Dec 13, 2006: Last Day

OUTLINE

Final Day 
 
I.  The Problem and Promise of freedom 
  A.  The Problem: Freedom allows great evil 
  B.  The Promise:  Freedom allows great good 
 
II.  Structure and virtue 
  A.  Govt provides structure that allows the commercial 
      republic to flourish 
  B.  Govt. intervention available for hard cases, injustice 
  C.  Need for moral leadership, individual virtue 
 
III. American exceptionalism revisited: 
  A.  America should be in the business of exporting hope 
  B.  Classical definition of citizenship:  rights and     
      virtue, or responsibility

Announcements

- The American Heritage final exam will be in the testing center the first four days of finals ONLY. Saturday the 16th, and Monday Dec 18th to Wednesday 20th.

- Teacher Evaluations are currently available (until Friday, Dec 15th) through Route Y, please take time to fill them out for Dr. Pulsipher

- TA Evaluations will be available Tuesday through Friday this week (Dec. 12-15) through the American Heritage website (fhss.byu.edu/amhtg), please take the time to fill them out for your TA (even if you have previously done so).

- See local government in action. Come to a Provo City Town Hall meeting. Thursday, December 14th at 12:00pm in the Garden Court, WSC. The mayor will be discussing issues that are pertinent to BYU students.

LECTURE NOTES

The Impact of the Founding today

The Problem and Promise of Freedom
-the problem: Freedom allows great evil
-the promise: Freedom allows great good

MEDIA CLIP: clip of people breaking liquor cabinets in a store
-stop poisoning our neighborhoods
-african american born converts islamic vandalize stores
-trashing alcohol racks with bats

MEDIA CLIP: Sean Hannity
-immigrant muslim owned businesses trashed by vandals with bats,
-because they want them to stop selling alcohol, polluting the community
-hannity and colmes discussing against
-New Black Panther Nation- Quanell X defending their actions
-Quanell X understand these people, what they did and why.

Quanell X says that merchant dealing a death drug to our community, he has a responsibility to deal with himself. If he doesn't the community must deal with him.
These business selling alcohol, cigarettes, pornography.

Is it okay for us to go in and burn the businesses down?

Tom Paine author of common sense makes a statement about this.
[see slides for quote]

if we don't want these businesses in our community, what is an action that we can take within the bounds of the law?
[discussion]
-lobby
-in oregon that happened, a porn store opened near my house, our community petitioned, we failed but this is how it ought to be done.
-you can picket and protest
-you can raise taxes (sin taxes) taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, pornography etc
-you can boycott (let the market system operate) (money talks)

these solutions people proposed are both structural (government) and virtuous (people's choices and actions)

as we become an increasingly tolerant and secular society, the government becomes less and less likely to step in.

Last money I wanted to show a clip, about green initiatives to show in class. but youtube.com was blocked. youtube has great good as well as great bad.

Colleges help you transition to adulthood, and BYU protected us from seeing youtube.com acting 'in local parentus' in place of parent.

We have great freedom in our economic lives as well. The government can step in to protect injustice. Beyond criminal law, we still have great freedom to do good and bad for our communities.

MEDIA CLIP: virtue and structure: steve mariotti
-This clip illustrates how both structure and virtue influence mix
-ny cities worst high school
-man left import/export business to teach at it
-man asked why are you giving me flack, was there ever a time i told you something valuable
-one guy said the only time you only had value to us is how to told us about your import/export business
-man changed his way of teaching, started talking about making money
-former students running sporting goods stores, hot dog stands, music business
-they all thank their high school business teacher
-capitalism opens up opportunities for the people at the bottom of the ladder to move up
-capitalism is opportunity

mariotti teaches how the structure works. one of the nice things about the usa is the business opportunities. blended effect of stucture (free market economy) and virtue (putting his ideas to practice to teach others)

the problem: the market takes no interest in producing goods that are not profitable
the solution: government and/or individual virtue

Government may have to step in with structure, or individuals have to step in with virtue

The free market economy does not care too much about, but we value
-the arts- mostly not profitable
-copies of the book of mormon- produced by church
-student with type 1 diabetes- big market for taking care of diabetes, small market for curing it
-hybrid vehicles- not popular at first, governments give tax breaks for hybrid vehicles

