Congress Shall Make No Law
Last evening, as part of first-year orientation week at Dartmouth, I gave a public lecture on the Constitution with the title, "Congress Shall Make No Law." I am not an expert on the Constitution per se, but I enjoyed the opportunity to meet some new students and discuss the ways that Constitutional principles are relevant to their time at Dartmouth. Slides from the presentation are here.
Some teasers:
- You could be forgiven if you thought that “Congress Shall Make No Law” was a mission statement.
- There are 297 million Americans and there are 435 Representatives, or 680,000 Americans per Representative. How is that anything but an anonymous relationship with the typical citizen?
- (Virtually) nothing gets done when your voice, no matter how divinely inspired, is in the distance or isolated. Turn Vox into Voces if you want to restore the civic health in your society.
The lecture was Dartmouth's formal observance of Constitution Day, a reference explained in more detail in the presentation and in the coverage of the event in The Dartmouth.
It was a good event, but it wasn't even close to being the best speech on campus yesterday.
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2 comments:
Noah Rhiner's speech was very interesting, and the link was appreciated.
One problem, though, is that actions in today's U.S. do not match words. We are violent. We spend tons. We convert people through force and not love. We do not sacrifice. We like material things, money, and net worth. None of this is very consistent with Jesus.
"czar" and "viceroy"
how do these figure into the Constitution?
more of my perspective:
http://tinyurl.com/7oakp
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