the matter of public debt. Debt was a big deal during the Washington administration and the assumption of state debts was a crucial element of the plan out forward by Alexander Hamilton to unify the nation and strengthen its economy. (Interestingly, this plan also ended up resulting in Hamilton’s support of relocating the national capital to the banks of the Potomac River, as he needed Thomas Jefferson’s support for his financial plan). Washington was intimately familiar with the financial cost of war and with what happens when soldiers and officers are not paid as promised, so he knew whereof he spoke when he addressed the matter of public debt. Still, while recognizing that it may at times be necessary, he left no question as to his opinion on the subject. Note what he had to say:

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

That’s a long paragraph and it is, at times, wordy, but Washington makes three key points: avoid debt whenever possible, pay off debt that was unavoidable as quickly as possible, and remember that public debt can only be paid from public revenue–so it is necessary to pay taxes.

The United States has done exactly what Washington advised so strongly against. We have accumulated, and continued to add to, a massive public debt–one now hovering around $20 trillion. We have, for several generations now, been “ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.” Back in 1995 and again in 1997 I devoted considerable time and attention to the federal budget–why it was in the shape it was in and what needed to be done about it. I did that as a lowly undergraduate student in college. My research and findings generated mild interest from professors at my university as well as others after I presented at an honors symposium, but it was essentially an academic exercise. Nothing came of it and no one really paid much attention. Several years before that Harry Figgie and Gerald Swanson had written a book–which did receive a fair amount of attention–entitled Bankruptcy 1995. Believe it or not, the predictions of that book could not have been much closer to spot on, as the federal government did shut down over budgetary issues in 1995. In his two presidential runs, but especially in 1992, Ross Perot devoted the bulk of his attention and energy to the matter of the U.S. debt. What, by the way, was the national debt in 1992? It was just over $4 trillion. We’re not doing anything to solve the problem. We are burdened with a debt that our ancestors ungenerously burdened us with, and we are doing nothing but piling on to it and–ungenerously–passing it on to our posterity. Eventually someone is going to have to pay the piper.

That piper, by the way, is mostly U.S. citizens and entities, but about one-third of U.S. debt is owned by foreign nations. About $1.3 trillion is held by China and $1.1 trillion by Japan, with other nations holding $3.8 trillion (according to a May 2016 report from CNN). And that raises another point that Washington made. He cautioned strongly against being attached too strongly to other nations, be that through treaties or just closer-than-healthy fondness. He did not mention debt specifically, but he would have understood it as an issue, since the United States had debts owed to France following the Revolutionary War. Such “avenues to foreign influence,” Washington said, “are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.” Why would that be? Simply this:

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. … Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and to serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other.

Washington cautioned the U.S. to honor its existing treaties at the time he left office and to resist making more. The risks involved with getting too entwined with another country were simply not worth it, Washington believed. The risks far outweighed the reward. That is because, as Washington and so many of the founders understood, human nature is fickle and corrupt. It is hard enough to govern your own people fairly and effectively; why introduce a dependence upon the people and/or governments of other nations over which the U.S. had (and has) no control? “There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation,” Washington said.

We have failed, as a nation, to heed Washington’s warnings about party and faction. We have failed to heed his warnings about religion and morality. We have failed to heed his warnings about public debt and dependence upon foreign nations. Regardless of who wins the election next Tuesday, We the People have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to even begin to rectify the mess we have gotten ourselves in by ignoring, and continuing to ignore, the wisdom of the Father of our Country. George Washington was not perfect because no one is. Imagine, however, how different things would be today if our parties disagreed respectfully and actually worked together to accomplish what is best for the country. Imagine how different things would be today if religion and morality were not relegated to the categories of irrelevant and unnecessary. Imagine how different things would be if we paid off unavoidable debts quickly or even, having missed the chance to do that, determined to stop adding to it. That would be a very different country than the one we find ourselves in today.

Freedom is not an entitlement

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

The Facebook page of the organization called The Federalist Papers posted an image of an American flag today with the caption, “The only entitlement I expect from my government is freedom.” The Federalist Papers is an organization with this purpose: “The mission of The Federalist Project is to get people the history and the civics lessons public schools don’t teach to motivate them to push back at the erosion of our liberties and restore constitutionally limited small government.” The organization relies primarily on social media to communicate its message. What is ironic about its post from today, however, is that freedom is not an entitlement at all.

