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George Noory and author Jonathan Emord examine recent political protests from a constitutional perspective. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Guests: Ronald J. Pestritto & Christopher J. Scalia Host Scot Bertram talks with Ronald J. Pestritto, professor of politics and Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College, about Hillsdale's new online course, “The Federalist.” And Christopher Scalia, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, gives a defense of fiction and discusses his […]
Guests: Ronald J. Pestritto & Christopher J. Scalia Host Scot Bertram talks with Ronald J. Pestritto, professor of politics and Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College, about Hillsdale’s new online course, “The Federalist.” And Christopher Scalia, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, gives a defense of fiction and discusses his new book 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven’t Read).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today, we're taking a look at the unraveling mayhem situation in California, where Governor Gavin Newsom's failure to lead has allowed chaos to run absolutely wild. Violent riots involving illegal immigrants (most of whom are military-aged men) are breaking out across the state. These individuals are not assimilating, they are disrupting, demanding, and waving foreign flags while burning ours on American soil. As California spirals, it's no surprise that federal intervention has become necessary. President Trump has stepped in where state "leadership" would not. This really isn't about politics, it's about preserving order, protecting citizens, and upholding the rule of law. We are a people who serve a God of justice, not disorder. What's happening is not compassionate, it's destabilizing. California deserves better, and America must wake up before this becomes the norm nationwide. God forbid. Let's talk about what's really going on in California and why prayer, truth, and resolve are crucial right now.--https://www.thebrandsunday.com/products/the-bible-study-physical?srsltid=AfmBOoqJuDPZk6H7VWSxgepSo3RWAJCtIGO9wrHmULH1iMgxSzkJ791_--Order CULTure: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/SLYWFXAB6479S
The National Security Hour with Col. John Mills Ret. – In America, we were able to overcome the narrative and the corrupt legacy media. Australia has not. A soft tyranny has grown in Australia. There is no such thing as Freedom of Speech in the Australian equivalent of the American Constitution. America and MAGA, like populism, are the only hope of the world, explains Susan Pavan...
The National Security Hour with Col. John Mills Ret. – In America, we were able to overcome the narrative and the corrupt legacy media. Australia has not. A soft tyranny has grown in Australia. There is no such thing as Freedom of Speech in the Australian equivalent of the American Constitution. America and MAGA, like populism, are the only hope of the world, explains Susan Pavan...
We've heard it before: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what did the Founders mean by “the pursuit of happiness,” and how do virtue and moral philosophy shape our understanding of this unalienable right? Sharon is joined by Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, to explore these questions, as well as to dive deeper into the history and meaning of the pursuit of life-long virtue. Learn how six of the Framers and Founders – flaws and all – embody different virtues, and consider the importance of electing leaders who will be virtuous and uphold the principles of Democracy. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
JOIN SHERI HORN HASAN @ FOR THIS WEEK'S ASTROLOGICALLY SPEAKING PODCAST WHICH DROPS MAY 16 @https://www.karmicevolution.com/astrologically-speaking It seems clear now in hindsight that the May 12 Scorpio Full Moon asked us--& asks us still in the waning portion of this month's lunar cycle--to release any attachment to making sudden changes in, or reversals of, long held, deeply felt values.In essence, the May 12 lunation served as a warning that a sudden change in values may not serve the overall evolutionary process--which understands that things cannot remain the same forever but also that change must occur slowly because that is how the evolutionary process works. Ergo, we need to release our tendency to decide to suddenly do an about face vis-a-vis our long held traditional values.This becomes even clearer when we remember two things: That Pluto is now transiting through the Uranus-ruled sign of Aquarius, denoting that evolutionary change over the long term is necessary & that it may be led by the eventual progressive empowerment of groups; & that the U.S. is undergoing still its Pluto return which began in February 2022.The Taurus Sun normally does not like change. It likes its creature comforts & finds security in its resources, including land, money, and its physical body & possessions. In short, Taurus is reluctant to change what it deems pleasurable. And what's pleasurable is what Taurus values.However, when the Taurus Sun exact conjoins sudden change maker Uranus on May 17—particularly in stubborn change resistant Taurus—the Uranian principle that the longer change has been resisted the more sudden & shocking it will seem when it inevitably occurs becomes prevalent. In addition, Uranus, which rules Aquarius, tends to bring us sudden—sometimes shocking & often unexpected—revelations with lightning speed that provide us stark clarity. That's why astrologers often refer to Uranus as the “great awakener.”The Sun also represents the leader in mundane astrology. And, what's changing rapidly now is related to his or her personal values, rather than those of the collective (read: the people.) Given that Neptune's now in Aries, we are seeing an awakening, or new birth if you will, of the need for freedom of choice within the greater collective, especially in America.And this has presented us with a dilemma in terms of this nation's long held values around equality & freedom from tyranny. The current U.S. Pluto return, in effect for several years ahead still, denotes that adaptation will be necessary in order to avoid total extinction of the democratic process here.This podcast takes a deep dive into the sudden, recently attempted changes to both the 236 year-old U.S. Constitution & its long held & accepted legal premise around issues such as habeas corpus & the right to due process, the emoluments clause, birthright citizenship, and more. While it's true that the U.S. Constitution is in need of a modern-day upgrade, sudden change is not the way. That's because we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of its basic principles such as that “all men are created equal,” and that the U.S. Government is one “of the people, by the people, for the people.”What will be necessary in the years to come, under the tutelage of Pluto in Aquarius, will be an update to the meaning of these words. “All men,” for example should not mean only White male Christian aristocratic landowners or corporate robber barons. It must extend its humanitarian Aquarian nature into a more collectively Neptunian sense that ALL humans deserve equal rights—including minorities, women, immigrants, LGBTQ+, etc.--& that corporations & billionaires must not tyrannically control the masses. These are the immediate issues to ponder as transiting Jupiter in Gemini forms a square to the transiting Virgo South Node & Pisces North Node, which urges us to move away from trying to control every aspect of our environment & toward relaxing into a more empathic, inclusive one. This is especially true right now in terms of Jupiter-related archetypes: law, immigration, higher education, religion, & a free press (read: freedom of speech.) As we move toward the third quarter monthly “crisis in consciousness” lunar square of the Aquarius Moon to the Taurus Sun on May 20, the tension between groups of people and a stubborn pleasure-loving executive may become even more palpable. Perhaps objections by the people to our president accepting a $400 million “palace in the sky” jet from Qatar IS a violation of the American Constitution & a step too far, eh?When the Sun enters Gemini later that day, perhaps there will be an about face, as Gemini can be fickle. And, since America's current president's natal Sun/Uranus conjunction in Gemini has proven to be part of how American policy is decided at this point, a change of mind is always possible. If nothing else, the Gemini archetype is good at both being mentally adaptable as well as adept at making an about face.Next week's Mercury/Uranus conjunction in Taurus may well lead to an unexpected announcement of some kind by May 23, especially since Mercury enters its own sign of Gemini May 25. Perhaps more deals will be made & announced, who knows? We already have a lot of that going on, including the possibility of some kind of move toward a resolution of the war by Russia against Ukraine based on current discussions between the two now.Meanwhile, there's lots to say about Saturn's upcoming entrance into Mars-ruled Aries on November 24, too, so be sure to tune into https://www.karmicevolution.com/astrologically-speaking starting today May 16, & catch up on all the latest Astro News You Can Use! See you then! Namaste…
Man cannot build a government too small to misbehave or big to be misused, so the question is how to put checks and balances in place to prevent injustices from happening. In a very basic way, Western Civilization is an attempt to solve this fundamental problem, and the American Constitution is the result of centuries of work to create a solution.
