A Presuppositional Critique of Constructivism

Educational theories have roots. They have roots in broader philosophies, conceptions of the nature of reality, and the theories utilized in classrooms to teach have implications for broader society. The author takes a presuppostitional view and shows that all systems have most basic beliefs that are un-provable. So at the heart of any form of interpretive schema or paradigm is faith in that schema. The author discusses the role of theories of truth, how fact-constructivism embraces a relativist position that is self-refuting, and ultimately is untenable absent a suspension of laws of logic. The author argues in favor of revelation from God as axiomatic and demonstrates how logic can exist on that basis, whereas on a secular basis, philosophy cannot generate any True facts whatsoever. The author then looks at the educational theory of constructivism and examines the theory and practices it endorses it in light of the presuppositional critique and concludes that the relativistic nature of constructivism precludes it from being a philosophically acceptable approach for the Christian

Combating Money Laundering

This paper discusses the modern problem of dealing with money laundering. Illicit occupations inherently create illicit incomes that must be given the appearance of legitimately earned income. The more government criminalizes activities of its citizens, the greater the need for laundering money

The Likely Effect of a Radiological Dispersion Device

With the end of the Cold War, the political and strategic relationships that undergirded the global balance of power were shattered. The powers that held nation-states together, like the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and others largely disappeared and to fill the vacuum left by the reduction of political authority, nationalist and religious identities emerged strong. As a result, the former USSR has broken into at least thirteen new countries, mostly along historic ethnic lines, Czechoslovakia into two, Yugoslavia, violently, into five along both religious and ethnic lines. These are only the most familiar examples, as there are many more. The threat of this type of strategic and geopolitical change is in the change itself. During this time, most significantly in the former USSR, much of the military hardware was sold off, traded, or stolen, to include radiological materials

The Growth of the Commerce Clause as Mechanism of Control

Article 1, Section 8, clause 3 of the United States Constitution states that “Congress shall have the power… To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”. This short and simple statement has been progressively used, in combination with a few other powers both granted and assumed by various federal actors, to take greater and broader powers over the states and private citizenry. The original judicial understanding of the so-called Commerce Clause (differentiated from original intent) comes from the 1824 case of Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1. Through subsequent cases, the judicial understanding of the commerce clause is clarified. Then during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, there seemed to be a change in attitude toward using an enumerated power to infringe on a police power, which is properly the role of the individual states. Through this new understanding of the power of the commerce clause, 20th century America sees unprecedented growth in federal regulation and criminalization on numerous fronts of civil society. This understanding continued until about 1995, when the Supreme Court struck down the Gun Free School Zones Act as unconstitutional. This began a shift in the way the Court saw the power of the commerce clause as elements of the federal government began to temper what they perceived their powers to be

A Presuppositional Critique of Constructivism

Educational theories have roots. They have roots in broader philosophies, conceptions of the nature of reality, and the theories utilized in classrooms to teach have implications for broader society. Specifically, this paper discusses the problems of constructivist theory in the classroom. The author takes a presuppostitional view and shows that all systems have most basic beliefs which are un-provable. So at the heart of any form of interpretive schema is faith in that schema. The author discusses ontological and epistemological options and how shifts in philosophy change the order of the most basic beliefs, but not the fact that they are beliefs, nonetheless. The author discusses the role of theories of truth, and how a fact-constructivism embraces a relativist position that is self-refuting and ultimately untenable absent a suspension of laws of logic. The author argues in favor of revelation from God as axiomatic and demonstrates how logic can exist on that basis, whereas on a secular basis, philosophy cannot generate any True facts whatsoever. The author then looks at the educational theory of constructivism and examines the theory and the classroom practices it endorses it in light of the presuppositional critique

Legal Positivism: The Leading Legal Theory in America

The author discusses the transition in from a Natural Law base for American Jurisprudence to legal positivism

Slavery in the 21st Century

This paper briefly examines the modern practice of slavery. It attempts to demonstrate that slavery is a larger problem than most understand, does exist in the United States, and will outline some effective means to combat it

Paul Rickert\u27s Tax Day TEA Party Speech - Lafayette Square, Washington, DC

Here is the text to my speech given at Lafayette Square, on April 15, 2009 at the National Tax Day TEA Party event. I had not concluded my remarks when the Secret Service shut down the event for safety concerns over a package being thrown over the fence onto the White House lawn. In the end it only had tea bags in it, but it effectively shut down the event

EVLA imaging of methanimine and hydrogen cyanide in Arp 220

We present observations of the 5289.8MHz$1{10}\rightarrow1_{11}$ transition of the pre-biotic molecule methanimine(\meth) and the 6731.9 MHz J=5 direct $|$-type transition in the vibrationally excited($\nu_2=1$) state of hydrogen cyanide(HCN) toward the nearest Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy, Arp 220, taken with the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) in A configuration. The 5289.8 MHz \meth\ line was detected in emission toward the western nucleus, but not toward the eastern nucleus. The 6731.9 MHz HCN line was detected in absorption toward the western nucleus, but not toward the eastern nucleus. Both of these are new results from the observations reported in this thesis, and are in contrast with rotational HCN transitions that trace cold and dense molecular gas and have been observed in emission toward both nuclei. We have also confirmed that the\meth\line is most like a maser; this represents the first independent confirmation of the only \meth\ maser ever detected. This \meth\ maser was found to have an isotropic luminosity of 5$L_\odot$, close to the luminosity (12$L_odot$) of a formaldehyde maser in Arp 220, and similar to the luminosities of \h\ kilomasers, most of which are believed to be excited in active star forming regions in external galaxies. The western nucleus is known to have undergone an intense starburst, and we conclude that the \meth\ maser is being amplified in the foreground gas along the line of sight to the western nucleus by the background continuum of the nucleus. The absorbing HCN gas toward the western nucleus was found to have a column density $\sim 1.04\times 10^{19}$cm$^{-2}$ corresponding to an excitation temperature near 550 K; the column density may be an order of magnitude higher at $\sim 10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}S if the excitation temperature has a lower value of 150K. If we assume that the HCN abundance relative to molecular hydrogen is the same as in our Galaxy ($10^{-5}$), this gives about$1 \times 10^{24}$cm$^{-2}$(or$10^{25}$cm$^{-2}$) for the molecular hydrogen column density, which is in reasonable agreement with the values reported by other observers toward the western nucleus. We conclude that the observed HCN absorption is likely taking place in a column of highly excited molecular gas in the foreground of the western nucleus. The observations reported in this thesis provide a self consistent picture of highly excited gas in the foreground of the western nucleus, and a convincing demonstration that the line of sight toward the western nucleus has different physical conditions than that toward the eastern nucleus. These observations have demonstrated conclusively that a new range of molecular transitions can now be detected and imaged with cm-wavelength telescopes like the EVLA, thus opening up new opportunities for the study of the physics and chemistry of other galaxies