Month: February 2023

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, actor, and poet. According to Wikipedia, “He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”.” He was born April 1564 and died April 1616. He wrote several plays and works. Some of the more famous ones are Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Tempest. He wrote much more plays than this, but these are some of the more well known ones. Shakespeare was a great writer and his works were very well known by the people back then. He wrote plays, tragedies, poems, and sonnets. He is widely considered the greatest writer in the English language.

The King James Bible was an early modern translation of the Bible for the church of England. The publishing of this book was commissioned in 1604 and it was published in 1611. It was sponsored by King James IV and I, hence the name, King James Bible. This book seems too be written by one person, but it was not. In fact, this book was a committee project. It was written by so much more people. This book was written by forty-seven people and six committees. This was a very poetic book. The King James Bible has been described as one of the most important books in English culture. It was also a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. Originally, the King James Bible had thirty-nine Old Testament books, twenty- seven New Testament books, and an intertestamental section between the two Testaments containing 14 books of what most Protestants consider the Apocrypha.

In this essay, I have to find out if Shakespeare plays or the King James Bible is easier to read and understand. So, I have read many of Shakespeare’s plays for my school, and in my opinion, it took me a while to understand Shakespeare’s plays, but once I have gotten used to reading it, I could understand it a lot better. These plays were written in a kind of “form” of writing that most people do not use anymore, so it was really hard for me to follow along with the plays, and I usually need help to understand it.

When I was reading the King James Bible, there were a lot of words that I did not know the meaning to, so it was kind of hard for me to understand it. But I kept reading it and compared the chapters to the same chapter from a different version of the Bible, and I have gotten used to the writing. Now I can understand it a lot easier.

In my opinion, I think the King James Bible is easier to read than Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare used a form of writing style that I was not used to, so it was kind of difficult to understand, whereas the King James Bible was also hard to understand, but it was quick and easy to learn to understand the writing, and I was used to the Bible so I knew a lot about what it was talking about.

According to Lumen Learning, “The Estates-General of 1789 was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm summoned by Louis XVI to propose solutions to France’s financial problems. It ended when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, signaling the outbreak of the French Revolution.” So the third estate began the French Revolution by forming into the National Assembly, and that signaled the beginning of the French Revolution.

According to Wikipedia, “The French Revolution was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799.” The French Revolution lasted from 5 May 1789 – 9 November 1799. The French Revolution began when the Estates General was called because of a widespread economic distress in France. This became radicalised by the struggle for control of public finances. Shortly after the Estates General was convened at Versailles, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly. Three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court. It was there that they took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing never to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. A little while later, we have the Storming of the Bastille, and then the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Then the king was executed, and the Reign of Terror began. Then we have the Thermidorian Reaction. Eventually, Napoleon Bonaparte came to power, and ended the French Revolution and marking the beginning of the Napoleonic era.

For those of you who do not understand this question, here is a quick description (FYI, this is what I think it is ’cause I do not fully understand it either), what an open meeting is is a meeting where anyone participating in the meeting can talk about any topic and for as long as they like. There are no existing rules governing taking turns, topic adherence, or other constraints on the meeting. This meeting can also be recorded by any means by anyone present.

In my opinion, my answer to this question is no. The police should not be allowed to restrict recording or taping a video in an open meeting. Let me tell you why. In many cases, an open meeting is very important to a lot of people, and they video tape it so that people can watch it later and know what happened. Also, politicians are supposed to be helpful to the people and truthful. In most cases, a politician who is not being truthful does not want the meeting to be recorded, so a politician who does not want the meeting to be recorded is not really being truthful most of the time. So really, if a politician is okay with the meeting being recorded, then the politician has full confidence they will say and do the truth, and hopefully help a lot of people. So, the police should not be allowed to enforce a politician’s verbal restriction against making a video of him at an open meeting.

How important is the idea of covenant sanctions in the week’s readings? Well, I have recently began to read the King James Bible, and I must say, this is the most interesting version of the Bible I have ever heard of or read. The King James Bible was an early modern translation of the Bible for the church of England. The publishing of this book was commissioned in 1604 and it was published in 1611. It was sponsored by King James IV and I, hence the name, King James Bible. This book seems too be written by one person, but it was not. In fact, this book was a committee project. It was written by so much more people. This book was written by forty-seven people and six committees. This was a very poetic book.

Here is an exert from Deuteronomy 28:20 KJV: “The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

And here is that same exert from the ESV Bible: “The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.“

Here is another exert from the KJV, Matthew 5:13-16: 13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. 14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

And here it is again in the ESV: 13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so thata] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Which translation do you think sounds more poetic? I think the KJV Bible sounds better.

How important is the idea of covenant sanctions in the week’s readings? This past week I read Deuteronomy 28-34, Ruth, Lamentations, and Matthew 5-7. In all of these readings, I found out that a broken covenant brings negative implications, and a kept oath promises inheritance in the future.