Alison LaCroix, Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law and associate member of the Department of History at the University of Chicago Law School, joins Lisa Dent to discuss habeas corpus. LaCroix explains that as one of the foundational rights in the American Constitution, the suspension of habeas corpus would mean that due process is not […]
With each presidential decree, Donald Trump pushes the boundaries of his executive power. Which direction will the future of American democracy take? In his second turn, President Trump weaponizes the legal system—rewarding his allies while taking revenge on his enemies. Capitol rioters who had received prison sentences up to twenty years were released overnight. Their prosecuters got fired. Trump disregards federal court rulings, ignores acts of Congress, and defies both the Constitution's text and Supreme Court precedents.Is American democracy resilient enough to withstand this assault on the rule of law? What does this mean for the U.S.'s role in the world? And what will happen to the liberal and democratic world order when America is no longer its main advocate?About the speakers:Kimberly Wehle is a tenured law professor, writer, public speaker, lawyer, and legal contributor for ABC News. She is an expert in civil procedure, constitutional law, administrative law, and the separation of powers.Prof. Dr. Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops is a lawyer in international and criminal law. He is a professor by special appointment of Politics of International Law at the University of Amsterdam and a visiting Professor of International Criminal Law at Shandong University in Jinan, China.Laila Frank is a journalist specializing in the United States. She writes for Vrij Nederland, created the in-depth podcast series Welkom in Washington (BNNVARA, NPO RADIO1), and is one of the hosts of Bureau Buitenland (VPRO). She spends part of the year in the U.S. and part in the Netherlands.Supported by Vfonds.Zie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Since American president Donald Trump was elected to a second term, it is common to hear citizens, journalists, and public officials distinguish between the laws and leaders of their states and the national government. Those who oppose Trump's policies with regard to reproductive rights, gun violence, LGBTQ+, education, police, and voting often present state constitutions, courts, laws, culture, and leaders as a bulwark against Trump's autocratic rule. But Professor Stephen H. Legomsky sees it differently. His new book, Reimagining the American Union: The Case for Abolishing State Government (Cambridge University Press 2025) argues that – if we care about democracy – we should imagine an America without state government. No longer a union of arbitrarily constructed states, the country would become a union of one American people. Reimagining the American Union understands state government as the root cause of the gravest threats to American democracy. While some of those threats are baked into the Constitution, the book argues that others are the product of state legislatures abusing their powers through gerrymanders, voter suppression, and other less-publicized manipulations that often target African-Americans and other minority voters. Reimagining the American Union interrogates how having national, state and local legislative bodies, taxation, bureaucracy, and regulation wastes taxpayer money and burdens the citizenry. After assessing the supposed benefits of state government, Professor Legomsky argues for a new, unitary American republic with only national and local governments. Stephen H. Legomsky is the John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus at the Washington University School of Law. Professor Legomsky has published scholarly books on immigration and refugee law, courts, and constitutional law. He served in the Obama Administration as Chief Counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and later as Senior Counselor to Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson. He was a member of President-Elect Biden's transition team, has testified often before Congress, and has worked with state, local, UN, and foreign governments. Mentioned: Cambridge University press is offering a 20% discount here (until October) Susan's NBN interview with Richard Kreitner on Break It Up: Secession, Division, and The Secret History of America's Imperfect Union Jonathan A. Rodden's Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide (Basic Books 2019) Hendrik Hertzberg's review of Robert A. Dahl's How Democratic Is the American Constitution (Yale) Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court case that overturned the Voting Rights Act of 1965's pre-clearance requirement for historically discriminating districts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Tonight I'll bring you back to the Yankee Civil War, American Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I want to show you how American Big-Ag came to be, how their first apparatus, the ASTA was made made, and how their infiltrators and saboteurs find their way in to the USDA. A peoples department first created by Abraham L. under dubious assumptions in the very midst of the Victorian holocausts. Massacred Indian peoples and a lasting bio-piracy of their seed gene banks, that had been maintained in a landscape steward through natural farming, fire and wild herding since the last ice age!Music:Haunting Space Banjo ｜ Ambient Space Western ChillwaveNihaa Shil Hozh, I'm Happy About You
11:25 – 11:37 (17mins) "Vic Porcelli's East Coast Report with Douglas Blair" @DouglasKBlair Director of Communications, Public Interest Legal Foundation @PILFoundation Birthright Citizenship Is NOT A Thing In The American Constitution 11:41 – 11:56 (15mins) Feature: "CHAT BOX!!"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
11:25 – 11:37 (17mins) "Vic Porcelli's East Coast Report with Douglas Blair" @DouglasKBlair Director of Communications, Public Interest Legal Foundation @PILFoundation Birthright Citizenship Is NOT A Thing In The American Constitution 11:41 – 11:56 (15mins) Feature: "CHAT BOX!!"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Over the summer of 1787, the Federal Convention in Philadelphia debates the idea of an executive branch for the new government. Blog https://blog.AmRevPodcast.com includes a complete transcript, as well as more resources related to this week's episode. Book Recommendation of the Week: Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, by Richard Beeman Online Recommendation of the Week: The Growth of the Constitution in the Federal Convention of 1787: https://archive.org/details/growthconstitut00meiggoog Join American Revolution Podcast on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmRevPodcast Ask your American Revolution Podcast questions on Quora: https://amrevpod.quora.com Join the Facebook group, American Revolution Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/132651894048271 Follow the podcast on X @AmRevPodcast Join the podcast mail list: https://mailchi.mp/d3445a9cd244/american-revolution-podcast-by-michael-troy ARP T-shirts and other merch: https://merch.amrevpodcast.com Support this podcast on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/AmRevPodcast or via PayPal http://paypal.me/AmRevPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Barbara McQuade discussed freedom of speech and hate speech . McQuade is a professor from practice at Michigan Law at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. From 2010 to 2017, he served as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Dr. Mitchel Sollenberger discussed the separation of power in the American System. He is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Shahad Atiya discussed immigration and deportation. She is an Attorney specializing in immigration, international family law, and criminal matters. She is also a professor of Crimmigration at the University of Michigan - Dearborn. The episode was broadcast on March 21, 2025 US Arab Radio can be heard on wnzk 690 AM, WDMV 700 AM, and WPAT 930 AM. Please visit: www.facebook.com/USArabRadio/ Web site : arabradio.us/ Online Radio: www.radio.net/s/usarabradio Twitter : twitter.com/USArabRadio Instagram : www.instagram.com/usarabradio/ Youtube : US Arab Radio
It has been sad to watch how well-educated grown adults can act like such petulant children. The most recent of the “maturity challenged” having temper tantrums wear black robes and sit on the benches of our Federal Courts. These clownish judges make a mockery of our entire legal system, and a pathetic joke of our American Constitution. These are unfit partisan hacks who are legislating unconstitutionally from the bench and making total buffoons of themselves in the process. They put the entire United States Justice System in jeopardy. It is lawfare on steroids. On the second half of the program, Jim Calhoun stops by to share his thoughts on how modern governments seem to be drifting towards monarch rule. Now, do you believe in this ministry? If you do, you can keep us on the air as a radio program and podcast by visiting our website, https://truth2ponder.com/support. You can also mail a check payable to Ancient Word Radio, P.O. Box 510, Chilhowie, VA 24319. Information about guest host Jim Calhoun can befound at https://offgridliving.faith. Thank you in advance for your faithfulness to this ministry.
March 16, 2025 episodeBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/yaron-brook-show--3276901/support.
