World History
The U.N. Charter and International Law
Presented at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on February 28, 2003.
Despotism Loves Company: The Story of Roosevelt and Stalin
Recorded at the Reassessing the Presidency seminar; March 2004. (38:46)
Classical Liberal Historians
People learn their political views through what they believe about history. Memorials function to push certain interpretations, e.g. about the War Between the States and the greatness of rulers like Lincoln and FDR.
Origins of Science in the Age of Faith
Lessl’s field is rhetoric. The history of the relationship between faith and science shifted when the theological nucleus was removed and science was inserted. Rhetoric was left behind. Faith was erased in the middle of the nineteenth century. Kant was intensely hostile to Catholicism. He wanted to replace it with humanism.
Natural Rights
Natural law does not depend directly on God’s will. Natural law goes back to at least the scholastics and perhaps Thomas Aquinas. Modern Natural Rights theory began in 1625. Modern theory recognizes the institution the state. Natural law is thought to produce inalienable natural rights. They speak to the dignity of the individual and life and property. The close connection between liberty and property is part of this tradition.
The Progressive Era
The Progressive Era covered the turn of the 19th-20th centuries until about WWI. It delivered such delights as the Federal Reserve. Accelerated statism with a philosophical veneer favored experts on boards making economic decisions efficiently. This era birthed the regulatory state.