Sadly, there isn’t much to report…last night while playing piano I thought of some really good topic to discuss here, but of course I didn’t write it down, so I can’t remember now. Here are some odds and ends.
Yesterday the girls and I had a history class. It is usually on Wednesdays, but they were begging me to do it a day early. We were talking about the writing of the Constitution. I’m eager to buy Hans Hoppe’s book, “Democracy: The God That Failed.” I don’t think the girls quite understand the fundamental shift that occurred when the Articles of Confederation were abolished and the Constitution ratified. I’m having them do a project that I hope will help demonstrate this. I’m having them make a paper chain, and each link of the chain has a couple words from the Pledge of Allegiance. I know, I know…this sounds crazy. My mother said, “what? Have you gone out of your mind?” But there’s a reason for this. This chain, “united” by the Pledge of Allegiance is just that–a chain. We will talk about what it means for the country to be “indivisible.” How does this encourage more freedom? Are the links of this chain freer than they were before they were united? We’ll talk about some of these ideas…and of course, the Pledge of Allegiance itself. 🙂 I hope it will give them a tangible way to think about decentralizing power.
And then last night another sister came in to “keep me company.” I usually reserve my evenings for studying, but I wanted to make the most of this opportunity. So I offered to read a book with her. Most of my books do not have pictures, so we looked at the Mises 2010 Book Catalog with lots of pictures. We also looked at the flier from the Institute, “About the Ludwig von Mises Institute” with pictures of Mises and others. We saw a picture of Tom Woods, so then thanks to Facebook I could show her pictures of his cute girls…and also a picture of their new van. I told her about how nice Lew Rockwell is, and she said, “does he listen to everyone?” I think this was meant in the sense of someone who obeys their parents…and I wasn’t going to try to explain how he was nice and yet didn’t listen to the government. That will come in time. She can recognize Mises and Rothbard now in pictures. I said that Rothbard was a funny man, and fun to be around. She asked, “does he play lots of games?” And of course we had to tackle this Lincoln myth. I explained to her how mean Lincoln was, how he would throw good people in prison. So she carried on this little dialogue, “I will say to Lincoln, ‘I’ll be your friend’ but he will say, ‘No, I’m going to throw you in prison!’ I don’t want to be his friend!” Suffice to say, this girl isn’t going to grow up politically correct.
So that was an interesting evening, and probably unlike any other evening she spends reading books.
It is good to start them young, you know.
Actually, this was a report on Tuesday, so what about the Wednesday report? Since we did history yesterday, the rest of this week will be preparing for the workshop on Saturday. I’m going to go buy some materials and such that I’ll need. Really looking forward to it, should be a fun day. If you didn’t register but would like to come, please feel free to sign up late. There aren’t any late fees or anything, you can still come!
