Civic's Class Notes - 6th Class

Monday, 01 February 2010

• Civic's Class Notes - 6th class

  January 15, 2010 Class Notes

  We opened class by discussing the experiences the children had when giving their food baskets to the Veteran of their choice.
  Brenda gave a report on Haiti, the earthquake, why Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and what could be done to improve the condition of Haiti.
  Dave started class:
  We now leave European and World History and jump ahead to the American colonies. Mankind’s condition on earth has not changed much up until the discovery of the new world, but after the American War of Independence and the birth of a new nation, mankind now makes a HUGE leap forward in almost every aspect of human existence.
  

  • personal liberties
  • religious liberty
  • financial opportunities
  • education
  • medicine
  • science
  • manufacturing
  • space travel
  • personal comfort

  To name just a few
  How did all these things happen? Did they happen automatically? Certainly not! But rather these were the results of God inspiring the founders with certain ideas and principles upon which to base the new nation’s government. These principles changed the world. We will discuss these principles in greater detail in the following classes.
  Before we do that, we want to point out how America seems to be in decline, because of our obvious wavering from our foundational principles. Some examples of our decline:
  

  • massive debt
  • crime
  • loss of manufacturing
  • devaluation of the dollar

  Good government and a civil society do not happen automatically!!We also took a few minutes to tell the story of Eldridge Cleavor – look up his life for those who do not know him.
  We just briefly ran down a time-line of events that were happening on our continent.
  

  • 1776 – Declaration of Independence
  • 1781 – Articles of Confederation – the United States first attempt at central gov’t
  • 1783 – Revolutionary War ends
  • 1787 – United States Constitution is written

  We discussed the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation and also the purpose of the Federalist Papers.
  What were the founders discussing in Philadelphia in 1787 as they established the most enduring constitution in history?
  We discussed some of the challenges facing the founders.
  

  • equal representation
  • slavery
  • tariffs
  • commerce
  • currency
  • foreign affairs
  • rights of the people
  • defense
  • etc.

  We now begin to examine the ideas and principles that the founders based their decisions on. First of all, the founders had a different scale upon which they measured political philosophy. The scale we use today, right and left, Republican and Democrat, or conservative or liberal, would have been meaningless to them. They would have measured political ideas on a scale of tyranny on one extreme to anarchy on the other.
  Ruler’s Law                                                                 No Law
  100% ß -----------------------------------------------------à 0%
  Tyranny                                                                       Anarchy
  
  The founder’s goal was to keep this scale well balanced.
  Where would you place our current administration on this scale?
  Basically that was the conclusion of this class. We will continue on Feb. 5^th.
  Until next time...........