Enlightened absolutism was just the belief in Enlightenment-era rationality and the concern for social problems. That, intermixed with the belief in an absolute monarchy or despotism. That is Enlightened absolutism. An example of an enlightened absolutist is Catherine II of Russia. She succeeded in creating enlightened policies.

The constitutional dispute between the colonists and the British government that led to the American Revolution. Ever since the colonists landed in America, the British tried to control them, because they thought the colonists were still British, but the colonists wanted to be free from Britain. So there was a constitutional dispute between the colonists and the British government that led to the American Revolution. There were events in which the constitutional dispute was evident, an one of these was the Stamp Act. According to Wikipedia, “The Stamp Act 1765, also known as the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London  which included an embossed revenue stamp.” Well, I bet you can imagine that the colonists were furious at this, so they decided to revolt against this, and not pay the taxes. Then the American Revolution ensued shortly after this.

In my school, I have been required to read How to ARGUE with a LIBERAL… AND WIN!, and this book has been very interesting. My teacher has told me to pick any chapter of this book, and write the topic, “How could voluntary arrangements solve this problem if the state did not impose the politics of plunder?” on it. So, I have chosen to write on the chapter “Government should control prices, but not people.”

First of all, is it at all possible that the government can control prices without controlling the people? The answer is no. Let me tell you why. “If you look at it extremely closely, you will see that the government is actually controlling the people. The government is using price controls to make the people produce products at a specific amount, sell them at a specific price, and it also makes people buy a limited amount of the product that the people need.” (You can read more on this topic in my essay titled “Price controls are people controls“). So the government uses price controls to set prices, controls the amount of products being produced, controls what price the companies should sell the products for, and controls how much the people can buy.

So how could voluntary arrangements solve this problem if the state did not impose the politics of plunder? One thing that you could do is you could budget. If you budget, you will have a plan on how much money you spend on a service, or item. That way, you will know if you can afford to spend money on a specific thing.

Don Quixote is the main character of a novel written in 1605 by Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes. According to Wikipedia, “Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world’s pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote, a work often cited as both the first modern novel and “the first great novel of world literature”.” Don Quixote was a widely read literary classic. Don Quixote was very popular novel for a long time, but it is not really read today, many people probably would not even read the whole thing unless instructed to.

Here is my short summary of the book:

So basically, this old man named Don Quixote loves to read and he reads a whole lot about knights, and the knighthood, and castles, pretty much a lot about what I like to call the “medieval age”, you may have heard of it or not. Anyway, this man eventually loses his mind and declares that he wants to be a knight just like the ones in his books. So he grabs some old armor that has been in his family for a long time, polishes it up, cleans up a sword, he takes an oath of knighthood, and declares that he is a knight. Throughout most of the rest of the book, he travels the land, looking for trouble that he can fix in a “knightly” way, and since knights and the knighthood are “dead”, people laugh at him, they make fun of him. In many cases, Don Quixote gets himself into trouble. In this one case, he is on his old horse, walking along the road when he comes across these people that he mistakes for magicians. So he charges them, his horse falls trapping him under his horse, and he gets beat up and his sword gets smashed. So this goes on for a long time, until he decides to return home and become a shepherd for a year. People encourage him thinking that he will return to his senses. A little while after he gets home when he wakes up in bed, he says he does not feel good, so a doctor is brought in and tells people that Don Quixote is dying. While on his deathbed, he comes to his senses and takes another oath, an oath of repentance. He dies a few days later.

The two oaths that Don Quixote takes completely contradict each other. In his oath of knighthood, he swears to protect the weak and uphold justice, but he does a lot of questionable things because he lost his sanity. In many cases, he does the opposite of what he swore to do, and becomes, in many cases, dangerous and violent.

In Don Quixote’s oath of repentance, he is on his deathbed, and he comes to his senses. In his oath, he realizes his sins, he repents of his sins, and he dies a very happy, new man.

The French materialists were a group of French 18th-century philosophers during the Enlightenment. According to Wikipedia, “French materialism is the name given to a handful of French 18th-century philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment, many of them clustered around the salon of Baron d’Holbach. Although there are important differences between them, all of them were materialists who believed that the world was made up of a single substance, matter, the motions and properties of which could be used to explain all phenomena.”

Adam Smith and the “invisible hand”. Adam Smith was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a Scottish philosopher and economist. He was also a pioneer in the thinking of political economy. His metaphor the “invisible hand” referrers to the “unseen forces that move the free market economy”, according to Investopedia. This metaphor first appeared in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

The War of the Austrian Succession, according to Britannica, was a “group of related wars that took place after the death (1740) of Emperor Charles VI. At issue was the right of Charles’s daughter Maria Theresa to inherit the Habsburg lands. The war began when Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in 1740.” According to Wikipedia, “The War of the Austrian Succession was a European conflict that took place between 1740 and 1748. Fought primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italy, the Atlantic and Mediterranean, related conflicts included King George’s War in North America, the the War of Jenkin’s Ear, the First Carnatic War and the First and Second Silesian Wars.”