I’d like to start out by thanking rightwingmom52 for popping Capitalism and Freedom in the mail when I mentioned we did not have it at my campus library, despite my protests that I was a grown man with a job who had a budget for such things.  Not only did she insist on sending me the book, she threw in The Road to Serfdom as a bonus.  From the bottom of my heart, I thank you Ma’am.

On to business.  Two weeks ago when I made my original post, JSobieski threw up a post with some advice regarding John Locke.  Well, if you’re still out there, I’d like to discuss that further.  She (my Professor) brought up John Locke last night, and I feel like she subtly perverted what he said, and I’d like some help figuring out if I’m confused on the particular issue, or if she’s doing what I think she’s doing.

We were discussing the 3 natural rights, life, liberty, and property.  She asked what he meant by property, and I said that it meant ownership of the proceeds from one’s labor.  She replied, “hmm.  I’m not sure if that’s…derivative, but what he definitely talks about is that there is no excuse to deny someone the basics.”  I haven’t studied Locke since high school, and we did not actually read any of his original material at that time, but I seem to remember his second treatise talking extensively about property specifically being material and being created by labor, not that it means that the society one makes a social contract with owing you the basics.

Am I out of my mind?  If so, please help me out, and if I’m not out of my mind, how best do I challenge this in discussion politely in our next class session?

So, first things first, I spoke to my professor about whether I can share her text (I still think it’s a manifesto, but I do actually respect this woman; keep reading) or not.  She said she actually hadn’t even considered the possibility before because most of her students seem very unengaged and had never asked before.  She thought about it and ultimately decided she would prefer if I don’t share the entire first chapter, primarily because it is not intended as a standalone manuscript and is meant to be a complement to her lectures, and also because it is in a .doc format, which can be edited by anyone, and she is concerned that someone on the internet could edit it, put it back out there as if it was the original text, and that it would misrepresent her.  I see it as a valid point (not that she needs to give any explanation at all; it is her intellectual property, and if I cannot respect that then I do not deserve to be posting here.)  So, no more complete chapter 1, but she encouraged me to discuss any part of her manifesto text with anyone I like.  I bought a hi-lighter today and I’ll be going through making notes on the parts I’d particularly like to draw attention to in the weeks ahead.

Next, I am deeply confused by this woman.  As I stated previously, I respect this woman.  I am not trying to take back what I said in my original post, that she is a rabid socialist; I still believe that to be true.  However, she seems like a very reasonable woman so far, and has gone so far as to say that she encourages people to think and question if we think something she is saying is wrong, and that she will do the same to us.  She has shot me down when my arguments are weak, which is completely reasonable and part of why I originally came here for guidance.  Rather than being a royal pain when I came to her and explained that I may have unintentionally trampled all over her intellectual property, we had an adult and reasonable conversation about it, and we came to a mature agreement which I outlined above.  She told me she was happy that I am engaged in the subject matter, and did not seek to call me an idiot, a crazy, a radical, or “one of them” for having a different viewpoint than her.  In short, my professor, by every measure, appears to be a smart, reasonable woman.  By any measure, those are traits one should respect, especially in someone one is about to spend the next quarter disagreeing with.  I think that I will be able to speak my mind in a respectful manner during this course without fear of getting my grade demolished.

Today we spent most of the session discussing the historical backdrop that led to the American experiment.  We only had two hours to do this in, and we started in the vicinity of 500 AD, so we obviously kept things in the macro, but she hit on the highlights fairly faithfully based on other books I’ve read, people I’ve discussed history with, and classes I’ve taken which were taught by professors who without a doubt loved America and what it stands for, although I do think she downplayed how much of a role God still played in the everyday lives of the people of the world during the time of the Enlightenment.  But, I said downplayed, not ignored, so I will reserve judgement at this time, though I will make a note of it.

However, so far she has completely skipped the effect of the Plague and other calamities in Europe as far as scarcity of people = people being important.  She discussed the plague as being horrible and destroying vast percentages of the population (true) but she never discussed the fact that this shift towards valuing people led to the eventual rise of democracy in Europe and England especially, not did she mention things like the Manga Carta.  Again, I will make note, but I will reserve judgement.  We ran short on time, and since we haven’t had a session on the origins of American Democracy yet, I’m hoping she’ll bring all this up at a later time.  If weeks go by and she has not, I will ask her about it.