An entitlement, by definition, is the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program. Such programs–Social Security, for example–are called entitlements because those who are qualified for the benefits are entitled to them. That entitlement, however, and the conditions qualifying one to become entitled to those benefits, are determined by the laws made by the government. Congress, for example, has been gradually increasing the age at which one becomes entitled to Social Security. I do not have a real problem with that, but it is clear evidence that entitlements are created by the government and can therefore be changed by, or even eliminated by, the government. Accordingly, referring to freedom as an entitlement is probably not a good idea.

Ironically, the very source the Federalist Papers claims as its name–the original Federalist Papers penned by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay–would have had very serious concerns about referring to freedom as an entitlement or as something which comes from the government at all. John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government articulated the idea that humans enter into a social contract through which they surrender some natural rights and freedoms in order to establish a government that will protect their other rights and freedoms. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in the Declaration of Independence that man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights–meaning that the government does not give them and the government cannot take them away. And then the authors of the Federalist Papers, written to encourage the ratification of the Constitution, vehemently argued that the Constitution gave the federal government only those powers that were enumerated in the Constitution. So passionately did they feel about this that they argued against the need for a Bill of Rights, demanded by the Anti-Federalists, because articulating that the government did not have the powers prohibited in the Bill of Rights would imply that the government had had those powers prior to having them forbidden.

Maybe its semantics, and I understand and appreciate the point the Federalist Papers post was trying to make, but we need to be careful with our words…and the last thing we want to do is suggest that our freedom is an entitlement we receive from the government!

President Hamilton?

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Though the quote has appeared in several different forms over the years, philosopher George Santayana wrote this: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If I may, I would like to reword this famous statement and apply it to a current event: “Those who never learn the past are condemned to misstate it.”

What has prompted me to mess with the immortal words of Santayana? A monumental President’s Day blunder by online coupon provider Groupon, that’s what. According to a plethora of major news outlets Groupon issued a news release last week promoting $10 off of local deals over $40, complete with this explanation of the deal: “The $10 bill, as everyone knows, features President Alexander Hamilton — undeniably one of our greatest presidents and most widely recognized for establishing the country’s financial system.”

Now, in Groupon’s defense, Hamilton is generally credited with laying the foundations of the nation’s financial system, having served as the first Secretary of the Treasury the U.S. ever had. However, as with Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, Hamilton never served as president of the United States.

Compounding the problem, Fox News has reported that upon being informed of the blunder Erin Yeager, Groupon spokesperson, told MyFoxNY.com, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.” Agree to disagree? Whether or not someone was ever president of the United States is not a matter of opinion; it is historical fact, easily checked and verified.

Groupon’s press release–which, believe it or not, is still available on its web site–refers to Hamilton as president three times and refers to him once as “our money-minded commander-in-chief.”

In the grand scheme of things this is pathetic but not that big a deal. However, it is evidence of a greater problem. That problem is a two-edged sword of ignorance of and disrespect for U.S. history. There is no excuse for having multiple professionals at a major corporation failing to recognize that Alexander Hamilton was never president of the United States. (Presumably more than one person has to approve press releases and ad campaigns). There is no excuse for a company spokesperson responding “we’ll have to agree to disagree” when the error was identified. The error was a result of ignorance or stupidity (or both), and the explanation once the error was identified is a result of ignorance or stupidity (or both, but most likely the latter).

Furthermore, the explanation is a prime example of the foolishness of relativism. Relativism is the idea that there is no absolute truth, that all beliefs and points of view are relative, subjective, and based on the preferences and viewpoints of those who adhere to them. “Agree to disagree” is a shorthand definition of “tolerance” and it works fine for things like which baseball team has a better starting rotation, which fast food chain has the best French fries or even which U.S. president was the best president. Those are topics subject to legitimate differences of opinion and conviction. There are different ways of defining “best” and legitimate, cogent, rational arguments could be made for multiple answers to those questions. Relativism has its place. I see it demonstrated almost daily at family meal times, for example–particularly when it comes to the vegetable of the meal and the opinions of my children as to how good–or not good–the vegetable may be!

