Around Wabash – April 2009
Apologies
In his April 9th lecture, Mr. Lerone Bennett, author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, offered an interesting way of celebrating this year’s Lincoln bicentennial: by apologizing for slavery. He claimed that the federal government should officially apologize. The state governments should officially apologize. Local churches should officially apologize. Even labor unions should officially apologize.
In accordance with Mr. Bennett’s request, we at The Phoenix contemplated issuing our own official apology for slavery, but then we came to an important realization: that it would not really solve anything. Slavery was an evil institution, some of the effects of which are still with us today—but the people who did the enslaving are long gone. Progress in race relations will be made when we realize that we exist independent of our ancestors’ sins and we seek together to forge a more perfect union. Superficial displays of guilt will not help achieve that goal.
Fundamental Rights
During Mr. Hoadley’s lecture, he referred often to fundamental “rights,” and claimed that those who sought to deny gays those rights were “irrational.” As part of his critique of conservatism, however, he also rejected the notion of natural law.
An observant member of the Wabash Conservative Union who was in attendance saw a discrepancy in this reasoning and asked him an important question. If there is no natural law—that is, if we are not endowed with our rights—then where do rights come from?
Mr. Hoadley danced around the question a bit, and then eventually settled on the answer that we as a society “create” our rights, and that rights are “relative” from culture to culture. In other words, Mr. Hoadley, along with far too many other modern liberals, does not accept the founding notion of our country: that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. The society Mr. Hoadley seeks to create, then, is one in which rights can be given and taken away by the collective will of the masses or by the government which affirms them. We would argue that no civilization based on such a dangerously flimsy set of standards would be advantageous to any minority group.
Good Luck, Seniors
Several members of the Wabash Conservative Union will be graduating next month: former Editor-in-Chief Sean Clerget, former Event Coordinator Tyler Gibson, former Business Manager Trent Hagerty, and staff writers James Inman and John Moton. As can be deduced by the abundance of titles, this group of men has contributed greatly to the Wabash Conservative Union. They were all here from the beginning, and they helped take the organization from the ashes of the old Wabash Commentary and make it what it is today. We congratulate and thank them for all they have accomplished, and we wish them the best as they move on to greater things.
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