The Pragmatist Pamphlets

Charles Michael Province, U.S. Army wrote the following poem: "It is the Soldier, not the minister Who has given us freedom of religion. It is the Soldier, not the reporter Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the Soldier, not the poet Who has given us freedom of speech.  It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer Who has given us freedom to protest.  It is the Soldier, not the lawyer Who has given us the right to a fair trial.  It is the Soldier, not the politician Who has given us the right to vote.  It is the Soldier who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag."  "Congress finds that...it is essential to remember and renew the legacy of Memorial Day...to pay tribute to individuals who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States.  Greater strides must be made to demonstrate appreciation for those loyal people...whose values, represented b...

 " A time comes when silence is betrayal." - As quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr.  Whether you are talking about a military conflict or a the battle of ideas, it is generally better to have a large army than a small one. The more individuals we have supporting and defending our core values, the more we are able to defeat the enemies of reason. And yet, countless people that share our values fail to speak up. The reasons for their reluctance are numerous.    Most people are too busy to notice the dangers of idea pathogens or wrongly assume that they are unimportant.  The intrusion of anti-science, anti-reason, and illiberal movements occurs slowly and incrementally without many people becoming aware of the larger problem. Instead of ignoring the problem, recognize that while it affects others today, it could reach you tomorrow. Most people are reluctant to join the battle of ideas is what is called the "diffusion of responsibility" or "the bystander effect"...

In his best selling autobiography Up From Slavery (1901), Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) tells his story of growing up under slavery and then during Reconstruction, his adjustment to new freedoms, his work with the Tuskegee Institute (a school that remains in operation to this day), and the struggles he encountered along the way. Washington is remembered as an ambitious advocate of practical, industrial training as a means of lifting blacks and whites out of poverty.  Washington believed that lifting Black America out of poverty came primarily through economic advancement, and that legal protections and softening of racist attitudes among Whites were secondary responses that would surely follow.  While he supported legislation to secure equal rights for Black America, he also advocated for vocational training, free enterprise. patience, and thrift as the best paths to progress.  As an educator, he was instrumental in transforming Tuskegee Institute into Tuskegee Univers...

Martin Luther King, Jr. provides truthful, forthright thoughts on faith, culture, and politics in the United States. Coretta Scott King says that, of all her late husband's writings, Strength to Love is the work that people most consistently describe as life-changing. Here are the key insights from his book.  The complete human is a combination of tough-mindedness and tenderheartedness.   A strong human being is one that has sets of opposing traits working simultaneously within him. "It is when thesis and antithesis are powerfully present within a person, creatively interacting, that life is at its fullest." Most people do not strike this balance between opposite traits.  Jesus seemed to recognize the need to blend opposites. Jesus instructed his disciples to, "be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." It does not seem possible but, it is what Jesus expects. What does it look like to maintain this blend? Jesus' teaching is a call for us to have both a t...

"Many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of no longer being up to the level of maturity by mankind...This causes many to sway toward socialism, which is a false and dangerous current." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent 11 years in Soviet gulags.  ( A Quick Comment : I highly recommend reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book  The Gulag Archipelago . I think everyone should be as familiar with this chapter (as well as others) in world history as we are with the rise of The Third Reich in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, born in 1918, was one out of the many that were arrested under Stalin's regime. He was detained for writing a letter criticizing Stalin and was sent to the Soviet "gulag" labor camps where he spent the next 11 years of his life.  He began secretly accumulating stories of the horrendous life in the gulags. In prison for several years, he was denied paper and pen ...

For a while now, I have been wanting to delve deeper into the reasons that led up to the French and American revolutions. I also wanted to carefully examine the details of each and seek answers to questions such as, "What was the purpose behind each one?", "How were they similar?", etc.  As I was reading into the subject with the expectation that each country revolted for the cause of “liberty and equality", to my surprise, I discovered that my expectations could not have been more wrong. When actually, the reasons that fueled each revolution were far more dissimilar than I realized.  Os Guiness, a best selling author, stated in an interview with Dr. Albert Mohler, (Thinking in Public, June 5, 2017): "The culture war now at its deepest roots is actually a clash between 1776, what was the American Revolution, and 1789 and heirs of the French Revolution." The American Revolution was preceded by a Great Awakening Christian Revival, but in contrast, Franc...