Dear Emma,

We're saving a spot for you at the front of the line. . .

And on the bench. 

We want to know how you are,

So we're looking forward to seeing you at Christmas!

Love,
Your expectant cousins, Gracie and Mary Clement

Acknowledgements

Hi, folks,

I got my dissertation submitted today, and I wanted to share the Acknowledgements with you all:

The University of Texas at Austin has been an excellent place to conduct graduate training and research. I am grateful for the collegial and supportive atmosphere of the Department of Government, and in particular the leadership, counsel, and encouragement that Robert Moser provides graduate students. I owe a great debt to my dissertation committee members, all of whom have been persistently helpful and supportive. Thomas Pangle and Robert Koons deserve special thanks for their extensive and insightful comments on my work throughout the project. Above all, I am indebted to J. Budziszewski, who possesses a wise and generous heart along with a precise and penetrating intellect. He is a man who inspires and merits emulation in many, many ways. I am deeply grateful for his mentorship. Beside the work of all of these scholars, I am very aware of the deficiencies of my own. I am, of course, responsible for those errors that remain.

My debts to family are even more numerous and profound. My wife and I have been continually blessed by the friendship, wisdom, and generosity of our extended families. We would not have made it without them. Whatever there is of value in Chapter IV was learned first experientially from Bill and Sarah Wright, and second, in my own practice of fatherhood. Among a thousand gifts that could be named, I thank Jackson, Harry, and Mary Clement for daily renewing in me the desire to achieve my best self. Finally, there is no way to thank Ruthie adequately. Her labor for our common good has been unstinting and often thankless. Her love, friendship, and creativity animate our life together and profoundly inform all that I am and do. This work is dedicated to her.