#0176 Did Washington Foresee the Russo-Ukraine Dilemma? Anti-Christ Pop Culture Meltdown, Trans-Monkeys, Dangers of Free Speech, The Ballad of Elmer the Cadaver, and The Book Corner Introduction Washington's Farewell Address Cut 1: I want to let you know that I will not be running for re-election. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve, but I need to step down, and let me tell you why I've resolved to do so. I have served two terms, and that is enough for anyone—I will retire now. Cut 2: Be wary of the forces that seek to weaken the national unity essential to defense—both internal and external, ideologically and materially. The only means for continued freedom is national unity and individual solidarity in the bonds of blood, creed, and nationality. Cut 3: Your nation has the right to your allegiance because it provides for your safety, and your duty to fellow citizens extends from civic charity to the defense of the nation. We all hold the same general beliefs, religion, and goals—national identity is key to maintaining the liberty so many have fought and died for. The esoteric considerations aside, we must also address the conflicting interests of the States, which are outweighed by the interest of the whole. You must learn to consider the individual interests of the States within the context of the whole of the United States. Your individual States will have their own autonomy, only within the value and benefit of the whole of the United States. The balance between States' rights and federal oversight has been laid out in our new Constitution, ratified by all. Each authority has its sphere of jurisdiction, subject to change only by the ratification of amendments. Cut 4: The purpose of the checks and balances between the States and the branches of the federal government is to ensure a level playing field for all factions present in political debate. The violation or manipulation of these checks and balances is inevitably harmful, no matter how noble or ignoble the pursuit. Cut 5: Be aware that popular factions can misuse the system of checks and balances to create tyrants, who will then seek to dismantle the very system they used to claim power. Cut 6: It's important to avoid altering the basic structure of the Constitution through violations or amendments, as this will dilute the purpose of the checks and balances and eventually break a perfectly serviceable constitution. Commentary: What did we see with the threat of packing the Supreme Court, removing the Electoral College, or now with the attempts from the legislative and judicial branches to hinder reform of the executive branch? Cut 7: The more control you give political parties, the more autocratic they will become. This stems from the darker impulses of human nature, existent in any nation, but partially mitigated within the design of the American Constitution. It's natural for political parties to become entrenched within the body politic, their interests gaining greater bearing than the actual interests of the people. Cut 8: It is natural, then, for political parties to act in retaliation and revenge against each other between elections, formulating a bizarre despotism and oligarchy. Cut 9: You must be aware of this tendency of political parties and prevent it if you wish to avoid a permanent political ruling class levying autocratic policies upon the people. Cut 10: If you allow this sort of political party structure to arise, you'll live to witness ill-founded rivalries that fester into political riots, insurrection, and corruption. Cut 11: Now, on the issue of foreign influence—avoid becoming so entrenched in the quarrels of other nations that you lose sight of the needs of your own country. Otherwise, nationalists will eventually be dubbed "uncaring" when asked to give their own necessities to governments that have no obligation to America or her citizens. Cut 12: Keep our interests in Europe as economically centered as possible, because Europe is a political tinderbox—frequently aflame—and will drag America into endless wars for nations that have proved to hold little interest in our well-being. Why should Americans die on foreign soil for people who care so little for us and consistently start conflicts? Cut 13: Avoid permanent alliances. Keep the alliances we do make, and remain out of other countries' disputes as often as possible. Trump vs. Zelensky Cut 14: Trump and Zelensky have had a falling out. Upon looking at the first draft of President Trump's proposal, Zelensky had this reaction:Watch here Cut 15: How did that get in there? Cut 16: No, Zelensky was even more self-destructive than that…Watch here Cut 17: Trump responded accordingly:Watch here Cut 18: It's important to remember that Russia and Ukraine have been contesting the border for decades, and the atrocities committed by Kiev—shelling civilian targets—predate the current war:Read more Cut 19: The war also hasn't stopped Zelensky from engaging in collective punishment on citizens in the Donetsk region (supposedly a region he wishes to have back under Ukrainian rule).Read more Cut 20: The exchange between Trump and Zelensky comes after Zelensky sanctioned his main political opposition in any future election, former president Petro Poroshenko.Read more Media Meltdown Cut 21: "I don't care, Margaret... if you think free speech enabled Hitler, that's nonsense."—Margaret vs. Rubio Rubio on JD Vance's speech on the decline of free speech in Germany and Europe:Watch here Pop Culture News Cut 22: LGBT actor Cynthia Erivo will be playing our Lord in Jesus Christ Superstar. What does this say about our culture's view on gender, cultural revisionism, and our Lord? Cut 23: Tom Hanks plays an "icky racist white man" on SNL 50. What does this say about our culture's view on race, cultural revisionism, and Christianity? Proper apologetics for each? NIH Lied, Monkeys Died Cut 24: NIH-funded research controversy What are they looking for? What are they doing? Is this the first actual medical study for the long-term effects on transgender humans via monkeys? But what about chemsex? What about HIV susceptibility? Monkeys cannot be infected with HIV—so are we looking at more gain-of-function research? What was happening here? Nicki Knows Facts: The Ballad of Elmer the Cadaver Cuts 25-34 The Book Corner: The Great Divorce, Chapters 3-4 Cuts 35-44 Closing Final Question:If you could get only one item of furniture for your wedding/anniversary, and the price was no issue, what would you ask for?
This week on The Nick Halaris Show we are featuring Melissa Walker, the Head of the Giving Circles Program at the States Project, an organization focused on leveraging the consistently overlooked and massively underestimated power possessed by State legislatures in our system. On top of being a passionate civic activist, Melissa is a popular author of teen novels and an accomplished magazine contributor.Ready to dive in? Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTubeor on your favorite podcast platform.I wanted to have Melissa on the show to learn more about the States Project and the role they are trying to play in improving our American democracy. In this day and age, when hardly a citizen can even name their state representatives let alone know what policies they stand for, Melissa and her colleagues at the States Project are smart to focus here. While the big-money players have all but captured the national scene, State legislature elections are as accessible as they are impactful. The American Constitution grants vast power to the states and state-level laws are often much more impactful to citizens' daily lives than Federal laws. Tune in to this inspiring episode to learn: Stay tuned to the end to learn why Melissa set aside her thriving career as an author to work on the States Project full-time and why she believes this work is the most powerful thing she can do today. As always, I hope you enjoy this episode. Please like and follow The Nick Halaris Show. Thanks for tuning in! Connect with Nick Halaris: Nick Halaris website and newletter (sign up!) Nick Halaris on Instagram Nick Halaris on linkedin Nick Halaris on Twitter
We live, my fellow Americans, in the greatest nation in the history of mankind. There is not, nor has there ever been, a nation like:THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.Never.It is a nation conceived in freedom. It treasures and fosters democracy. It is a constitutional nation, and it is a nation where, as Dr. Martin Luther King so well said, if in fact its citizens live up to its constitution, treasure it, believe in it, and enforce it, all men and women who are created equal can live a life to the fullest.AMERICA. What is America to you? Do you understand your country, your nation, its history, its purpose and meaning, the reality of the:REAL AMERICA?Do you? Right-thinking men and women thank God every day, EVERYDAY, for the privilege of living in America and being an American. Do you? Are you a grateful citizen, are you proud to be an American, and since this great country can do so much for you, remember the words of President John F. Kennedy, who admonished us to:ASK NOT WHAT AMERICA CAN DO FOR YOUASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR AMERICA!That in my opinion should be the motto of every real American.THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. Please read it. Do your best to understand it. Study anything which helps you understand the incredible rights, privileges, and duties which are yours as a citizen and as an American. Think always about the First Amendment to that Constitution, perhaps the finest words, rights, privileges, opportunities, and expressions of freedom ever written in the history of mankind. The First Amendment of America's Constitution allows you full and unabridged freedom of:RELIGIONSPEECHPRESSASSEMBLYPETITIONThese precious freedoms are the very best that can be offered to any human being and they are essential, priorities, GUARANTEED to every man and woman by this Constitution and its very precious First Amendment. Read it, know it, treasure it, and thank God for it.RULE OF LAW. It is watered down, ignored, or even eliminated in this woke and radical, anti-American day and age. Lawlessness in the end times, says the scripture, prevails and runs rampant. That is happening today. Stand up, my fellow Americans, to lawlessness and insist upon the rule of law, insist upon the concept of:JUSTICE FOR ALL.There is risk in so doing, but the reward is well worth the risk.RIGHT AND WRONG. There are those today that think there is no such thing as right and wrong. There is no absolute truth. This is the day and age of:THE LIE.We live in an age which many describe as:POST TRUTH.That is, we live in a culture where there is no such thing as absolute truth and consequently, the lie, that which is not truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is the law of the land. WRONG, dead wrong. There is right and wrong, there is truth, and never forget in this great year 2025, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ:I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE!I AM THE TRUTH!Believe in Him and you will know the truth indeed.STAND. Stand tall for America. Protect it. Founding Fathers were willing to die for it. Are you? Am I? Are there enough Americans left who are willing to do whatever is required to protect and defend the greatest land in the history of mankind?So much of the world despises, even hates America. Perhaps that is because we live hypocritically, we do not stand tall for our ideals, our freedoms, and our way of life, and we are not consistent, constantly compromising, and so often not holding individuals and nations accountable for their actions. We the People need to redefine who we are as a nation, make those ideals, values, and standards clear, and stand for them no matter the cost, now more than ever in the great year 2025.POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT. We the People need to be far more politically involved. Especially Christian citizens. We need to be active in government. We need to take positions of authority locally and to make certain our neighborhoods, towns, andcities, are safe, law-abiding, and true to American ideals, its constitution, rule of law, and way of life. WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO STAND UP! We need to make certain right-thinking and right-acting men and women are elected to office, who will truly represent us, and even more importantly, our Constitution, rule of law, and all that America should be. WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT HAPPENS! If not, we need to speak out critically so, aggressively, withhold financing, and our vote, and where necessary, exercise the process of recall and do whatever we can to get elected or appointed officials unworthy of citizen trust out of office and authority. WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO STAND UP BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!WOKE, THE PROGRESSIVE, THE ANTI-AMERICAN. They are everywhere, EVERYWHERE! They are determined to effectuate radical change or even in so many cases, the destruction of the American way of life. They would water down or eliminate much of our Constitution, curtail our freedoms, control family and education, and change the way we live, think, and believe. DON'T LET IT HAPPEN MY FELLOW AMERICANS, DON'T LET IT HAPPEN! Time is short. America needs right-thinking Americans in action now more than ever.PRIDE. Be proud 2025 to be an American. Be proud to be a citizen of the real America, the constitutional America, with its freedoms, and be proud to stand tall as America beckons, asking you now more than ever to be a soldier in the fight for freedom.Wear the flag, salute the military, proudly sing, and respect the National Anthem:STAND UP FOR AMERICA.Pray that God will bless America, convicted of its wrong doings, and once again make it the city on the hill, the shining light among nations, a country safe and protected for us today and for our descendants tomorrow. Let us proudly sing in 2025:GOD BLESS AMERICALAND THAT I LOVE!
Professor Jonathan Gienapp discusses his latest book Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique. Jonathan is also the author of The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era.
