The Auron MacIntyre Show - John C. Calhoun's Disquisition on Government ｜ Guest： Ryan Turnipseed

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00:00:13.800 hey everybody how's it going thanks for joining me this afternoon i've got a great stream with a

00:00:19.780 great guest that i think you're really going to enjoy john c calhoun has an amazing history he is

00:00:26.700 somebody who served as a vice president for multiple presidents he served as secretary of war

00:00:32.720 back when that was what it was called he served as secretary of state he was a senator he was a

00:00:37.500 congressman this is a guy who was a true american statesman and on top of all of this he also wrote

00:00:44.120 a very important relatively short and easy to read tract on politics political theory what makes up

00:00:52.420 the american system in his eyes unfortunately this proud son of south carolina is often passed over

00:00:59.220 in the history books which is very confusing given his level of achievement i think a lot of it has

00:01:05.480 to do with also his possible support of a peculiar institution that is often considered the deepest

00:01:12.280 sin in the united states but i think if we disqualified everybody who in some way participated or defended

00:01:18.600 that institution we would lose a large and important part of our history so joining me today to discuss

00:01:26.220 john c calhoun and his disquisition on government is ryan turnip seed thanks for joining me man thank you

00:01:32.920 very much for having me back it's always a pleasure absolutely america's finest young historian i can do the

00:01:38.820 tucker thing and just be like an eminent historian but perhaps the greatest historian who has ever graced

00:01:44.460 anyone under the age of 30 uh so ryan and i are going to be delving into the background behind calhoun

00:01:50.160 why he's such an important figure why he gets ignored and what he actually said about government

00:01:55.480 theory about political theory in this tract but before we do guys let's hear from today's sponsor

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00:03:10.340 dot com slash oran bank on yourself dot com slash oran all right guys so like i said we'll just lay out

00:03:19.540 the basics first of john c calhoun like i said very accomplished in many different areas this is a guy

00:03:27.040 who started out as a uh representative in uh congress for south carolina his home uh he then

00:03:34.720 became the vice president for both john quincy adams and then andrew jackson making him i believe the only

00:03:42.140 man to serve as two consecutive vice presidents for two consecutive administrations uh he came to a head

00:03:49.340 with uh jackson over the issue of uh uh annulment or sorry what uh escaping me um it was a nullification

00:03:58.740 was the nullification thank you yes he yeah they came to a a large amount of conflict with his own

00:04:05.040 president over the issue of nullification which i'm sure we will be getting into as we discuss his idea

00:04:10.760 of the concurrent majority uh when he left he resigned the vice presidency went back and became a senator

00:04:17.400 for his state and again he also remember served as a secretary of war and a secretary of uh state so

00:04:25.480 this is again a very accomplished guy who also happened to be well read when it and an understanding

00:04:32.480 of political theory now ryan you said you wanted to lay out at the beginning of this tract you know his

00:04:38.600 understanding of how governments come about because it's also very much tied to his background to the

00:04:45.180 people that settled in his area of the country so could you add a little bit about his background

00:04:51.220 uh from his lineage and how that might affect his theory of governance yes so um this is a i'm going

00:04:59.240 to be relying on the uh albion seed thesis this idea that uh the people that settled the english colonies

00:05:05.320 depending on where they came from in england uh had differing ideas cultures and societies um john c calhoun

00:05:13.340 was born in the interior of south carolina in the abbeville district far from the coast

00:05:17.540 he was born to a presbyterian family so fiercely independent came from a or was uh settled in a

00:05:24.660 region that was populated by borderers and scots-irish very independent clannish people in the sense that

00:05:31.460 they had a sort of honor culture uh they they operated by an extended family unit it was a very fierce

00:05:38.840 honor-driven culture very independent very low church sort of fiery um however they weren't

00:05:45.740 backwards uh a lot of uh a lot of our great statesmen from this period of time which calhoun

00:05:51.380 was operating in so uh the early uh 19th century early to mid uh came from this sort of culture

00:05:58.160 uh as i've hopefully emphasized enough here it was honor-based so they had a very sort of dismal view

00:06:06.000 of politics politics was a very personal thing uh it was also somewhat violent uh so if someone

00:06:13.000 slighted another person uh there was a there was a debt to be repaid justice had to be administered

