Hillsdale College

Culture: Are You Ennobled?

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While updating TLB’s Facebook page with the latest sales promotion, a familiar face flashed across my screen – the image of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Hot off the press was the news that the award-winning actor was found dead in his NYC apartment at the age of 46 of an apparent drug overdose.  Out of curiosity I “googled” the phrase “actor dies of drug overdose” and stared at the images of seemingly, endless photos of accomplished people – all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors.  Perhaps cliche to say, it’s nevertheless worth noting that talent, fame, and fortune are not guarantees of happiness.  They are fleeting.  And this is self evident.  So what is permanent?

The Founding Fathers had an answer for this.  With knowledge of Old Testament prophets, Ancient Greek Philosophers, and Christianity, they devised a government whose purpose is human happiness – the American Republic.  Carefully divided and arranged powers are based on “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”, in other words, fixed and discoverable laws.  Citizens must “figure out what is true and good and beautiful and conform our lives to those standards that come from nature, do not change, and are not to be voted on”, according to Hillsdale professor Terrence Moore.  Advice worth considering.  And according to the founding claim, it ennobles the individual.

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Personal Note: A Quiet Constitution Day

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DSC_0041-1Yesterday marked a departure in my annual Constitution Day festivities.  For the last 3 years I’ve gone to one of my kids’ elementary school classrooms and thrown a birthday party for the Constitution complete with cookie cake, candles, patriotic plates and napkins, party favors and a brief presentation about the honoree.  Kids know birthday parties so it’s fun way to highlight and celebrate the Constitution while piquing their interest in the subject.  I always leave feeling renewed and excited about the possibility and potential of helping our kids – “Liberty’s kids” – to learn to love these things.  And seeing their faces light up does a mom’s heart “good”.   All is not lost if we look for fun and innovative ways to celebrate our country’s unique and exceptional heritage.  I believe there’s a document that reminds us we have a duty to do these things but it’s birthday is in July!

By Design: Why Natural Law Matters

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John Trumbull’s “Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776”

Cicero, a favorite political philosopher of the Founding Fathers, was the first to speak of Natural Law as a moral or political law.  In his books on the Republic and the Laws, he projected the grandeur and promise of a future society based on Natural Law.  The American Founders had a profound appreciation for Cicero because they shared his vision of a commonwealth of prosperity and justice for themselves and their posterity.  In his writings the Founders recognized the necessary ingredients for the model society they hoped to build.  According to Cicero, true law is “right reason.”  Constant and eternal, it is in accordance with nature.  He characterized the universal law this way:

“There will not be one law at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another later; but all nations at all times will be bound by this one eternal and unchangeable law, and the god will be the one common master and general of all people.  He is the author, expounder, and mover of this law; and the person who does not obey it will be in exile from himself.  Insofar as he scorns his nature as a human being, by this very fact he will pay the greatest penalty, even if he escapes all the other things that are generally recognized as punishments . . .”

Belief in the moral truth of Natural Law inspired the Founders and spurred their quest for independence.  In fact, The Declaration is “an act of obedience to a law that persists beyond the English law and beyond any law that the Founders themselves might make, notes Dr. Arynn, President of Hillsdale College.  It is an act of obedience to the ‘Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,’ and to certain self-evident truths,” primarily the equal and unalienable Rights of all human beings.  To live in ignorance and disregard for the moral principles of Natural Law is to risk exile from life’s ultimate goods like the inestimable blessings of civil and religious liberty.