This is episode 202, the sounds you hear are the sounds made by wagons rolling across the veld — because we're going to join the trekkers who've mostly stopped trekking. For the trekkers, the promised land was at hand. The high veld, parts of Marico, the northern Limpopo region, the Waterberg, the slopes of the Witwatersrand into the lowveld, the Free State with its rocky outcrops and vastness, the dusty transOrangia. In the Caledon Valley, Moshoeshoe was monitoring the Dutch speakers who were now speaking a combination of languages, morphing the taal into Afrikaans. Further east, King Mpande kaSenzangakona of the Zulu had been keeping an eye on the colonial developments while indulging in expansion policies of his own. This period, 1854 and 1855, is like a fulcrum between epochs. The previous lifestyle of southern Africa, pastoral and rural, was running its final course, the final decade before precious mineral discoveries were going to change everything. Let's just stand back for a moment to observe the world, before we plunge back into the going's on in the Boer Republics. Momentous events had shaken Europe, a succession of revolutions which had somehow swept around Britain but never swept Britain away. This is more prescient than it appears. These revolutions are forgotten now, they're an echo but in the echo we hear the future. The 1848-1855 revolutions were precipitated by problems of imperial overload in Europe. Liberal nationalism was also sweeping the world, and the American constitution was on everyone's lips. Copies of the American Constitution were cropping up in the oddest places. Like the back of Boer ox wagons and inside the churches, alongside the Bibles. American missionary Daniel Lindley who you heard about in our earlier episodes, the man from Ohio who had started out life in south Africa as a missionary based near Mzilikazi of the amaNdebele's great place near Marico. He had copies distributed to the Boers. This is important. There is a direct link between the American constitution, South African concepts of what democratic rights were, which you could then track all the way to the 1994 New Constitution after apartheid. Schoemansdal, to the north, and the basis of ivory trade, was much bigger and richer than Potch. The Schoemansdalers looked down their noses at the Potchefstroomers — it was an ancient Biblical pose — it was hunters and shepherds versus farmers, Cain versus Abel. The clash between settled and nomadic societies. One of the dirty little secrets of South African life in the mid-19th Century was how successfully these new arrivals in the north, the trekkers, had decimated the elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, crocodile, and hippo populations. Schoemansdal was living on borrowed time. The story begins with a hunting party seeking white gold — ivory. An elephant hunt. It also begins with a massacre, and ends with a siege of a cave. The Nyl Rivier was always disputed territory, particularly since chief Makapan and Mankopane, otherwise known as Mapela - Nyl means Nile and the Boers had renamed this river for all sorts of important resonant reasons. This river is a tributary of the Limpopo and it is located in the northern part of the Springbok flats.There are two main versions of what happened, and I'm going to relate both, then we shall try to extricate fact from fiction. This episode will deal with the initial events, and next episode we shall conclude the saga with it's terrifying cave fighting and ultimate South African symbolism. The Langa and Kekana people first experienced trekkers in 1837 when Louis Trichardt entered their territory — from then on a steady trickle of trekkers could be found inside Langa and Kekana territory. The area we're focusing on is close to where the town of Potgietersrus would be founded, the modern day town of Mokopane. We can begin to connect our histories here. Makapan, Mokopane, Mankopane, Potgieter.
CLR Show 1980. Air Date November 8, 2024. A clear-eyed post mortem of the presidential election. The country has chosen to overlook the glaring list of automatic disqualifications of most unqualified, morally, ethically and spiritually damaged candidate in the history of the American presidency and has instead bought into his gospel of fear and vengeance. Even more disturbing is that 14 million fewer democratic votes were cast in 2024 than in 2020. It remains to be seen if American democracy can recover from the body blow. Much will depend on what Trump and his minions actually do in the months ahead. No less significant will be the the organizational and messaging skills of an opposition loyal to the norms, letter and spirit of the American Constitution. With Friday Co-Host, David Bach.
Anonymous Super PACs' money has replaced the power of 19th century party bosses. Dark money doesn't stop us from voting. It just limits who we can vote for! In this interview, my guest explains how dark money controls our elections and how big money is responsible for institutional corruption in America. *****
This first lecture looks at the power that is given to advocates in a country that has a constitutional structure like the US. I have brought The American Constitution powers an American lawyer in ways unavailable to the British. I will illustrate this difference from my own experience of bringing 88 cases against the President of the US. I have thus far lost just one.This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on 19th September 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.Clive is the Gresham Professor of LawHe is the founder and director of the Justice League a non-profit human rights training centre focused on fostering the next generation of advocates. He also teaches part time at Bristol Law School and Goldsmiths as well as running a summer programme for 35 students in Dorset, his home. He has received all kinds of awards in recognition of his work, including an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to humanity” in 2000. He has been a member of the Louisiana State Bar since 1984.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/human-rights-law-0Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/Website: https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show
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Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
In this era of polarization and partisan bickering, Americans of all political persuasions are calling for the nation to come together. National unity is certainly in high demand and highly praised. But what is unity? As Yuval Levin argues in his latest book, American Covenant, “unity doesn't mean agreement…disagreement does not foreclose the possibility of unity. A more unified society would not always disagree less, but it would disagree better—that is, more constructively and with an eye to how different priorities and goals can be accommodated. That we have lost some of our knack for unity in America does not mean that we have forgotten how to agree but that we have forgotten how to disagree…Unity does not mean thinking alike; unity means acting together.” Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Yuval Levin himself who contends that the American Constitution is ideally designed to address our need for unity. And becoming better acquainted with the intentions and insights of those who put our system of government together could bring us together the durable and cohesive unity we lack today. About Yuval Levin Yuval Levin is a political analyst, public intellectual, academic, and journalist. He is the founding editor of National Affairs, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor of National Review, and co-founder and a senior editor of The New Atlantis. He also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. Yuval served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President's Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels. Yuval's essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications, among them, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary. He is the author of many books which include American Covenant, A Time to Build, and The Great Debate. Yuval discussed the last two books when he was previously on the podcast in Episode 73 – Formative Institutions with Yuval Levin
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past. This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself. This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew. Author recommended reading: The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law
⚡️WestPoint Grad 1961 and a decorated Vietnam Combat Veteran, US Army (ret.) Major General Paul E. Vallely served America for 31 years in uniform and is still serving the American Constitution and his oath at West Point of Duty, Honor, Country. ⚡️He is the co-founder and Chairman of Stand Up America Foundation, author or co-author of multiple books, including “America's End Game for the 21st Century: A Blueprint for Saving our Country” and his newest release “Dismantling of America” To connect with MG Vallely, order his books, donate, or review their weekly published articles on SubStack visit
Show Notes for the Episode... Boris and Ben try to argue they have rights based on the American Constitution. Martin and Holly arrive--his plane on fumes--at the Barber Air Field. It's a bumping landing, but the pair get to look forward to some peace and relaxation while the Veronica gets refueled. TRIGGERS: Language, violence, horror, gore, dark comedy. Co-Producer: George Pecenica Cast: Storycrafter - Mike Rigg Robbie, Boris, Nissa, and Ben - Themselves George Pecenica as Percy Alexander Ray Volk as Martin Barnett Jenn Avril as Connie Ross Rupert Faullhurst as Nigel Osbert Wintermann Dave Murtagh as Oliver Glass and introducing Robin as Holly the Faerie Witch and Blake Azur as Jasper Remington Music Credits: "Americana," "Undaunted," "Almost New," "At Launch," "Dark Times," "Division," "Evil March," "Fretless," "Mourning Song," and "Music Box Theme" by Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .
In the summer of 1787, 55 delegates assembled at Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the new United States of America. The document that was finally agreed upon on September 15, 1787 was not without controversy. The completed document was filled with compromises, particularly around how representation would be calculated, and lacked a Bill of Rights. Join Professor Robert Allison & Revolution 250 Executive Director Jonathan Lane in conversation with Professor Carol Berkin, Baruch Presidential Professor emerita at the City University of New York on her book A Brilliant Solution; Inventing the American Constitution.Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
DEATH by roller coaster!The Midwest inflation con continues to be ignored by the localsOKLAHOMA defies the American Constitution to FORCE their IDEA of our GOD on innocent children!DEAR STAN LETTERS!