00:06:18.060 and it wasn't necessarily by the government it was by the family uh that was that was slighted

00:06:23.000 um so in calhoun's disquisition uh when he's trying to derive what is the government where does it come

00:06:28.900 from he says that people have personal uh i forget the specific phrasing they basically have personal

00:06:33.980 wants and desires uh which sort of override any social want and desire this causes people to come

00:06:40.540 into great conflict so you can sort of see from his background why that might be uh bleeding into his

00:06:45.500 ideas about government uh and therefore calhoun says the government exists in a society uh to prevent

00:06:52.700 these personal wants and desires from causing such conflict with other people uh such that we can have

00:06:58.940 a society develop uh and live in some sort of harmony so that was a i figured that would be a

00:07:04.640 good point to make uh regarding his background calhoun's ideas weren't uh idiosyncratic in the slightest they

00:07:10.720 very much represent uh specific people in a specific part of this country that came over from a specific

00:07:16.380 place uh in great britain yeah and that's really important because again and if you have the opportunity

00:07:23.060 ryan your mic seems to have gotten a little quieter so if you have any way to increase the gain a little

00:07:27.460 bit that'd be helpful but it's very important because people often look at kind of our current

00:07:33.240 narrative about the founders and they act as if these are the only understandings of how government

00:07:39.900 could be formed or the different values involved we have a very uh edited narrative a unified narrative

00:07:47.940 of a process that was not exactly unified among the different peoples and areas inside the united states

00:07:54.240 for instance calhoun openly rejects the idea of a state of nature like a lockian or hobbesian

00:08:00.700 state of nature as you say he does see government as solving these conflicting problems but he understands

00:08:07.880 people as being born in a particular tradition with particular social uh uh structures and uh

00:08:14.900 understandings folkways all these things already baked in already giving them preferences already giving

00:08:20.940 them a a interest that needs to be voiced and checked in the wider body politic and so he rejects this

00:08:27.780 idea that people just kind of pop into existence without any kind of bonds or structures or pre-existing

00:08:34.000 loyalties and understandings instead he recognizes that society begins in as you point out for him in kind

00:08:40.740 of these clannish understandings and we need to mitigate the different uh disagreements the different

00:08:46.920 conflicts between these interest groups while maintaining the voice and the interest of these

00:08:51.860 interest groups and that's really critical for calhoun because getting into his understanding of written

00:08:57.900 constitutions i want to be clear calhoun ultimately does believe in the written constitution he is not

00:09:03.240 someone who says uh you should only have unwritten constitutions or written constitutions are the

00:09:08.100 problem however he starts out pointing to the weaknesses or the limitations of a written

00:09:14.620 constitution and one of the things he points out is basically something that you and i have been

00:09:19.300 beating in people's heads on a regular basis constitutions don't enforce themselves they're they're just

00:09:24.860 written reflections of what the people believe and so the words on the paper never stop anyone the thing

00:09:32.240 that stops government the thing that stops government overreach that limits and to be clear calhoun

00:09:37.560 is concerned very much about overreach of government the thing that limits the overreach of government for calhoun

00:09:43.900 are these structures are these social structures that we are born into these interest groups that we

00:09:49.020 represent the constitution can reflect our desire to include those instagram in uh those interest groups

00:09:56.620 in the conversation to give them the power to check government but ultimately if those interest groups do

00:10:02.400 not exist if we do not have those identities those uh those social identities those regional identities

00:10:08.660 those priorities that defend us against the wider government then the written word of the constitution itself

00:10:15.000 won't stop anything and so even though someone like he and joseph de maestra probably

00:10:19.860 you know significantly differ on the role of written constitutions and you know democracies versus monarchies

00:10:26.380 these things they would agree along with guys like uh bertrade juvenile on the idea that it is the social

00:10:32.680 sphere it is the different competing uh interests inside the society that actually restrict government

00:10:39.220 and that the constitution itself is only a reflection of the necessity of consulting these different groups

00:10:45.560 it won't itself ever stop the overreach of government if that moment comes

00:10:49.660 right exactly and uh towards our side i think something that gets overlooked is that uh the fact that the

00:10:57.320 constitution doesn't enforce itself it requires actual action uh that doesn't necessarily invalidate

