Latest / Live to Shoot - Defending our 2nd Amendment Rights / 1776 Report - A Constitution of Principles
Transcript
- 0:31Welcome to the lunch shift podcast.
- 0:32My name is Jeff This is the third episode of our bonus episodes that we are doing on the 17th 76 report.
- 0:40If you haven't listened to the introduction, I encourage you to go back and listen to that.
- 0:44As it'll explain a little bit about why we're doing this.
- 0:47This episode is called a constitution of principles.
- 0:52Is one thing to discern and assert true principles of political legitimacy, injustice.
- 0:58It is quite another to establish those principles among an actual people and actual government here on earth as Winston Churchill, put it in a Nazi dis not dissimilar context.
- 1:08Even the best have been struggling in the most, just a causes, cannot guarantee victory that can only deserve it.
- 1:15The founders of the United States, perhaps miraculously.
- 1:19Achieve what they set out to achieve.
- 1:22They defeated the world's strongest military and financial power and won their independence.
- 1:26They then face the task for me, a country that would honor and implement the principles upon which they had declared their independence.
- 1:33The bedrock upon which the country, the American political system is built is a rule of law.
- 1:38The vast difference between tyranny and the rule of law is a central theme of political thinkers back to classical antiquity.
- 1:46The idea that the loss appeared.
- 1:48Two rulers is the cornerstone of English constitutional thought.
- 1:51As it's developed over the centuries.
- 1:54The concept was transferred to the American colonies.
- 1:56It can be seen express throughout colonial pamphlets and political writing as Thomas Paine reflected in commonsense.
- 2:03Quote for as an absolute governments, that King is law.
- 2:07So when free countries, the law to be King and there ought to be no.
- 2:12Other.
- 2:13But less any ill use should afterwards arise, but the crown or the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished and scattered among the people who, whose right.
- 2:23It is.
- 2:25To assure such a government and Americans demanded a written legal document.
- 2:29That would create both a structure and a process for securing their rice.
- 2:33And liberties and spell out the division and the limits of the powers of government.
- 2:38That legal document must be above ordinary legislation and day-to-day politics.
- 2:42That is what the founders meant by constitution.
- 2:45And why our constitution is the Supreme law of the land.
- 2:49Their first attempt at a form of government.
- 2:51The articles of Confederation and perpetual union was adopted in the midst of the revolutionary war and not ratified until 1781.
- 2:59During that time, American statesman.
- 3:01And citizens alike concluded that the articles were too weak to fulfill a governments.
- 3:05Core functions.
- 3:07This consensus produced the constitutional convention of 1787, which met in Philadelphia that summer to write the document which we have today.
- 3:15It's a Testament to those framers wisdom and skill that the constitution that they produce remains the longest continually operating Horton constitution and all human history.
- 3:25The meaning of purpose of the constitution of 17.
- 3:28A sound however, cannot be understood without recourse to the principles of the declaration of independence.
- 3:33Human equality, the requirements for government by consent.
- 3:37And the scaring of natural rights.
- 3:38What's the constitution is intended to embody, protect and nature.
- 3:42Nurture.
- 3:43Lincoln famously described the principles of the declaration.
- 3:47And he was borrowing from Proverbs 25, 11 as a quote, Apple of gold unquote, and the constitution as a frame of silver unquote, meant to quote.
- 3:57Adorn and preserve uncle at the Apple.
- 3:59The ladder was made for the former, not the reverse.
- 4:03The form of the new government that the constitution delineates is informed in part by the charges of the decoration levels at the British crown.
- 4:10For instance, the call, the colonial colonists charged the British King with failing to provide, or even an interfering with representative government.
- 4:20Hence the constitution provides for a representative last legislature.
- 4:24It also charges the King with concentrating executive.
- 4:27Legislative and judicial power into the same hands, which James Madison pronounced.
- 4:32Quote, the very definition of tyranny, unquote.
- 4:35Instead the founders organize their new government into three co-equal branches.
- 4:40And checking and balancing power of each against the.
- 4:43The others to reduce the risk of, of these, of power.
- 4:47The intent of the framers of the constitution was constructed government.
- 4:51I would be sufficiently strong to perform those essential tasks that only a government can perform.
- 4:57Such as establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense.
- 5:03And promoting the general welfare, the main task name and the documents preamble.
- 5:07But not so strong as to jeopardize the people's liberties.
- 5:10In other words, the new government needed to be strong enough to have the power to secure.
- 5:15Right.
- 5:15Without having the power as to enable or encourage it to infringe rights more.
- 5:20Typically the framers intended the new constitution to keep the 13 States United to print the breakup, the union, and to tour more.
- 5:29Smaller countries.
- 5:30While maintaining sufficient latitude and Liberty for the individual States.
- 5:34The advantages of the, of you.
- 5:37And being in our detail in the first 14 pages.
- 5:39Of the Federalist papers.
- 5:41A series of essays written.
- 5:42Two herbs, constitution, adoption, and bull down to preventing and deterring foreign adventurism in North America.
- 5:49Avoiding conflicts between threats, achieving economies of scale and best utilizing the diverse resources of the content.
- 5:56While the constitution is fundamentally a compact among the American people.
- 6:00It was ratified special by special conventions in the States.
- 6:04The people's other States admire and cherish or state governments.
- 6:08All of which should adopt a Republican constitution before federal constitutional was completed.
- 6:13Hence the framers of the new national government had to respect the States.
- 6:17Prior existence and jealous guarding of their own prerogatives.
- 6:22They also believe that the role of the federal government should be limited to performing those tasks that only a national government can do.
- 6:28Such as providing for the nation's security or regulating commerce between States and that most tasks were properly.