John Adams said the American Constitution would only work for a moral and religious people...so why should modern conservatives think otherwise? In an appearance at Sun Valley, Idaho, Charlie explains why America needs to have a religious core to succeed. Charlie also talks about why authentic liberty shouldn't tolerate drag queen story hour, why DEI is a calamitous social poison, how conservatives should approach their children's education, and more.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
John Adams said the American Constitution would only work for a moral and religious people...so why should modern conservatives think otherwise? In an appearance at Sun Valley, Idaho, Charlie explains why America needs to have a religious core to succeed. Charlie also talks about why authentic liberty shouldn't tolerate drag queen story hour, why DEI is a calamitous social poison, how conservatives should approach their children's education, and more.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Guests: Ronald J. Pestritto, Hadley P. Arkes, & David Azerrad Host Scot Bertram talks with Ronald J. Pestritto, dean of the Graduate School, professor of Politics, and Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College, about his lectures in Hillsdale’s Constitution 101 Online Course. Hadley P. Arkes, Edward N. Ney professor […]
Guests: Ronald J. Pestritto, Hadley P. Arkes, & David Azerrad Host Scot Bertram talks with Ronald J. Pestritto, dean of the Graduate School, professor of Politics, and Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College, about his lectures in Hillsdale's Constitution 101 Online Course. Hadley P. Arkes, Edward N. Ney professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions Emeritus at Amherst College, describes the natural law roots of our Constitution. And David Azerrad, assistant professor and research fellow at the Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College, shows how the Constitution's preamble serves as a "political mission statement" for the United States.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week's engaging episode features a conversation with Os Guinness, a profound advocate for faith, freedom, truth, reason, and civility. Os is an esteemed author and social critic and the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the famous Dublin brewer. With a bibliography exceeding 30 books, he provides insightful perspectives on our cultural, political, and social environments.Born in China during World War II to medical missionary parents, Os experienced the height of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and was expelled along with many foreigners in 1951. He later earned his undergraduate degree at the University of London and completed his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. He currently resides in the United States.In this episode, Jonathan and Os delve into Scripture and discuss Os' latest book, The Magna Carta of Humanity. They explore global perspectives, including Os' views on America's polarization crisis, the recent changes in the UK with the new King, and the evolving role of the “Defender of the Faith” in the monarchy. Os also shares fascinating stories about his remarkable family history, from Christian brewers to pastors to his journey as a Christian author.To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/CandidFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/candidpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/candidpodTwitter: https://twitter.com/thecandidpodTRANSCRIPT:The following is a transcript of Episode 256: Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom: Os Guinness (Reprise) for Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef.[00:01] JONATHAN: Today it is my special privilege to have Os Guinness on the program with us. Os is an author and social critic. He's written untold amounts of books. He's just like Dad, and it seems you have a new book out every six months or so, Os. Is that sort of the pattern, you get two out a year?[00:24] Os Guinness: Well, usually one a year, but COVID gave me the chance to write a lot more.[00:28] JONATHAN: Oh, well, I love it. Many of our listeners will, of course, be familiar with you, but there may be a few out there who don't. We have somewhat of an international audience, and I know that you have a very international background, having been born in China and raised in China and educated in England. There's a couple of things. I'm sure people are seeing the name Guinness and wondering is there a connection with the brewery? And of course, there is. But I wonder if you'd tell us a little bit of your family history and then we'll get to your own personal story.[01:00] Os Guinness: Well, you're right. I'm descended from Arthur Guinness, the brewer. My ancestor was his youngest son. He was an evangelical. He came to Christ, to faith, under the preaching of John Wesley in the revival that took place in the late 1730s, early 1740s. So he called himself born again back in those days and founded Ireland's first Sunday school, which of course, in this days was a rather radical proposition, teaching people who couldn't go to ordinary schools. And from the very beginning, care for the poor, for the workers and things like that were built into the brewery and the whole family status in Dublin. So that was the ancestor, and I'm descended from a branch of the family that's kept the faith ever since. My great-grandfather, Arthur's grandson, at the age of 23, was the leading preacher in the Irish revival of 1859. And we have newspaper accounts of crowds of 25,000, 30,000, and of course no microphone. He'd climb onto the back of a carriage and preach and the Spirit would fall. Ireland was not divided in those days, but in that part of the country, in the year after the revival, there was literally only one recorded crime.[02:33] JONATHAN: Unbelievable.[02:34] Os Guinness: This shows you how profound revival can be.[02:37] JONATHAN: Isn't it?[02:39] Os Guinness: His son, my grandfather, was one of the first Western doctors to go to China. He treated the Empress Dowager, the last Emperor, and my parents were born in China so I was born in China. So I'm part of the family that's kept faith ever since the first Arthur.[03:00] JONATHAN: You had mention that this is a branch of the family. Is there a branch of the family that's gone a different trajectory?[03:08] Os Guinness: Well, for a long time the brewing family was strongly Christian, but then eventually, sadly, wealth probably undermined part of the faith. But as I said, my family has kept it. They often say there are brewing Guinnesses, banking Guinnesses, and then they call them the Guinnesses for God or the poor Guinnesses.[03:36] JONATHAN: An amazing family lineage, and you're thinking of just the covenantal family through that line. And so you've got a book that came out this year, The Great Quest: Invitation to the Examined Life and a Sure Path to Meaning. And I know in the book you share a little bit of your own search for meaning and finding, because we all know that Christianity is really the only faith you cannot be born into in terms of you can be born into a covenant home and be taught the lessons of Christ and the church, but it's really a faith that has to become your own. It's not the faith that is transferred to the child. So tell us a little bit about your own story and your own coming to faith in Christ.[04:31] Os Guinness: Well, I was born in China, as I said, and my first 10 years were pretty rough with war, famine, revolution, all sorts of things. And I was there for two years under Mao's reign of terror, and in '51, two years after the revolution, my parents were allowed to send me home to England and they were under house arrest for another two years. So I had most of my teenage years apart from my parents, and my own coming to faith was really a kind of partly the witness of a friend at school but partly an intellectual search. I was reading on the one hand atheists like Nietzsche and Sartre, and my own hero, Albert Camus. And on the other hand, Christians like Blaise Pascal and G. K. Chesterton, and of course, C. S. Lewis. And at the end of that time, I was thoroughly convinced the Christian faith was true. And so I became a Christian before I went to university in London, and I'm glad I did because the 60s was a crazy decade—drugs, sex, rock and roll, the counterculture. Everything had to be thought back to square one. You really needed to believe what you believed and why you believed what you believed, or the whole onslaught was against, which is a bracing decade to come to faith.[05:57] JONATHAN: It really is. I wonder if you could walk me through that a little bit. I've read some of Camus and Sartre, and I mean, they're just such polar opposites about humanity and God. What were some of the things that helped you navigate through that terrain?[06:17] Os Guinness: Well, I personally never liked Sartre. He was a dull fish. And even later, when I went to L'Abri with Francis Schaeffer, we met people who studied under Sartre and people who had known Camus. Camus was warm, passionate. There are stories, we don't know whether they're true or not or just a rumor, that he was actually baptized just before he died in a car crash in January 1960. I don't know if that's true or not, or if that's a kind of death-bed conversion, but certainly his philosophy is profoundly human, and that's what I loved about so much of it. But at the end of the day, not adequate. You know his famous Myth of Sisyphus. He rolls the stone up the hill and it rolls down again. Rolls up, it rolls down again, and so on. A gigantic defiance against the absurdity of the universe, but with no real answers. And of course, that's what we have in the gospel.[07:19] JONATHAN: That's right, and it's sort of the meaninglessness of life, and I know a lot of high school, college students even seminary students have been deeply affected by some of his writing and have certainly felt, I think, what you're touching into there, which is that deeply personal—there's a lot of reflection in there that I think resounds with people. But as you said, it leaves you with nothing at the end of the day.So you've written quite a number of books across quite a range of topics. What is it that sort of stokes your fire, that kind of drives you? I know the Bible uses passion in a very negative, sinful sense, but it's a word we use a lot today. What is the passion that's driving you in your writings and your speaking?[08:12] Os Guinness: Well, you can never reduce it easily, but two things above all. One, making sense of the gospel for our crazy modern world. On the other hand, trying to understand the world so that responsible people can live in the world knowing where we are. Because in terms of the second, I think one of the things in the Scriptures as a whole which is much missing in the American church today is the biblical view of time. You take the idea of the signs of the times, David's men or our Lord's rebuked His generation. they could read the weather but they missed the signs of the times. So you get that incredible notion of Saint Paul talking about King David. He served God's purpose in his generation. That's an incredible idea that you so understand your generation that in some small, inadequate way we're each serving God's purpose of salt and light and so on in our generation.But many Americans, and many people around the whole world, they don't have that sense of time that you see in Scripture. I'm not quite sure why; maybe growing up in revolutionary China I've always had an incredible sense of time.