00:11:03.140 the constitution you can solve good and bad constitutions which uh is well if we didn't believe

00:11:09.060 that that's uh we wouldn't be talking about calhoun right now because a good chunk of this book is him

00:11:13.460 talking about what makes a good or a bad constitution so this is a um something that uh a little bit of

00:11:20.180 inside baseball but something i think that our side kind of loses in the memes and the uh uh sort of

00:11:25.980 small ideas that get passed around online um is that uh constitutions require action to enforce

00:11:31.780 uh but you can still definitely have better or worse constitutions better or forms worse uh better or

00:11:37.680 worse forms of government so that was a uh something that i've been seeing a little bit that i've uh

00:11:42.700 think maybe there's a little bit of excess there but yeah hopefully hopefully this uh disquisition can

00:11:48.200 provide a little bit of a temperament to both both sides yeah and that is really important i i appreciate

00:11:55.000 you bringing that up because look obviously for a very long time the right and especially kind of

00:12:02.420 mainstream conservatives have believed that the document itself is holy and has like a magical power

00:12:08.300 to restrain government just because the words were written down on the paper somehow and so a lot of

00:12:12.940 our effort has been to explain to people no power is real and documents themselves don't stop power

00:12:19.880 and so you need to grasp that power is something that's acting behind these documents and it's not

00:12:25.000 just about following the document to the letter of the law itself however there is an overcorrection

00:12:30.560 there and this is something i have also pushed back against which says naked power is all that matters

00:12:36.020 and that's all that's operating and and the and the documents are all fake it's all it's all just a

00:12:42.160 scream and this is why i'm always going back to gaetano mosca and the political formula because the

00:12:47.060 political formula is a recognition that power is real and also fills in and informs to the shared

00:12:56.140 beliefs and institutions of the society these are both true simultaneously and so it's important to

00:13:02.260 strike the balance between saying the constitution is a holy document with the power to enforce itself

00:13:07.340 and you don't need to do anything because ultimately the founders wrote down how the government works and

00:13:11.520 that's how the government works gosh darn it and you don't need to worry about anything else or

00:13:15.520 it's all power it's all some great man grabbing power that's all that matters you can do whatever

00:13:21.000 you want once you have the power these things are are both wrong in the middle sits the truth that

00:13:27.400 power has to act uh and will act and will seek to expand itself but it will always do so within some

00:13:35.140 shared understanding of how it should be distributed and if you if you don't address both ends of this

00:13:42.980 problem you will miss out on something critical so i am absolutely glad that you pointed that out now

00:13:48.940 the way that calhoun tries to break down as we kind of alluded to previously the way he tries to break

00:13:55.520 down the differences between good and bad constitutions is those of the numerical majority

00:14:01.820 and those of the concurrent majority now to be clear calhoun is ultimately a believer in constitutionally

00:14:08.900 restricted republican-esque governments right this is something that he believes in he's not somebody

00:14:14.820 who's a you know a constitution not enjoyer right he doesn't discard it however he says the difference

00:14:21.860 between a numerical and a concurrent majority is the the numerical majority is just rule by the mob

00:14:28.860 rule by the masses right there's uh and we'll get into all the different problems that he has with this

00:14:34.940 but why don't you lay out the difference between the rule of the masses and what he calls a concurrent

00:14:40.740 majority right so it's a the rule of the masses should be simple that's baked into american political

00:14:48.300 thought most people get taught that in a halfway decent uh class but basically it's this uh idea that

00:14:54.460 uh just a strict numerical majority rules on things uh calhoun uh is very fond of describing the country

00:15:02.460 in terms of sections and consolidation uh so what calhoun is most concerned with in this book

00:15:08.380 is that certain sections have a numerical majority over others they can impose their will on the country

00:15:13.340 consolidate it we'll get to that later the consolidation part uh but ultimately it destroys the uh

00:15:18.780 the polity uh it results in one side being marginalized and abused uh taxed the other side consuming the

00:15:26.460 other uh one side consuming the other side basically um and this is sort of like the natural progression

00:15:32.380 of a government uh at least in a democracy uh calhoun uh seems to be very familiar with aristotelian