Relativism has no place, however, when it comes to verifiable facts. There can be a difference of opinion as to which fast food chain has the best French fries, but whether or not a fast food chain even exists or even serves French fries is not open for discussion; the answer can be found and proven. Which U.S. president was the best will bring plenty of different answers, and you will probably find plenty of them today in particular, since it is Presidents Day. At a minimum I can guarantee you will find arguments for George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. There is no definitive standard by which one can determine “best president” so that range of opinion is fine–healthy, even. But there is no question as to whether or not Alexander Hamilton was a U.S. president.

It is a sad day when a major company errs on what should be basic elementary school history. My favorite professor in college used to refer to some things by saying, “Every good schoolboy or schoolgirl should know this….” Sadly, the number of things every good schoolboy or schoolgirl knows is rapidly diminishing. That is due in no small part to an observation regularly made by my favorite graduate school professor: “Sometimes there is nothing common about common sense.”

The Antitode to an Abuse of Freedom

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias posted this statement on his Facebook page on July 4: “Freedom can be destroyed, not just by its retraction, but also by its abuse.” That is a profound reminder for everyone who claims to be a lover of freedom. And if I may be so bold as to add to this statement, I would suggest that freedom is most likely to be abused when those who possess freedom fail to understand freedom–what it is and what it is not, where it comes from, how it is preserved and so on.

In the United States of America one way to gain a more complete understanding of freedom and what it means in the U.S. is to understand what the Founders were thinking and doing when they formed the framework of this nation following the accomplishment of independence from England. As a student of American history, I would suggest that one of the best ways to understand what the Founders intended when they wrote the Constitution is to read the eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay that have come to be known as The Federalist Papers. These essays were originally published in newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788 in order to present the case for the ratification of the Constitution. The complete collection of essays was bound into two volumes in late 1788 and have been available in single or dual volumes ever since. For those who prefer to read on their computers or e-readers, the text of all eighty-five essays is also available (for free) on the Library of Congress web site as well as a number of other web sites. For more than two centuries they have been the authoritative source understanding the thinking and intentions of the Founders.

Historian Richard B. Morris said that The Federalist Papers form “an incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer.” Thomas Jefferson called them the best commentary ever written about the principles of government. The Federalist Papers website quotes James Madison as writing that “a people who mean to be their own governors must be armed with the power that knowledge gives.” Alexis de Tocqueville visited the young American nation and wrote in his book Democracy in America that Americans of that time were “far more knowledgeable about government and the issues of the day than their counterparts in Europe.”

Why bring all this up? Because, according to a recent article by Mindy Belz entitled “Against the Mental Grain,” The Federalist Papers are now being ignored by the most respectable institutions of higher learning in America, including its law schools. Belz quotes Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, as pointing out that Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley no longer require their students to read any of the Federalist essays, and these are the schools that “produce many of the nation’s leading members of the bar and bench.” Berkowtiz goes further and explains that not just the law schools, but the political science departments at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford do not even require undergraduate or graduate students to study The Federalist. Berkowitz writes, “The progressive ideology that dominates our universities teaches that The Federalist, like all books written before the day before yesterday, is antiquated and irrelevant,” and that by letting students acquire an education without studying such important writings as The Federalist Papers, “our universities also deprive the nation of a citizenry well-acquainted with our Constitution’s enduring principles.”

The Federalist Papers Project, whose web site I linked above, has this states purpose: “The mission of The Federalist Papers Project is to get people the history, government and economics lessons they never got in school and to motivate them to push back at the erosion of our liberties and restore constitutionally limited small government.” And to bring this discussion full circle, please note that “the erosion of our liberties” is but another way of saying, in the words of Zacharias, “an abuse of freedom.” Founding documents are important, whether the Ivy League schools think so or not. Let us, as Madison urged, arm ourselves with knowledge that we might defend against the abuse of our freedoms by those who have ignored the limits on government intended by our Founders.