[09:36] JONATHAN: You know, I think that's encouraging to hear. In our society, we get so fixated and caught up on the issues but there's almost this moment of needing to pull back and observe things from a higher perspective. And I think you do such a fantastic job of that.Let's walk through some of your more recent books, and then maybe get a peek under the curtain of what's coming, because I think you've got a couple of books that are on their way out. The Magna Carta of Humanity. This idea of Sinai and French Revolution as it sort of relates to the American Revolution. Tell us a little bit about the impetus for this and the thought process towards that.[10:25] Os Guinness: Well, the American crisis at its deepest is the great polarization today. But many people, I think, don't go down to the why. They blame it on the social media, or our former president and his tweets, or the coastals against the heartlanders and so on. But I think the deepest things are those who understand America and freedom from the perspective of the American Revolution, which was largely, sadly not completely, Christian, because it went back to the Jewish Torah, and those who understand America from the perspective of ideas coming down from the French Revolution—postmodernism, radical multiculturalism, the cancel culture, critical theory, all these things, the sexual revolution. They come from the ideas descended from Paris, not from anything to do with the Bible, and we've got to understand this.Now, the more positive way of looking at that, many Americans have no idea how the American Revolution came from the Scriptures, how notions like covenant became consitution; the consent of the governed or the separation of powers, going down the line, you have a rich, deep understanding in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. and we've got to understand if we know how to champion these things today.But it's not just a matter of nostalgia or defending the past. I personally am passionately convinced this is the secret to the human future. What are the deepest views of human dignity, or of words, or of truth, or of freedom, or of justice, peace and so on? They are in the Bible. And we've got to explore them. So the idea from a gentleman not too far from you, Jonathan, who said we've got to unhitch our faith from the Old Testament, that's absolute disaster. A dear guy, but dead wrong. You've got to explore the Old Testament as never before, and then, of course, we can understand why the new is so wonderful.[12:46] JONATHAN: You know, Os, just going down that track a little bit, that's right; you can't have the New Testament without the Old Testament. The prophecies of Christ, the fulfillment, it all falls apart, the whole argumentation, everything almost becomes meaningless at that point. And I know the argument is that it's about the event of the crucifixion and the resurrection, but you don't have those apart from Genesis 3, of course, Genesis 1, all the way through till the end of Malachi. You can't separate these two testamental periods. It's ludicrous, and it creates so much damage, as you've said. [13:36] Os Guinness: Well you know, take some of the myths that are around today. They're very common even in evangelical circles. The Old Testament is about law; the New Testament is about love. [13:48] JONATHAN: Right.[13:49] Os Guinness: That's not right. That's a slander on the Jews. Read the beginning of Deuteronomy. The Jews, the nation, they are called to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and so on. Why did the Lord choose them? Because He loved them and set His affection on them. And you can see in Deuteronomy there's a link between liberty and loyalty and love. So right through the Scriptures, those who abandon the truth, apostasy, that's equivalent to adultery. Why? To love the Lord is to be loyal to the Lord and faithful to the Lord and so on. And we've got to see there's a tremendous amount about love, loyalty connected with liberty.I mean, a couple of weeks ago, a couple of professors writing in the New York Times said the Constitution is broken and it shouldn't be reclaimed. We need to move on, scrap it and rebuild our democracy. Now the trouble is constitutions became a matter of lawyers and law courts, the rule of law only in the Supreme Court. No, it comes from covenant. Covenant is all about freely chosen consent, a morally binding pledge. So the heart of freedom is the freedom of the heart, and we've got to get back—this is all there in the Old Testament. Did the Jews fail? Of course. That's why our Lord. but equally the church is failing today. So we've got so much to learn from the best and the worst of the experience of the Jews in the Old Testament. But to ignore the Old is absolute folly.[15:35] JONATHAN: Well, and thinking about the American Revolution and the impact of men, as you've already cited with your own family history, of Wesley and the preaching of George Whitefield in the Americas, which would have had a profound effect on the American psyche, and I think would have contributed a great deal to a lot of the writing of law and constitutional ideology.[16:02] Os Guinness: Well, the revival had a huge impact on all who created the Revolution. But some of the ideas go back, I think, to the Reformation. Not so much to Luther at this point, but to Calvin and Swingly. In Scotland, John Knox and in England Oliver Cromwell. You know, that whole notion of covenant. I mean, Cromwell said ... A lot of weird ideas came up in the 17th Century, but the 17th Century is called the Biblical Century. Why? Because through the Reformation they discovered, rediscovered, what was called the Hebrew republic—in other words, the constitution the Lord gave to the founding of His own people.So even someone like Thomas Hobbes, who was an atheist, they are discussing the Hebrew republic—in other words, Exodus and Deuteronomy. It had a tremendous impact on the rise of modern notions of freedom, and we've got to understand that.So the Mayflower Compact is a covenant. John Winthrop on the Arbella is talking about covenant. When John Adams writes the first constitution, written one, in this country, which is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he calls it a covenant. And the American Constitution is essentially a national somewhat secularized form of covenant. And we who are heirs of that as followers of Jesus, we've got to re-explore it and realize its richness today.[17:44] JONATHAN: Turn on the news today and it feels like we're quite a distance from that. Even thinking about using a word like justice, you know, all this now it seems, to your point, this ideology from the French Revolution has really come to the forefront, certainly in the 60s, but there seems to be a new revival of this. What's contributing to that today in America?[18:17] Os Guinness: Well, James Billington, the former librarian of Congress, and others, have looked at the French Revolution, and remember only lasted 10 years in France, then came dictator Napoleon. But it was like a gigantic volcanic explosion, and out of it came their main lava flows. The first one we often ignore, which is called revolutionary nationalism, in 19th-century France and so on. You can ignore that mostly except it's very important behind the Chinese today.But the second one is the one people are aware of. Revolutionary socialism, or in one word, communism. The Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution. We're actually experiencing the impact of the third lava flow, revolutionary liberationism, which is not classical Marxism, communism, but cultural Marxism or neo Marxism. And that goes back to a gentleman called Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s. Now you mentioned the 60s. it became very important in the 60s because Gramsci's ideas were picked up by the Frankfurt School in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and the leading thinker in America in the 60s was Herbert Marcuso, who in many ways is the godfather of the new left in the 60s. I first came here in '68 as a tourist, six weeks. One hundred cities were burning, far worse than 1920, because of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Kennedy. But here's the point: The radicals knew that for all the radicalism in the streets, anti-Vietnam protests and so on, they wouldn't win in the streets, so they had to do what they called, copying Mao Zedong, a long march through the institutions—in other words, not the streets. Go slowly, gradually, win the colleges and universities. Win the press and media. Win what they call the culture industry—Hollywood, entertainment. And then sweep around and win the whole culture.Now here we are, more than 50 years later, they have done it. Now, in the early days, I'm a European still, I'm not American, people would never have believed that the radical left would influence what were called the fortresses of American conservatism—business, finance, the military—but all of those in the form of woke-ism have been profoundly affected. So America's at an extraordinary point in terms of the radical left being more power even than the French Revolution.[21:16] JONATHAN: Okay, so in thinking through that lines of reasoning, the people who are caught up in that today, the radicalism, is this just indoctrination? I guess what my point is, is it all intentional? Is it like Marcuso's intentionality of going through the halls of academia? Or rather is it that they've just been raised to think that this is just the way ... that it's the most opportune way to get your ideology out there?[21:56] Os Guinness: No, it's thoroughly intention. But of course, always there's a creative minority who eventually win over the majority who are hardly aware of it. You mentioned justice. I was on calls for a California pastor last year and I said to them, “You brothers have drunk the Kool-Aid.” They didn't realize how much of their understanding of justice owed everything to the radical left and nothing to the Hebrew prophets. So you know how the left operate. It analyzes discourage. How do ordinary people speak? And so you look for the majority/minority, the oppressors/the victims. When you've found the victim, which is a group, not an individual, you weaponize them and set up a constant conflict of powers in order to subvert the status quo.But as the Romans point out, if you only have power, no truth—and remember in the postmodern world God is dead for them, truth is completely dead following Nietzsche, so all that's left is power. And the only possible outcome, if you think it through logically (which they don't) is what the Romans call the peace of despotism—in other words, you have a power so unrivaled since you've put down every other power, you have peace. But it's authoritarian. That's where we're going increasingly today. You take the high-tech media and so on, a very dangerous moment for freedom of conscience, for freedom of speech, and for freedom of assembly. America is really fighting for its life. But sadly it's not. Most people are asleep.