00:15:39.820 arguments this man from the back country uh is a very uh very learned thinker uh at least he's picked

00:15:47.580 that up somewhere uh whereas you have the concurrent majority and what the concurrent majority is is

00:15:52.940 basically that all sides should be able to have their opinion heard and acted upon and if one side uh

00:15:59.020 uh feels that they are being tyrannized basically uh they do not concur and therefore the majority does

00:16:05.020 not exist uh this is a that's a little bit of a basic way of putting it obviously if you want the

00:16:09.820 full argument you can read the book yourself uh but this is why calhoun was such a strong proponent of

00:16:14.300 things like nullification uh selective enforcement of laws depending on what the people on the on the

00:16:21.020 state level wanted is because that's a way for different sections basically to say they don't want to go

00:16:26.780 along with this and that forces the rest of the country to acknowledge the other sides regardless

00:16:31.980 of their numerical superiority uh so that all interests are taken into account um all sides are

00:16:38.620 not being tyrannized they're sort of like it's almost a unanimity principle uh but in the other

00:16:43.500 direction it's basically uh you get to say no instead of you assent yes it's a uh but sort of in the

00:16:51.100 collection of states way uh we'll get more into the federal national stuff later but that's a

00:16:56.300 my basic understanding and that really puts him more in the tradition of an articles of the

00:17:01.740 confederation than it does the current constitution right the idea that most if not all of the states

00:17:09.340 needed to agree uh simultaneously for the government to really do anything was something that was often

00:17:14.540 listed as a weakness of the articles of confederation if you've ever taught a civics class like i have in

00:17:20.300 history if if you if if they bother to talk about the articles of confederation at all this is one

00:17:26.460 of the weaknesses that they will list but of course that weakness is exactly what calhoun is looking for

00:17:30.540 because he doesn't want the government to be able to run rough shot over the different states he truly

00:17:35.820 comes from this much more classical understanding that was much more prevalent early on that it was

00:17:42.220 these united states it was a set of states each with their own high level of sovereignty ascending to be

00:17:48.860 part of a collective republic but ultimately retaining a large amount of control in their

00:17:53.900 areas and this concurrent majority meant that there really had to be a a wide agreement on a particular

00:18:01.580 issue to force all of the states simultaneously to invest in it and for calhoun this is very important

00:18:07.260 because the differences between the north and the south are very obvious from the beginning in many

00:18:13.020 ways uh we can we can even talk about today's conflicts within the country as an echo of this

00:18:20.060 constant conflict between the interests of the south and the interests of the north and the way that they

00:18:25.020 wanted to live their lives very early on the south was very interested in this more agrarian uh this this

00:18:32.220 more yeoman understanding you know the yeoman farmer he's the one who's really operating as the true

00:18:37.900 american he's self-sustaining he can defend himself as part of the militia he can raise his own food on

00:18:43.100 his own farm he's the master of his own destiny as where the north really understood itself as a player

00:18:49.500 in a global uh impossible global empire a situation where a large amount of manufacturing and trading

00:18:56.540 meant that you were going to need to be part of a much more complicated system the idea that you would

00:19:01.980 be operating on your own and providing everything on your own was not as important to the north as it

00:19:07.820 was the south and this reflected itself very often in taxes right tariffs were considered something that

00:19:13.820 protected northern manufacturing and businesses uh while in the south the need to trade away your

00:19:20.140 agricultural production meant that you wanted freer trade allowed for a more advantageous uh situation for

00:19:26.460 you and so the issue of tariffs which were don't forget you know before the income tax the main

00:19:31.580 way that we funded the united states government was considered to be a policy that fell disproportionately

00:19:37.260 on the south because the north benefited so heavily from them and this is where the nullification came

00:19:43.100 in right this is this is where the big knockdown drag out where he had with his own president and

00:19:47.740 even cast a vote against his own president uh uh ended up coming up so can can you talk a little

00:19:52.940 bit about nullification and its important role in the concurrent majority idea well yes uh and before i get

00:19:59.580 there just a little bit more on tariffs this is also why if you dig deep into the primary sources

00:20:04.220 around this era um you come across what might look like an oxymoron today which is you'll have some

00:20:09.900 people talk about a free trade tariff and that's because you had two conceptions of tariffs basically

