I?ll start with James Madison, my favorite Founder and the one whose views on religious liberty dominated the Constitutional Convention. Madison based his understanding of natural rights and the role of the state on Locke?s ?social compact.? But, as one scholar has noted, because the exercise of religion requires that each person follow his own conscience, it is a particular kind of natural right, an inalienable natural right. Since opinions and beliefs can be shaped only by individual consideration of evidence that that particular individual finds persuasive, no one can really impose opinions on any one else. Unlike property, or even speech, religious liberty cannot be sold, or alienated, so it does not become part of the social compact. The state must remain noncognizant of its citizens? religions?meaning that it simply has no jurisdiction over religion. A just state must be blind to religion. It can?t use religion to classify citizens, and it can neither privilege nor penalize citizens on account of religion.
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Pathways to College
We have literally decades of research that confirm what everyone in this auditorium already knows: families have a major influence–probably the major influence–on children’s achievement. A 2002 study reviewing recent research found that students with involved parents are more likely to earn higher grades and get better scores on standardized tests. They are more likely to take extra classes and earn more credits. They attend school with greater regularity. They have better social skills and fewer behavioral problems. And they are more likely to go on to college.
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Fight Fair, Dammit
In Florence, Italy, there is a famous marble statue of two Greek wrestlers,nude, and magnificently muscular. The statues are, as we say, ‘anatomically correct,’ and one wrestler has hold of the other by an organ that my male friends tell me is quite vulnerable. I have forgotten the statue’s real name, but my husband always calls it "fight fair, dammit."
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Valuing Limited Government
Overused and vague as the term is, the clash of values is clearly driving the debate. Ask a Bush supporter why he still supports a President who has presided over domestic job losses of a magnitude not seen since Herbert Hoover, and he (less often she) will tell you that George Bush opposes abortion. Ask why he still supports a President who led us–on false pretences–into an unnecessary war that has made us demonstrably less safe, a President who has squandered the international good will that welled up in the wake of 9-11, and he will tell you that the President opposes gay marriage. Ask how he can support an administration that has trashed the environment, trampled civil liberties, and run up a deficit so huge that our grandchildren will still be working to pay it off, and he’ll tell you it is because George W. Bush is a good Christian.
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Be Careful What You Wish For
I am bemused by the Bush Administration. The rhetoric is all about smaller government and free markets; the reality is huge farm subsidies, protectionist tariffs for steel manufacturers, increased federal regulation of local schools and vastly increased police powers for federal agencies.
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