Hello.
\nI\u2019m glad you stopped by.
\nWelcome to the LockeSmith blog, brought to you by the friendly folks at the LockeSmith Institute. I could take this opportunity to tell you about the Institute\u2014our hopes, our dreams, that we like pi\u00f1a coladas and getting caught in the rain. But I\u2019ll trust you to navigate to the Institute\u2019s site to read all about that.
\nWhat I should tell you is that this is part of a re-launching of the LockeSmith Institute. We still have all of our original aims, encouraging undergraduate research in the classical liberal tradition and boldly casting the light of knowledge into the encroaching darkness. (If I don\u2019t have at least one overblown and pretentious sentence, the union (Amalgamated Bricklayers and Dental Assistants Local 153) will yank my card.)<\/p>\n
\nThis, however, is something new. Truthfully, after the publication of the premier issue of The LockeSmith Review a decade-and-a-half ago, things sort of\u2026petered out. New students did not come along to replace the trailblazers, and funding for publishing proved difficult to locate. (That overblown sentence was just for me.)
\nTechnology, though, has given us a new lease on life. And we hope to parlay that lease into a nice fixed-rate mortgage. But in the meantime, we\u2019re starting up our project again with this blog. Finally\u2014publishing that classical liberals can afford! When academic institutions provide server space for them.
\nSo our plan for the blog is this. Two of us, myself and Dr. Mark Schenkel, will make regular blog posts. I am a political scientist, and Mark is a professor of entrepreneurship. I\u2019ll let him tell you in his posts what to expect from him. As for me, I plan to provide a classical liberal commentary on current events. Given my interests, I\u2019ll probably focus on events in a few particular areas. One of these, regional integration and international organization, is a relatively rare\u2014not to say odd\u2014area of interest among classical liberals, at least so far as I can tell.
\nI also have interests (and training) in law, particularly constitutional and public international law. I\u2019m not a professional in regard to either by any means, but I\u2019m a fairly well-educated amateur. The area of constitutional law is, of course, well-populated with classical liberals, but apparently still not enough. Maybe one more voice in the chorus will get the goblet to crack.
\nSo, please look for me to blog in this spot weekly, on topics of interest to me. I\u2019m under no illusion that they will be of interest to anyone else. Nor do I deceive myself that I have things ground-breaking and revolutionary things to say. And I can\u2019t pretend to provide the classical liberal view on anything\u2014that such a thing would exist seems antithetical to the philosophy itself. I\u2019ll just share my (smart-alecky and often warped) view of things, the view of one classical liberal, and hope that you might find something entertaining or enlightening in it. Should you find something thought-provoking enough to respond, I will consider my time well-spent. After all, as any teacher worth their salt will tell you, the fun part of teaching is learning.
\nIn addition to us two amateurs, Dr. Jeff Cornwall\u2014our un-indicted co-conspirator\u2014will also contribute his wisdom to this site, though as he has tenure and is the closest thing we have to a sugar daddy, we will not presume to announce whatever schedule he may find suitable. More in keeping with our purpose, we will also look to add blogs from students to this site. More on that as our recruiting efforts bear fruit. Not that I\u2019m calling them fruits. Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.
\nSo, until next week\u2026what\u2019s that? Sorry, the marketing department is insisting that I leave you with a teaser of some sort. Let\u2019s try this one on for size. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll get to it next week\u2014it depends on what bright, shiny news story catches my obsessive\/compulsive eye (rather than the agoraphobic one)\u2014but one of the many oddities about me is that I am both a committed classical liberal and a devout Baptist. One day, I\u2019ll get around to explaining how beautifully those two reconcile with each other, all without the benefit of pharmaceutical aid. Interested?
\nP.S. On a personal note, today was my late father\u2019s birthday. I hope this will prove auspicious–he was among the first to purchase a copy of the first (and only) issue of the LockeSmith Review. It\u2019s still on his bookshelf. I still miss him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello. I\u2019m glad you stopped by. Welcome to the LockeSmith blog, brought to you by the friendly folks at the LockeSmith Institute. I could take this opportunity to tell you about the Institute\u2014our hopes, our dreams, that we like pi\u00f1a … Continue reading