OK, you have a high school junior and he (she) says he wants to be a
lawyer? Now, young people often make statements like this. I remember a
meeting with a guidance counselor in high school where I told him that I
wanted to be a writer. His response was that writers were a dime a
dozen. To be fair to him, he may have had my grades in front of him.
Maybe you are thinking...'that was good advice Special Dog." Either way,
I've never been one to discourage a young person's enthusiasm.
So challenge this budding young lawyer in your house! There is a new book out that may help him find out if he really wants to study law. It's Our Republican Constitution, Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We The People by Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett. Get him the book, or if your junior had been so unfortunate as to have been taught to read by the 20th century Progressive's sight vocabulary and whole language methods (but that's a topic for another post), get him the book on CD to help him out. I wouldn't recommend an ordinary book and this book isn't ordinary.
Sixteen years ago, as a 50 year old going through the curriculum of a Master's Degree program in Higher Education.....I got all A's save for one B+.....my old guidance counselor in high school might have been surprised.....anyway, I stood up for emphasis during a particular discussion, and as seriously as I could I warned this younger group of students that there was a division coming to America like nothing we could then imagine. I was right. We are two distinct peoples today.
Professor Barnett describes two different constitutions in his book...one the Republican Constitution and the other the Democratic Constitution. Adherents of both point to that three word phrase....We The People....as key to their understanding of the Constitution, but the latter sees we the people as a collectivist group in which the majority makes the decisions including what the constitution means. The former, myself included and hopefully you, sees we the people as sovereign individuals. The latter, as a collective, sees the Constitution as a living document where the group determines where the Constitution should be adhered to and where it should be ignored. The latter says that the law is written, past tense, and that the original intent of what was written is what should be followed. This is from the book... "...(in) a Democratic Constitution, first comes government and then come rights."......in a "Republican Constitution.....first comes rights and then comes government."
You see the difference here surely! Maybe you can see a little more clearly why Americans seem to speak two different languages? This is but one morsel in the book, and as you can see it's easy to digest. Give this book to your budding lawyers. If it feeds this supposed passion for the law then encourage them every step of the way. If they think that it is boring....(it isn't)....ask them what their second choice for a profession would be.
Interestingly the introduction to the book is by George Will (we're not too happy with him today) but the first blurb is by Mark Levin! The next blurb is by William Kristol (we're not too happy with him either) but the last is by Utah Senator Mike Lee! So at least we can have unity on exactly what our Constitution is! Read it yourself for clarification.....the explanation of Chief Justice John Robert's sad vote okaying Obamacare is alone worth the price of the book!
So challenge this budding young lawyer in your house! There is a new book out that may help him find out if he really wants to study law. It's Our Republican Constitution, Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We The People by Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett. Get him the book, or if your junior had been so unfortunate as to have been taught to read by the 20th century Progressive's sight vocabulary and whole language methods (but that's a topic for another post), get him the book on CD to help him out. I wouldn't recommend an ordinary book and this book isn't ordinary.
Sixteen years ago, as a 50 year old going through the curriculum of a Master's Degree program in Higher Education.....I got all A's save for one B+.....my old guidance counselor in high school might have been surprised.....anyway, I stood up for emphasis during a particular discussion, and as seriously as I could I warned this younger group of students that there was a division coming to America like nothing we could then imagine. I was right. We are two distinct peoples today.
Professor Barnett describes two different constitutions in his book...one the Republican Constitution and the other the Democratic Constitution. Adherents of both point to that three word phrase....We The People....as key to their understanding of the Constitution, but the latter sees we the people as a collectivist group in which the majority makes the decisions including what the constitution means. The former, myself included and hopefully you, sees we the people as sovereign individuals. The latter, as a collective, sees the Constitution as a living document where the group determines where the Constitution should be adhered to and where it should be ignored. The latter says that the law is written, past tense, and that the original intent of what was written is what should be followed. This is from the book... "...(in) a Democratic Constitution, first comes government and then come rights."......in a "Republican Constitution.....first comes rights and then comes government."
You see the difference here surely! Maybe you can see a little more clearly why Americans seem to speak two different languages? This is but one morsel in the book, and as you can see it's easy to digest. Give this book to your budding lawyers. If it feeds this supposed passion for the law then encourage them every step of the way. If they think that it is boring....(it isn't)....ask them what their second choice for a profession would be.
Interestingly the introduction to the book is by George Will (we're not too happy with him today) but the first blurb is by Mark Levin! The next blurb is by William Kristol (we're not too happy with him either) but the last is by Utah Senator Mike Lee! So at least we can have unity on exactly what our Constitution is! Read it yourself for clarification.....the explanation of Chief Justice John Robert's sad vote okaying Obamacare is alone worth the price of the book!