Valuable commodities that the free market structure will not do much about (govt structure, or individual virtue is the answer)
["A happy family is an HIV free family" picture, 15% rate of HIV in kenya]
[alpha joy children's home, orphanage in kenya, parents died due to aids]
-is there a market for orphanages?
-do i value human life not just locally, but worldwide

The Gates foundation's grand challenges in global health
-Asked: what are the biggest challenges in worldwide healthcare
-Pledged: to invest 250 million dollars in solutions
-received 1600 proposals from 75 countries

they are able to target specific areas of need by only giving money to certain areas

Biggest challenges:
-How to create single-dose vaccines that can be given soon after birth
-How to make vaccines that don't require refrigeration
-Needle-free delivery system
-How to better understand which immunological responses provide immunity
-better insect control
-how to incapacitate a disease-carrying insect population
-how to get more nutrients from a single staple food
-how to cure chronic infections

best health-care system in the world is a mother

they have given 7 billion dollars away so far (virtuous)

Blending the strengths of structure and virtue
-Microcredit
--Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner
--Unitus, Utah-based nonprofit microcredit lender(unitus.com)

MEDIA CLIP: Mohammed Yunus
-first bangladeshi to win the nobel prize
-microcredit a simple idea
-he founded Grameen Bank to supply microcredit
-lend money to people who have nothing
-give them a chance to start a business
-needs to collateral
-average loan $130 dollars, most loans go to women
-99% of loans have been repaid
-1.4 million dollars of nobel prize money to be used for microcredit
-small loans to people who didn't have access to loans ever before

MEDIA CLIP: unitus
-another nonprofit organization using principles of microcredit
-ties to BYU and mohammed Yunus
-for 1000s of years, how can we fight poverty, why is it still so prevalent in the world
-what can we do? what can I do?
-man: at first i thought the poor lacked work ethic
-well shame on me, these people work incredible hard
-if they don't their children will die
-what the poor lack is opportunity
-there are millions of poor people who have no access to financial services
-not 'the' solution, but 'a' solution
-helping the poor to help themselves
-it is not a welfare handout
-it is credit- access to financial capital
-not a gift but a loan- microfinance- microcredit
-from bolivia to bangladesh
-organizations lend, and pay back loans with interest
-first loan $35 dollars

we're talking about very small amounts of money
for a loan of $50 dollars someone can buy a water buffalo then they can start sending their kid to school

letting them into the market system, open the door of opportunity

Is america different from the rest of the world?
It has always been a place of hope?

America became a vast middle class at first, they had great mobility on the economic barrier depending on their actual work and performance

Where you have 'hope' you have a middle class
the 'capitalist' revolution in china is creating a middle class

MEDIA CLIP: [audio] John F Kennedy's inaugural address 1961
-in the long history of the world only a few generations have been granted the role of defending the freedom of this country...
-i welcom this role, i don't think any of us would exchange roles with anyone in any other generation
-ask not what your country can do for you... but what you can do for your country

the government has provided a marvelous structure, constitution, declaration of independence
structure- what the government does for us

virtue- what we do for each other, communities, homes, nation, world-wide etc.

MEDIA CLIP: [audio] ronald reagan inaugural address (20 years after JFK)
-let us renew our determination, faith hope...
-we have every right to dream heroic dreams
-you can see heroes every day, in factories, farms
-entrepreneurs create new jobs, new wealth and new opportunity
-heroes whose gifts support arts, education, churches
-their values support our national life
-'they and their' could be replace with 'you and yours' because you are the heroes
-your dreams and hopes will be the dreams and hopes of this administration

inspiring... he takes ordinary things, running a business, volunteering in the community or at a school

a good country needs not just structure but virtue

in the media we hear bad news, every so often we hear good news, good news that emphasize virtue

3 stories of virtue:

1. a story of a soldier of iraq, he threw himself onto a landmine that was about to go off to protect the rest in his company.
2. a woman called in to a talk show who was pregnant with a condition 'ammensephaly?' (no brain), this woman was carrying the baby to full term even though she knew it would die at birth, the babies organs could be harvested and given to other babies who are in need. a wonderful example of sacrifice (carrying a baby to term that she knew would die instead of aborting it)
3. from the ensign, a woman chose the fastest line at the grocery line, she saw an old woman trying to pay for groceries with insufficient welfare funds, and she saw another woman behind paid for her groceries