[23:43] JONATHAN: Well, and that's right. That's sort of the hinge point, isn't it? So let's talk just briefly about the education system. We're thinking sort of elementary, middle school, high school education system. So here in Atlanta there are sort of options that are presented to parents, right? There's the public school system; there's the private, often Christian, private school system; and then there's a home school option. And parents are all trying to navigate this. Now I'm sure you've heard arguments that you can send your kids to the public school because if Christians abandon the public school, then where is the witness, where es the influence with the greater population who are just asleep or whatever it is? If you send them out to the private school, your children will be protected, but how much exposure are they getting to thoughts and philosophies that if you sort of rein them in—And I guess this is really more to the home school spectrum, which is almost like an over-protection. These kids go to university and it's the first exposure they've had to some of these thoughts, and professors are going out of their way to convince these students that the way that they were raised was very fallen, broken; their parents were brainwashing them, etc. Just thinking about some of those differing options and thought process, how do you think through that as a thinker, as a social critic, as a Christian? How do you weigh into that?[25:17] Os Guinness: Well, you try and sort of isolate some of the different factors. So you've been talking rightly about the personal and the family concerns, which are fundamental absolutely. And I think that very much varies with the child. But with all of the words, home schooling, whatever, you want to keep them ahead of the game so they know what's coming. Francis Schaeffer often used to stress that. So people go to the secular university. Keep them ahead of the game so that they know what's coming and they know some preliminary apologetics so they know how to make a good stand and be faithful without being washed away. You've also—in other words, what you said is fundamental, I agree with that, but there's also a national dimension. So the public schools, and I'm not arguing that everyone has to go to them, but they were very, very important because they were the center of passing on the unum of the e pluribus unum, out of man, one. Put it this way. As the Jews put it, if any project lasts longer than a single generation, you need families, you need schools, you need history. It doesn't get passed on.So when Moses talked about the night before Passover, he never mentioned freedom, he never mentioned the Promised Land of milk and honey. He told them how to tell their story to children so that freedom could last. Now, the public schools used to do that, so you have people from Ireland or Italy or China or Mexico, it didn't matter because the public schools gave them civic education, the unum. That was thrown out at the end of the 60s. In came Howard Zinn and his alternative views, and more recently the 1619 project. So the public school, as a way of americanizing and integrating, collapsed. And that's a disaster for the republic.Now, take the added one that President Biden has added, immigration. As scholars put it, it's still relatively easy to become an American: get your papers, your ID and so on. It's almost impossible now to know what it is to be American, and particularly you say the 4 million who have come in in the Biden years, they're not going to be inducted into American citizenship, so the notion of citizenship collapses through the public schools and through an open border. It's just a folly beyond any words. It is historic, unprecedented folly, an absolute disaster.Of course, we've got to say, back to your original question, the same is true not only of freedom but of faith. So parents handing on, transmitting to their kids, very, very important.I would add one more thing, Jonathan. It's very much different children. My own son, whom I adore, is a little bit of a contrarian. If he'd gone to a Christian college, he might have become a rebel in some of the poorer things of some of them. He went to a big, public university, University of Virginia, and it cemented and deepened his faith because he stood against the tide and he came out with a much stronger faith than when he went in.[28:59] JONATHAN: I love that. I think you're right on with that. And I think it's good for people to hear and know the history and have awareness of this. Now I want to make a very subtle and gentle shift, and if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But you are a British citizen. Am I correct on that?[29:18] Os Guinness: I am.[29:21] JONATHAN: Queen Elizabeth has passed and now it's King Charles III and there's much talk about comments he's made in the past in terms of the Defender of the Faith. I read a quote from Ian Bradley, who is a professor at the University of Saint Andrews, he says, “Charles's faith is more spiritual and intellectual. He's more of a spiritual seeker.”Is this sort of a microcosm of what's happening in the UK, this sort of shift from the queen, who very much had a very Christo-centric faith, to Charles and sort of emphasis on global warming and different issues of the day? Is this sort of a microcosm of what we're seeing?[30:22] Os Guinness: Well, the queen had a faith that was very real and very deep, and she was enormously helped by people like Billy Graham…[30:29] JONATHAN: John Stott.[30:30] Os Guinness: --John Stott and so on. So her faith was very, very genuine. His? He's probably got more of an appreciation for the Christian faith than many European leaders today. So the Christian faith made Western civilization, and yet most of the intelligentsia in Europe have abandoned the faith that made it. So Prince Charles, as you say, a rather New Age spirituality, and he's extraordinarily open to Islam through money from Saudi Arabia. I don't have the highest hopes for him, although I must say the challenge of being king will remind him of the best of his mother. Even when the archbishop said in the sermon that he wanted people to know that Prince Charles had a Christian faith, I felt it was a glimmer of the fact he realizes, you know, his mother's position was wonderful, so it's very much open.Now I am an Anglican, as you are. Back in 1937, the greatest of all the Catholic historians on Western civilization predicted—this is 1937, almost a century ago—that the day would come in some future coronation when people would raise the questions, “Was it all a gigantic bluff? Because the power of the monarchy, and more importantly, the credibility of the faith, had both undermined themselves to such an extent it didn't mean anything.” I think we're incredibly close to that with King Charles. I also think, sadly, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, who preached wonderfully well yesterday, has done a good job in the celebrations and so on, the pageantry, but does a rotten job in leading the church as the church. And so the Church of England is in deep trouble in terms of its abandoning orthodoxy. It's a very critical moment. Will Charles go deeper or revert to the way he's been for the last few decades? I don't know. I'm watching.[33:02] JONATHAN: And then sort of just transitioning from there to what you see as faith in the United States. I think you have a new book coming out, Zero Hour America: History's Ultimatum Over Freedom and the Answer We Must Give. Let's bridge that gap between trajectory in the UK and now in the United States. What similarities and differences are you seeing?[33:26] Os Guinness: Well, in Europe the great rival to the Christian faith was in the 18th century, the Enlightenment. And it's almost completely swept the intelligentsia of Europe. Until recently, America was not fully going that way, and in the last decade or so it has. The rise of the religious nones, etc. etc. So in most areas that are intellectual, America too has abandoned the faith that made it. Of course, part of the American tragedy is the intelligentsia have not only abandoned the faith that made America; they've abandoned the Revolution that made America. So you have a double crisis here.Now, I am, like you, a follower of Jesus. I'm absolutely undaunted. The Christian faith, if it's true, would be true if no one believed it. So the lies of the nones or whatever just means a lot of people didn't realize in one sense that they're just spineless. If it's true, it's not a matter of popularity or polls. I like the old saying, “Damn the polls and think for yourself.” And Americans are far too other-directed. The polls are often badly formulated in terms of their questions. The question is, is the faith true and what are the answers it gives us to lead our lives well? And I have no question it's not only good news, it is the best news ever in terms of where humanity is today. So this is an extraordinary moment to be a follower of Jesus. We have the guardianship and the championship of the greatest news ever.[35:14] JONATHAN: Amen. Well, and let's make one final link there, which is we talked a lot about Western countries, the UK, the US, but you were born and spent quite a lot of time in China. Let's think about not necessarily specifically China, but non-Western countries. You travel quite frequently. What are you seeing in those non-Western countries that perhaps is giving you hope or positivity?[35:47] Os Guinness: God promised to Abraham in him all the families of the Earth will be blessed. DNA is in the heart of the Scriptures, and of course our Lord's Great Commission. But as we look around the world today, thank God Christian faith is the most populace faith on the Earth. So the one place it's not doing well is the highly modernized West. It is flourishing in sub-Sahara Africa. Or in Asia, where I happen to be born, in China—nothing to do with me—was the most rapid growth, exponential growth, of the church in 2,000 years. So I have no fear for the faith at all. And of course we believe it's true.But the question, Will the West return to the faith that made it? I hope that our sisters and brothers in the global south will help us come back just as we took the faith to them. And I know many African brothers and sisters and many Korean brothers and sisters, Chinese too, that's their passion. And we must welcome it. I know so many Koreans, what incredible people of prayer. Up at 5:00, thousands of them praying together. When I was a boy in England, prayer meetings were strong in churches. They're not strong in most American churches today. We've become highly secularized, so we've got a huge amount to learn from the Scriptures, of course, above all, but from our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world reminding us of what we used to believe and we've lost.[37:33] JONATHAN: What a great reminder. Well, Os Guinness, I know you've got a busy schedule and we're so grateful that you've taken the time to be on Candid Conversations. We've talked about quite a lot. We're going to put a link to your website in our show notes, and all fantastic books that you've put out and new ones coming out, and we look forward to hopefully having you on again in the future.[38:00] Os Guinness: Well, thank you. Real privilege to be on with you.[38:02] JONATHAN: God bless you. Thank you.
