Beacon College’s next Salon Speaker Series features editor Rich Lowry on Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Venetian Center, located at 1 Dozier Circle, Leesburg.
Lowry is a writer and the editor-in-chief of National Review magazine. He has written several books and will be discussing lessons from former President Abraham Lincoln during the series.
His views are that Lincoln was a proponent of markets, individual achievement and personal responsibility. He embraced economic dynamism and development. He rejected populist demagoguery directed at corporations and banks and, in fact, worked as a lawyer for the biggest corporation in the state, the Illinois Central Railroad. He warned against class warfare and made working for your own living — and not off the work of others — one of his bedrock principles. He considered property rights sacrosanct and called patent law one of the greatest inventions of all time. He revered the Founders and their principles.
All these elements of his politics were at play in his struggle to end the rural backwardness in which he had grown up and, more importantly, to end slavery, which as “unrequited toil” offended his sense of basic justice and natural rights. Without understanding these fundamental commitments of Lincoln, you cannot understand him as a figure or the DNA of the Republican party.
Registration is requested at https://secure.qgiv.com/for/SalonSeries23/event/richlowry/. A free boxed meal is included with each ticket.
In its seventh year, the Beacon Salon Speaker Series at Beacon College is the school’s flagship community education outreach program. The Speaker Series brings in speakers, educators, authors and entertainers from Florida and around the country to educate, edify and entertain by exploring Florida history, waxing poetic, delving into popular culture and clenching the political third rail.
Channeling its ethos from the Parisian salons of the Enlightenment, the Speaker Series honors the college’s sacrosanct duty as an institution of higher learning to uplift the community in which it operates, spark engagement and sow seeds of conversation and discovery.