00:20:15.340 you had the conception of a tariff kind of like we do today in our current politics that tariffs are meant

00:20:19.660 to protect industries make sure that we produce and export and other people buy from us and then you have

00:20:25.420 the conception of a tariff which is just uh it's a means to collect money in the government that's uh

00:20:30.860 acceptable basically out of all the other potential taxes so free trade tariffs were considered to be

00:20:36.140 the least restrictive upon trade they only existed to bring in revenue for the government as as he said it

00:20:42.620 was the basically the sole source of revenue for a long time in any meaningful sense so that might

00:20:48.460 confuse people if anyone is so uh brave as to go read the primary sources from this time now uh i

00:20:54.940 believe it was 1828 uh was the tariff of abominations i might have the year wrong uh but this was a this

00:21:02.700 was a massive protective tariff and if i remember the story on it correctly i don't think it was actually

00:21:07.580 meant to pass it was sort of as a it was like the uh the overshot form of a tariff where they threw in

00:21:15.500 everything that they could possibly want to tariff on at as high a rate as possible with the expectation

00:21:19.980 it would be brought down in congress some people sort of supported it as like uh look at how absurd

00:21:25.100 this bill is we'll try to force them to live by it um basically it was a very unpopular bill uh even

00:21:32.220 even in the north it was not excessively popular uh and they're the ones that usually benefit from

00:21:37.500 tariffs uh being more industrialized and protectionist less agricultural uh anyways the tariff of

00:21:43.900 abominations ends up passing uh and this is seen as like major one of the first major crises in the

00:21:50.940 american republic's history first one being probably the war of 1812 that was a threat to national

00:21:56.380 sovereignty and then you have this domestic crisis which is uh this extreme and almost draconian tariff act

00:22:04.860 so one of the solutions that south carolina came up with was just that they would not enforce this

00:22:11.020 this tariff anything that came into south carolina that should have the tariff collected on it south

00:22:16.780 carolina is just not going to collect the tariff uh this is this is nullification south carolina thought

00:22:21.580 that this tariff was uh unconstitutional against natural rights all of the usual things that you have

00:22:28.620 heard in your american history class as to why america was a free and independent country after 1776

00:22:34.700 um many people in the south thought this went against that uh south carolina acted upon this and calhoun

00:22:41.180 was supportive uh eventually andrew jackson would uh force south carolina to abide by the tariff

00:22:48.460 uh it would get amended later um but nullification is uh at least in mainstream historiography

00:22:54.780 seemed to have lost this uh however something the mainstream doesn't account for is that the fact that

00:23:00.540 the executive basically had to march into a state and force it to abide by the law uh was unpopular

00:23:06.460 and it sort of brought to the national attention uh that nullification was a thing maybe it wasn't so

00:23:12.540 bad um and this is uh this is right in line with calhoun's idea of the concurrent majority so as we were

00:23:19.100 saying that the concurrent majority takes into it takes into account all sections of the country north and

00:23:24.860 south in our case uh one of the ways to make known that one of the sections is unsatisfied but the

00:23:30.940 unanimity of the sections is not being abided by is that one of the sections will just nullify whatever

00:23:36.460 it is that the other one is trying to oppose upon it um so this is a one of the more confederal elements

00:23:43.100 if you listen or if you read i should say calhoun in this book he describes himself as a federalist

00:23:48.780 but in a way that almost sounds confederable uh confederal in the modern day uh he does not

00:23:54.460 call himself a confederalist what he says is that the federal government is just the collection of

00:23:59.420 all the states uh so that makes this uh nullification doctrine make more sense if a majority of states

00:24:06.140 try to push through a law and tyrannize the others it would be a natural limit on their ability to do that

00:24:11.660 if the other states could just not enforce the law so that's that's sort of how this would work

00:24:16.540 anyone that would try to govern this uh federation of states would have to take into account all of

00:24:21.980 the sectional interests just by necessity otherwise the law wouldn't get enforced that's the idea

00:24:26.860 behind the concurrent majority it's a state a group of states idea uh and a sectional idea as well

00:24:33.740 he's a trying to be a peacemaker this was this was a book i believe it was posthumously uh released

00:24:40.860 in 1850 1851 i forget the year right in the lead up to the civil war

