[darrellmaurina]

123 posted on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 3:36:38 PM by RobbyS: “Interesting to compare Mr.Justice Storey’s commentary on the Constitution with what passes as constitutional law today. He was a unitarian, but his views, which were similar to those of aristocrats such as John Quincy Adams, take a very different view of the First Amendment than Black does in Everson. As to the Baptists, there is a difference between those influenced by the evangelicalism of the 18th Century and the older, more conservative congregations.”

115 posted on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 10:52:09 AM by Hemingway's Ghost: “Great stuff. Thanks for the education.”

Glad to help, or at least try to do so.

I believe it is important that we understand the potential for the internet as a venue for education. Politics in the days of the Lincoln-Douglas debates assumed a high level of knowledge on the part of the hearers — knowledge not only of current issues of the day but also of American history and principles of political theory and constitutional law.

We can't assume that today, but what we **CAN** do is use the question-and-answer format of internet discussions to try to bring back some of what we have lost through a dumbed-down education system.

[writer33]

We can't assume that today, but what we **CAN** do is use the question-and-answer format of internet discussions to try to bring back some of what we have lost through a dumbed-down education system.

Hold up, darrell. You're making too much sense. Just calm down. LOL!

[RobbyS]

On a comparable note, it is said that during the cHristological disputes of the 5th century, the common people had a sophisticated knowledge of theology. The blacksmith and the baker in Constantinople could argue intelligently over the issues of Chalcedon, and while they might comes to blows when they reached impasse, they each knew that they were talking about and were not afraid tio take a stand. I dare say that our present college graduates cannot hold a candle to their grandfathers/grandfather’s peers who graduated from college, and in matters of politics probably not to the storekeepers of that time with a solid elementary education.

one of my favorite presidents is Cal Coolidge, who affected the pose of a New England farmer. May be if that farmer could read the New Testament in Greeks as Coolidge could.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

We can't assume that today, but what we **CAN** do is use the question-and-answer format of internet discussions to try to bring back some of what we have lost through a dumbed-down education system.

100% correct.

And I think one of the ways in which American students of the 20th century have been short-sheeted in an educational sense, myself included, is in the ecclesiastical history of the United States. We focus all our energy on the secular history, and completely ignore what was going on historically in the church. But what was going on historically in the church is really the key, say, to understanding what begot the American Revolution, especially here in colonial Massachusetts.

Thanks once again.