constitutional government
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Bush and 9/11 Put AIDS on the Back Burner - And a New Social Venture is Born
Stanford / Entrepreneurship
Francis talks about how after 9/11, the government became interested in vaccines. Vaxgen shifted to making a small pox vaccine and an anthrax vaccine and has been very successful in these pursuits. Unfortunately, AIDS was not named as an immediate concern and was but on the back burner. Due to the unwillingness of both the government and private businesses to provide funding, Francis has now decided that the AIDS vaccine cannot be develo...more
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Because drinking is such an integral part of French culture, alcohol abuse has been historically ignored. Although there have been celebrated attempts to address this problem, such as Zola's L'Assomoir, it is only in the past five or ten years that the government has seriously tried to tackle the problem of alcoholism. One of the major ways in which alcohol is embedded in the cultural identity of the country is the close association of cer...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) The lecture critiques the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) certification system, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The criteria for being highly rated under LEED emphasize energy efficiency and minimizing waste, but do not prioritize environmental health and limiting use of dangerous plastics and chemicals. USGBC is a non-profit organization, not a government agency, and...more
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The class's examination of Nozick's minimal state has raised a number of important questions, most of which are rooted in his troublesome model of compensation. Nozick would respond with his threefold account of justice: (1) justice in acquisition, (2) justice in transfer, and (3) rectification of past injustices. Nozick brilliantly demonstrates that "liberty upsets patterns"--even though we can originally start off with any just distribut...more
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This lecture discusses the ongoing political experimentation involved in creating new constitutions for the new American states. Having declared independence from Great Britain, Americans had to determine what kind of government best suited their individual states as well as the nation at large; to many, this was the "whole object" of their revolutionary turmoil. Different people had different ideas about what kind of republican government...more
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Professor Blight continues his discussion of the political history of Reconstruction. The central figure in the early phase of Reconstruction was President Andrew Johnson. Under Johnson's stewardship, southern whites held constitutional conventions throughout 1865, drafting new constitutions that outlawed slavery but changed little else. When the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress reassembled late in 1865, they put a stop to Johnson's leni...more
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John Locke had such a profound influence on Thomas Jefferson that he may be deemed an honorary founding father of the United States. He advocated the natural equality of human beings, their natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and defined legitimate government in terms that Jefferson would later use in the Declaration of Independence. Locke's life and works are discussed, and the lecture shows how he transformed ideas previously ...more
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In this lecture, two important issues are addressed in the context of Locke's Second Treatise. First, there is discussion on the role of the executive vis-a-vis the legislative branch of government in Locke's theory of the constitutional state. Second, Locke's political theories are related to the American regime and contemporary American political philosophy. The lecture concludes with John Rawls' book, A Theory of Justice, and how his ge...more
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In the opening chapters of his Second Treatise, Locke "rewrites" the account of human beginnings that had belonged exclusively to Scripture. He tells the story of how humans, finding themselves in a condition of nature with no adjudicating authority, enjoy property acquired through their labor. The lecture goes on to discuss the idea of natural law, the issue of government by consent, and what may be considered Locke's most significant con...more
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Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson begins his examination of the major events of the English Civil Wars which culminated ultimately with the defeat of the royalist forces and the execution of King Charles I in 1649. He describes how Charles was forced to end his personal rule and call a parliament in 1640 in order to defend England against invading Scottish armie...more
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Professor Freeman discusses the debate over the Constitution at the Federal Convention of 1787 - a convention that by no means had an inevitable outcome. Indeed, even attending the Convention at all was a subject of debate in the individual states; many people feared that the Convention would produce a pseudo-monarchical form of government that would abandon the true significance of the Revolution. Ostensibly called to revise the Articles ...more
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Professor Freeman discusses the national debate over the proposed Constitution, arguing that in many ways, when Americans debated its ratification, they were debating the consequences and meaning of the Revolution. Some feared that a stronger, more centralized government would trample on the rights and liberties that had been won through warfare, pushing the new nation back into tyranny, monarchy, or aristocracy. The Federalist essays repr...more