00:24:46.060 sectionalism was a recognized uh ill in the country people thought it was going to tear it apart

00:24:51.580 so this is calphoon trying to be the peacemaker we could all get along if we sort of reemphasize

00:24:56.780 this idea of a sort of a federation as a collection of states and if we brought back nullification

00:25:04.380 uh like this one time during the big crisis he was a part of which i'm sympathetic towards

00:25:09.100 well and one and one of the reasons that he said ultimately you need mechanisms like this as

00:25:15.420 opposed to just the idea of a numerical majority is the way is the dynamic between the tax uh consumers

00:25:23.100 and the tax uh payers right that ultimately if you have this system where you are gleaning a large

00:25:31.180 amount of tax revenue and the uh incentive is ultimately to basically find a way to free the

00:25:40.140 people who are consuming the taxes from the desires or restraints of those that are contributing you're

00:25:46.700 going to end up in this dynamic where people are constantly warring over control of the larger

00:25:51.980 government so that they can reap the most benefits uh from themselves with the least amount of liability

00:25:57.900 towards those that are actually paying the taxes and so the the one of the reasons the concurrent

00:26:02.700 majority exists is so that everyone including the people who are paying the taxes has a real voice

00:26:08.460 because those who are running the government those who are getting the government jobs those who are

00:26:12.380 in power they're going to be incentivized to silence the voices of those the interests of those that are

00:26:19.660 paying the taxes while maximizing their ability to consume them and so the the natural incentive

00:26:25.100 without these uh these different stop uh mechanisms these different uh competing interests that can uh

00:26:31.900 inside the current majority concurrent majority stand up and say no uh this is an undue burden upon

00:26:37.500 us without those mechanisms you're always going to see a maximization of uh of uh tax revenue from

00:26:44.060 the tax consumers and you're going to see a uh attacking or lessening of power of those that actually

00:26:51.100 end up paying the taxes something that i think we can see play out more and more today as we have

00:26:56.540 stripped out more and more levels right for calhoun the united states uh constitution already has some

00:27:05.420 level of the concurrent majority in it this is why he supports it right but we've gone through and stripped

00:27:11.260 out more and more aspects of it obviously the democrats want to get rid of the last few like the electoral

00:27:16.540 college and the senate uh in order to destroy any idea of the concurrent majority turn everything into

00:27:22.060 a numerical majority because they want to bring about exactly the situation that calhoun warned us

00:27:27.500 about right exactly and uh to draw it back to something that we brought up earlier um calhoun thinks that

00:27:35.020 this uh this uh numerical majority the reason this is so bad is uh not only just that it uh sort of

00:27:41.580 tyrannizes the taxpayers it gives the taxpayers uh this strong incentive to weaken the government

00:27:48.380 into what calhoun thinks is too weak because once again calhoun is not a strict confederalist he thinks

00:27:54.540 that the incentive of the taxpayers to destroy the government could lead it to too far into that

00:27:59.180 direction and the vice versa with the tax consumers um this is also what calhoun says is dividing the

00:28:07.100 country into sections north and south this numerical majority uh because if you think about calhoun's

00:28:12.460 system uh this all the sections having to give assent or at least having the power to not enforce

00:28:18.060 a law perhaps veto something is a another thing that he brings up uh if if this is how the country is

00:28:23.740 being ruled dividing it into sections is like a political mastermind it's not going to work instead

00:28:28.860 what you have to do is you have to be subtle uh even at the most machiavellian malicious uh political

00:28:34.380 actor uh in calhoun's system would have to play along with what everyone wanted try to move things

00:28:40.300 along very gradually so as not to uh anger one side and get them to drop out of the agreement

00:28:45.820 whereas with the numerical majority you just need the numerical majority and you can do whatever you

00:28:50.140 want it tears the country apart it makes sense politically to make yourself the larger section and

00:28:55.580 to tyrannize the smaller section because once again you can do whatever you want so long as you have the

00:29:00.620 50 percent plus whatever increment puts you over it's a i i think it's a very prescient analysis

00:29:07.340 because usually people uh in the modern day derive the existence of sectionalism in the country at this

00:29:13.900 time uh they they boil it down to economics political economy uh maybe religion and all this other stuff