What I am confused about is how this reasonable woman who spent 10 minutes making sure we understood how important and revolutionary the emerging concept of merit in the American colonies (as opposed to heredity or class, for example) came to write such statements in her manifesto as “Is this political trend what most Americans want: to destroy government services and re-establish a free-for-all economic system where only the strongest deserve to be rewarded under the banner of an unregulated, corporate-driven economic system? …NO!”  She spent a long time in class explaining that a merit-based system of valuing individuals was a good thing, and yet her manifesto constantly attacks free-market principles and stopping only just short of advocating class warfare (though she constantly invokes the concept of “class.”)

We ended tonight discussing indentured servants, and how when their period of indenture was over, they were normal people, could have land, trades, rights, just like anyone else.  She ended with the question, “Where, then, does slavery fit into the equation?”  I’m currently rereading the early chapters in Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen’s A Patriot’s History of the United States so that I am prepared for that discussion next week.  She seemed to become the least rational any time the discussion turned to race, so we’ll see what happens and I’ll keep you all posted.

PS: If anyone can recommend some decent books on English history post-500 AD I’d be interested.  Please, something accessible, I’m going to be reading them in addition to a 40 hour work week and a full class load and other supplemental reading (and one of these days I’ll stop ignoring the Network+ certification I’m supposedly working on.)  I can read the full versions later when I’m done with college and can have a life again.

Many thanks to everyone who has posted with encouragement and advice over the last week.  I was nearly despairing, and now I feel much better about the whole situation.  It brings to mind a comment from one of the first meetings of the class, the night Steve Jobs died.  The professor asked me why I said that Mr. Jobs had positively affected the lives of millions, which is a perfectly fair question, and she was right to make me defend my statement.  One of the ways that I said we all benefited from his contributions is that the part he played in bringing personal computers to the masses was the added ability for me to contact my loved ones even if they live far away.  When I was young, long distance was expensive, and email had not been invented yet.  That left either short conversations or letters which took days or more each direction.  Of course, her response was “Well if it weren’t for industrialization maybe you wouldn’t live so far from your loved ones,” but that’s just her being her.  The support I have received from everyone is living proof that all this connection is of benefit.  I now can get intellectual insights from people all over the country and world that I will never meet, within hours of asking for help.  I thank all of you.  I will post new entries every few days to summarize what’s going on in class and to help me sort through my own questions and thoughts about conservative principles.

Time for class!

My name is Joshua Tuttle.  I have read Redstate for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve contributed.  I live in California, and am attending my local community college.  When I signed up for my classes this quarter, I was initially excited to be taking a class in American Government.  Unfortunately, my class might have been better called “Socialist Progress 101″ or something similar.  The basic premise that all conservative thought stems from is that we are born free, whether we believe we were created by God or evolved from monkeys.  When we discussed basic human rights at the beginning of the course, the instructor carefully guided us away from putting “freedom” or “liberty” or “self-determination” on the list.  She was very slick; it took me almost a week and a half to figure out what specifically was bugging me.

In our discussions, I am attempting to stand up for conservative ideas so that someone in the class who might not have my background might at least be exposed to the ideas, but I need some help.  When I brought up individualism, she expertly sidelined me by saying that “individualism used to mean the family unit, but now it means the individual, which is leading to the destruction of the family unit, which is what is wrong with America today.”  When she said that White America thinks Obama is a Communist because he is black, I raised my hand and said “Wait, you can’t claim that the reason people think he is a Communist is because he’s black, for one it doesn’t follow, and two most people who say that are basing that on his record.”  Her response?  “Yes I can, and I’m right.  Read White Like Me (one of the texts for the class, authored by Tim Wise.)”

I do not understand how to survive an environment like this, when fact is meaningless, unfounded claims are Gospel, and the instructor has had 25 years to perfect her technique.  She has written a manifesto that we are required to purchase from her and read, which is 128 pages long, and contains 8 footnotes.  8.  As an example, she lambasts our health care system for being 50th as a nation for childbirth-related maternal deaths.  She doesn’t cite any source at all.  Not that she would listen anyway if I called her source into question, but the purpose of standing up isn’t to convince her, it’s to make the other students think.  So I ask, can someone help me out here?  I cannot be the only conservative college student in America, and I need advice from someone else who has dealt with this, preferably successfully, but I can learn just as much from someone’s failure as their success.

I have the first chapter of her manifesto in digital form if anyone wants to see just what I’m dealing with.