As anyone that’s ever committed themselves to learning, to some degree, a dry subject knows that if you don’t find some humor in it, it will be a painful experience. This can be especially asured with topics found in pre-law.
Which apparently is what I’m doing a self study of, also, to a degree. I have enrolled in some Coursera courses offered by the University of Pennsylvania. The course, Introduction to Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases as taught by Kermit Roosevelt, III is pretty nice.
I’ve tried watching other courses taught by instructors that were just not as engaging. I wanted them to be, but they just fell short.
An Introduction to American Law taught by Anita Allen et al. should be pretty intense because of all the sublimental text and video they provide. Which is great. I’ve watched Coursera come quite a ways in terms of quality. And it seems they are looking to always improve, but that’s all an aside. But only to the degree that I’ve actually heard of both instructor’s outside of them teaching at the university. This is a very good sign.
I’m certainly writing quite a few notes already, and this will just give me structure. So I think I will make it an absolute focus and read titles within what it is going to teach me. In a broader stroke I get a foundation in Consitutitional Law and Civil Law, which can only help.
I do look forward to the civil law course, I find the logic in the cases amusing. Another amusing thing I found while working through the course work was the Articles of Confederation. Well, not so much the document, but how fast the Constitutional Convention tossed those bitches out.
Before the convention even starts most of the delegates from Virginia are already there. James Madison is hanging out, waiting on everyone else and while kicking back drafts up the Virginia Plan. Everyone thinks it’s the bee’s knees except for a few.
Well, once things get kicked off it’s pretty universal that everyone thinks the Articles of Confederation is pretty much shit, and they shouldn’t be there to amend them, but to say, fuck it and form a new government from the documents ashes.
During the debates New Jersey, that New Jersey proposes it’s own plan, but no one took them serious; centuries later, no one still took them serious. Poor New Jersey. Maybe it will get better once the whole of… Ya know what, nope. Nope, it won’t. Anyway.
After much debate and probably a few tears, John Rutledge birthed the first draft of the Constitution.
And then as any good writer knows, the best work is found in the edits. Come ye Amendments!
Maybe it was the medication at the time, but I found it all rather amusing. I know, I have an odd sense of humor… That can clearly find itself in dry pages.
T. Simpson Writes 