“The Constitution is neither a left-wing or right-wing document. It is ultimately about how to hold a society together.” American political life today is fractured and splintered, but many still yearn for unity. How can we find social cohesion amid sharply felt differences? Political scientist Yuval Levin wants to bring us back to our founding document: the American Constitution. After all, the Preamble identifies as its primary purposes to “form a more perfect union” and “establish justice.” Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Currie Chair in Public Policy. His latest book is American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. He's founder of National Affairs, senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor of National Review, and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. Levin joins Mark Labberton to discuss the US Constitution's purpose in fostering social cohesion and unity; the malfunction of Congress to build coalitions across disagreement; the values of social order and social justice; the fragility of democracy; the difference between a contract and a covenant; and the American aspiration to live up to the covenantal relationship and mutual belonging implied in “We the people.” About Yuval Levin Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. At AEI, Levin and scholars in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies research division study the foundations of self-government and the future of law, regulation, and constitutionalism. They also explore the state of American social, political, and civic life, focusing on the preconditions necessary for family, community, and country to flourish. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President's Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels. In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again (Basic Books, 2024). He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Show Notes Get your copy of Yuval Levin's American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again Yuval Levin's background as a Jewish American and his childhood immigration to the United States from Israel. Yuval has “the kind of vision that sometimes immigrants have, which combines a really deep gratitude for this country with a sense of what's unique about it, and what's wonderfully strange about it.” Yuval's religious practice at a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Washington, DC. How Torah has shaped Yuval Levin's life and thought. Torah is Hebrew for “law.” Annual cycle of reading and immersing oneself in a text. “The American Constitution is not divine. It's the work of a patchwork of compromises, it has a lot of problems, by no means do I think that it's analogous to the Hebrew Bible.” Why write a book about the American Constitution? How to understand the constitution as a framework for social cohesion and unity. “Even in the private lives of a lot of Americans, I think the sense of isolation, of alienation, breakdown of social cohesion is very powerful in the lives of a lot of people.” Constitution is intended to unify, but it's been used to divide. James Madison as a primary figure in Yuval's new book. “Americans tend to approach politics by thinking of other Americans as the problem to be solved.” “In any free society, there are always going to be divisions.” James Madison in Federalist 10: “He just says, simply: As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he's at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. The fact that we disagree is not a failure. It is a reality. And yet, that doesn't mean that we can't be unified.” Unity doesn't mean thinking alike, it means acting together. “The Constitution compels us into building coalitions with precisely the people we disagree with.” Yuval Levin explains the premises behind his book The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left Social order versus social justice “There are, as a general matter, more or less two ways of thinking about the purpose of a free society like ours. There is a way of seeing it as intended to address the challenge of chaos and disorder, and there is a way of seeing it as intended to address the challenge of inequality and injustice.” “… the premise of human fallenness, which says that we begin unready for freedom. And we need to be formed and shaped to be capable of freedom.” “I think it's worth our seeing the Constitution is neither a left-wing or right-wing document. It is ultimately about how to hold a society together, which has these two sides to it. And so it has a lot to offer us.” Social order as “patient to a fault” and “prejudicial toward white or elite culture.” Ideological extremism. “The most dangerous kinds of abuses of the weak happen at the hands of majorities. And therefore, democracy itself has to be constrained by principles of justice that are kept beyond the reach of majorities.” The question of “simple majority rule.” Populism. Two minority parties, rather than a majority party. Coalition building is just not being allowed to play out. Shared action versus shared ideas. Congress is about acting together when you don't think alike. “Clearly there is something broken about Congress… Everybody agrees the institution is dysfunctional. I don't think everybody agrees about what function it isn't performing.” “Their job is actually to negotiate with the other party.” “I think that's fed a kind of attitude among a lot of prominent politicians in America that says, fighting for my constituents means yelling at the other party, and refusing to give ground, refusing to give an inch. That's actually not what fighting looks like in our kind of democracy. That's what losing looks like. Fighting looks like effectively bargaining and negotiating so as to achieve something of what your voters want or need. Partisanship, reactionary politics, and cynicism “I've come to think that cynicism about politics is actually very naive.” “The people you're dealing with are not cynical Machiavellians. They really believe they're doing good here, and there actually is room to have an argument.” How does justice operate in the political approach Yuval Levin advocates? The first two purposes of the Constitution: form a more perfect union, and establish justice. Who gets to decide what is just? Human equality and dignity as the premises for justice Why wasn't slavery abolished in the Constitution itself? Native Americans and the abuse of human dignity Analogy: relating to our political or religious tradition as analogous to the child–parent relationship Seeking a mature relationship with our traditions Yuval Levin on the fragility of democracy: “Our democracy is often at risk.” Contract (an agreement that can be broken) vs. Covenant (a relationship of belonging) “'We the people of the United States.' That “we” is an aspiration.” Yuval Levin's perspective on the American Church, and how it contributes to the current social crisis American evangelicals coming to identify as an “embattled minority” or a “moral minority” Judging the success of a religious community by their influence as a political block “The particularly Madisonian logic of the Constitution is that everyone is a minority. … And that is not a position of weakness, necessarily, in this society. This is a society that is unusually solicitous of minorities. And when it's at its best, it is especially solicitous of minorities.” Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
In today's political landscape, it's crucial that our decisions align with biblical values.The topic of the importance of voting, particularly from a Christian perspective, is an engaging and vital discourse. It puts into perspective the moral obligations of believers in their role as active participants in the socio-political landscape. Rylee Meek, a firm proponent of this view, sees voting not only as a duty but also as a moral obligation for believers. He emphasizes the need for voting choices to reflect biblical values and principles, underlining the impact of these decisions on future generations. His views are shaped by his belief in the significance of character and integrity in candidates. Similarly, Christian Edwards asserts that voting is a moral obligation incumbent upon Christians. He talks about the consequences of abstaining from voting, equating it to a tacit consent to possibly immoral policies. Edwards urges Christians to utilize their voting power to stand up against policies or candidates incongruent with biblical principles, emphasizing that silence on such matters could be considered a sin of omission.Silence through non-voting is seen as consent, but participating in elections and voting based on biblical convictions allows individuals to shape a future aligned with their values. TakeawaysVoting is a moral responsibility based on biblical principles.The American Constitution was influenced by biblical principles, emphasizing limited government power.Absolute disobedience to tyranny is obedience to God, as seen in biblical stories.The importance of aligning political decisions with biblical values is emphasized.Racial equality is explored through discussions on critical race theory, biblical values, and the role of political parties.Equal Opportunity in Hiring is crucial for selecting the best candidates based on qualifications rather than minority status.Active participation in influencing national, regional, and local outcomes by joining efforts and taking action is a moral obligation for believers.Quotes"You may not want to be in politics, but politics wants to be in you. And that's kind of sounds weird. But that is true." - Rylee Meek"And with God being in control, and this is something that I thought early on in my walk with the Lord, I never wanted to get into politics, and it was like, God's in control. But the more you think about it, how does God accomplish things? Oftentimes on earth, through his people." - Christian Edwards"Disobedience to tyranny is obedience to God." - Rylee Meek"It's impressive that a six eight woman could dunk because they're not as athletic." - Christian Edwards"If your conviction is anything other than what the word of God says, than ain't that it? That's not." - Rylee MeekJoin the King's Council Community: https://joinkingscouncil.com/Follow King's Council: https://www.instagram.com/kingscouncilcommunity/Follow Rylee: https://www.instagram.com/theryleemeek/Follow Christian: https://www.instagram.com/christian_edwards01/Subscribe to YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@KingsCouncilCoachingWednesday morning Bible Study link:
A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning, in conversation with NCC President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen, author of the new book The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America. Listen to their discussion on what it means to live constitutionally today. Resources: A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning (2024) "Colonial America" fashion, Brittanica Jonathan Gienapp, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (2018) Jud Campbell, “What Did the First Amendment Originally Mean?,” University of Richmond (2018) Texas v. Johnson (1989) NCC's We the People podcast, "The Modern History of Originalism," (August 2023) NCC's We the People podcast, "What the Supreme Court's Opinion in NYSRPA v. Bruen Means for the Second Amendment," (August 2022) "How a college term paper led to a constitutional amendment," Constitution Daily blog, (May 7, 2024) NCC's Constitution Drafting Project Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: A Life, (2004) Stay Connected and Learn More Questions or comments about the show? Email us at programs@constitutioncenter.org Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate. Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen. Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube. Support our important work. Donate
In this special episode, Dinesh discusses the compatibility of Islam and the West by tracing the rise and development of Islam and its modern political expression in nations around the world, including the United States. Author and radio host Alex McFarland joins Dinesh to make his case that Islam is a threat to the principles of the American Constitution. This will be a feisty podcast so come prepared to think and be challenged.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay's essays written in 1787/8 in support of the new US Constitution. They published these anonymously in New York as 'Publius' but, when it became known that Hamilton and Madison were the main authors, the essays took on a new significance for all states. As those two men played a major part in drafting the Constitution itself, their essays have since informed debate over what the authors of that Constitution truly intended. To some, the essays have proved to be America's greatest contribution to political thought. With Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and Interim Saunders Director of the International Centre for Jefferson Studies at Monticello Kathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London And Nicholas Guyatt Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders (Knopf, 2003) Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Harvard University Press, 2015) Noah Feldman, The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President (Random House, 2017) Jonathan Gienapp, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, 2018) Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (eds. George W. Carey and James McClellan), The Federalist: The Gideon Edition (Liberty Fund, 2001) Alison L. LaCroix, The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (Harvard University Press, 2010) James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (Penguin, 1987) Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (Simon and Schuster, 2010) Michael I. Meyerson, Liberty's Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World (Basic Books, 2008) Jack Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996) Jack N. Rakove and Colleen A. Sheehan, The Cambridge Companion to The Federalist (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
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