OK, my summer job: I am researching and writing for Prof. Frohnen. The topic is subsidiarity. Simply put, this is the interrelationships between all types of associations from the state at the top of the heirarchy down to the nuclear family. We are exploring how U.S. rights jurisprudence concentrates almost entirely on the rights of the individual and is not capable of dealing with the rights of mediating associations, such as families, neighborhoods, civic associations, unions, churches, townships, corporations, etc. The basic thesis is that these mediating associations are critical in ensuring individual rights because:

1. we learn about civic interrelationships in these associations, and
2. when we disregard the role of these associations and rely entirely on the relationship between the individual and the state, the individual becomes entirely reliant on the will of the state to recognize and enforce his/her rights. It makes the state omnipotent.

It is alot more interesting than I originally thought it would be and, it seems, the role of mediating associations were assumed by the Founding Fathers.

More on the research later.