- 6:35The responsibility of the States and they believe the strong States as competing power centers would act as counterweight to can say potentially overweening central government.
- 6:44In the same way that ACEP the separation of power.
- 6:47Checks and balances.
- 6:49The branches of the federal government.
- 6:52For the founders, the principal, but just government requires the consent of the govern in terms requires republicanism because of the cheap.
- 6:59Because the chief way that consent is granted to a government on ongoing basis is through the peoples.
- 7:05Participation in the political process.
- 7:07This is the reason the constitution guarantees to every state in the union, a Republican form of government.
- 7:14Under the United States constitution, the people are sovereign, but the people do not directly exercise.
- 7:19Sovereignty for instance, by voting directly in popular assemblies.
- 7:23Rather they do so indirectly the representative institutions, this is on the post basic level.
- 7:29A practical requirement and Republic with a large population and extent of territory.
- 7:35But it is also indeed to be remedy to the defect's common, to all republics up to the time.
- 7:41The framers of the constitution faced a two-fold challenge.
- 7:45They had to assure those alarmed by the historical record.
- 7:48That the new government was not to Republican in simply copying the old failed forms.
- 7:53I'll also reassuring those concerned about overwhelming.
- 7:57Central life power that the camera into the new constitution was Republican enough to secure equal natural rights.
- 8:03And prevent them.
- 8:04Re-emergence of tyranny.
- 8:06The main causes of prior Republican failures were class conflict and tyranny.
- 8:10Of the majority in the simplest terms, the largest single faction in any Republic would tend to band together and unwind unwisely, wield their numerical strength against unpopular minorities.
- 8:23Leading to conflict and eventual collapse.
- 8:25The founders primary remedy was union itself.
- 8:28Against the old idea.
- 8:31That Republicans had to be small.
- 8:33The founders countered that the very smallest of prior republics, all but guaranteed their failure.
- 8:39In small republics, the majority can more easily organize itself into a dominant faction.
- 8:45In larger public address become too numerous for any single faction to dominate.
- 8:49The inherent or potential parts of that partisan on wisdom of a dominant faction also would be tempered by representative government rather than the people acting as body, that people would have stats like office holders to represent autumn.
- 9:03This would in necessary Federalist 10.
- 9:06I'll refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium.
- 9:12Have a chosen body of citizens whose wisdom.
- 9:15May be best discern the true interest of their country and his patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or potential considerations.
- 9:25Unquote.
- 9:26And the separation of powers would work in concert with the principles of representation by incentivizing individual office holders, to identify their personal interests with the powers and the progress of their offices.
- 9:38And thus keep them alert to the danger of encroachment from the other branches and offices.
- 9:42The founders asserted that these innovation centers and others combined to create a republicanism that was at once old, as well as new, true to the eternal principles.
- 9:52Timeless ends of good government.
- 9:54But awake to the corrective.
- 9:56Of the deficiencies in prior examples of popular rule.
- 9:59One important feature of our written constitution is the careful way that it limits the powers that each branch of government.
- 10:05That it States at these, those branches may do.
- 10:08And by implication, what they may not do, this is the real meaning of limited government.
- 10:13Not that the government size or funding levels remain small, but the government's power and activities and must remain limited to certain carefully defined areas of responsibility as guarded.
- 10:24Bye bye.
- 10:25Bye.
- 10:25Camera realism, federalism and the separation of powers.
- 10:29The constitution was intended to endure, but because the founders well knew that no document written by human I would ever be perfect or anticipate every feature contingency they provided for a process to amend the document, but only by popular decision making and not by ordinary legislation.
- 10:46Or do you just do digital decree?
- 10:48The first 10 amendments, which would come to be known as the bill of rights.
- 10:52Were included as the demand of those, especially concerned about the vesting, the federal government with too much power and who wanted an enumeration of specific rights that the new government lawfully could not transgress.
- 11:04But all agreed that substitute rights are not granted by government.
- 11:08Any just government exist only to secure these rights.
- 11:11And they specifically noted in the ninth amendment.
- 11:13The bill of rights was a selective and not exclusive list.
- 11:17That is the mere fact that they right.
- 11:19Is not mentioned in the bill of rights is neither proof.
- 11:22Or evidence that it does not exist.
- 11:24It is important to note that the founders understood.
- 11:27Understanding of three of these rights that are decisive for Republican government in the success of the founders project.
- 11:35Our first freedom, religious Liberty is foremost more, a moral requirement of the natural freedom of human mind.
- 11:42As discussed in appendix two, it is also the indispensable solution to the political religious.
- 11:48Problems that emerge in the world.
- 11:50Modern world.
- 11:51Faith is both a matter of private conscious and public import, which is why the founders encourage religious freedom.
- 11:58Free exercise, but bars, the government from it.
- 12:02Establishing any one natural religion.
- 12:07The point is not merely to protect the state from religion, but also to protect the religion from the state.
- 12:13So that the religious institutions would flourish and pursue their divine mission among men like re religious Liberty, freedom of speech, and the press is required by the freedom of the human line.
- 12:24More plainly it is required for any government in which they, which the people choose the direction of government policy to choose requires public deliberation and debate people that cannot publicly express his opinions.
- 12:37Exchange ideas or open, openly argue about the course of its government is not free.
- 12:43Finally, the right to keep and bear arms is required by the fundamental natural rights of life.
- 12:48But no, man, may justly be denying the means of his own defense.
- 12:52The political significance of this right is hardly less important.
- 12:56An armed people is a people capable of defending their Liberty no less than their lives and his laugh, desperate check against the worst Tierney.
- 13:06As a conclusion of section three in the next section, we will be talking about challenges to America's principles.