00:29:21.020 where calhoun just says it's uh it's because we've drifted too far into this numerical majority

00:29:26.380 theory of democracy which is a uh i think that's a reason enough to read this book uh is just to get

00:29:32.460 that analysis in particular yeah obviously we've heard many of these arguments before we've made many

00:29:38.700 of these arguments before often relying on foreign authors but one of the nice things about calhoun

00:29:44.060 here is you are hearing a american voice predict a lot of the problems we're running into today

00:29:49.820 but because he is foreseeing the problems that will come as you transition into this numerical uh in

00:29:57.660 uh majority instead of this concurrent uh uh majority option and so he kind of lays out look as the further

00:30:05.180 you go down this road here are all the problems you're going to run into here are all the things

00:30:09.420 that are going to start manifest themselves one of the things he predicts again rather presciently

00:30:13.900 is the uh the two-party system and the dynamic that it's going to lay out because he says

00:30:18.940 look ultimately if you have this uh numerical majority system if you don't have these different

00:30:24.380 spheres pushing back if you don't have these interests who have the ability to check everything

00:30:28.940 what's going to happen is the ruling party is basically going to be able to vote itself all

00:30:33.900 kinds of money all kinds of power all kinds of benefits it's going to have total control and

00:30:39.420 ultimately he makes like kind of a spooner argument right like if you have control of the ballot box and you

00:30:45.020 have control of the purse how is anyone going to stop you right ultimately you're going to have

00:30:51.420 a level of influence here and so the incentive structure is going to be to create two parties

00:30:56.620 you know you're only going to get two parties in this numerical majority system and the incentive

00:31:01.100 structure for the winning party is basically going to be to use all of its power to delegitimize

00:31:06.620 the uh out of power party there's just no reason to do any in this way it it just sounds a lot like uh

00:31:13.100 like curtis yarvin right like use every ounce of power you have to secure more power because there's

00:31:18.620 literally no reason to do anything else the more power you have the more you can enforce your will

00:31:23.260 so without this concurrent concurrent majority without the ability to basically have a small veto in all

00:31:29.500 these different areas you're going to keep running into this problem and he brings up classic uh you know

00:31:34.780 history as well as a guy as you point out he's well read he understands he brings up for instance the

00:31:39.500 the the tribune of the plebs and and their role that they played in the roman uh republic the fact

00:31:45.420 that even though you had a senate that was largely made up of these patrician classes that did not

00:31:51.180 have the the plebs in mind did not have their best interests in mind the fact that the plebs had this

00:31:56.620 absolute uh veto ultimately on what was happening meant that they always had to have some level of

00:32:03.660 concern they couldn't just run the entire nation in the interest of that one class because there's

00:32:09.260 always this option he says if you don't have that then eventually this two-party system is just

00:32:14.380 going to entirely incentivize uh basically just burning everything down and giving it to your

00:32:20.860 supporters completely destroying the opposition and never allowing them to return to power because

00:32:25.820 if you do then they're going to come back and do exactly the same thing to you right and that's

00:32:29.740 a lot of what we're seeing now we we look at the democrats obviously they did everything they did

00:32:34.700 they could to stop donald trump including shooting him uh and uh they are promising you can see this

00:32:40.060 over and over again both people in political power uh average person on the left political pundits

00:32:46.540 they're all threatening like the minute we get back into power we're going to lock you up we're going to

00:32:50.780 we're going to imprison you we're going to criminalize you we're going to destroy your stuff

00:32:54.700 because that is now the incentive structure why would you not do everything you can while you're in

00:33:00.540 power to completely disassemble your enemy because ultimately they don't have this concurrent majority

00:33:05.420 veto to stop you and so the incentive structure in this numerical majority is just to get as radical

00:33:10.620 as possible with your political parties right uh and this is a this is a part of why this book ages so

00:33:17.740 well uh calhoun draws from what he sees as just natural man like if someone is a man he has these

00:33:24.060 attributes as we discussed at the beginning what where does government come from that's the foundation of

00:33:28.140 this whole thing he appeals to history many times and he kind of attempts or preempts rather any anyone

00:33:34.860 who might be more cynical saying like sure you can say that true constitutionalism uh can be tried here

00:33:41.900 but like has it ever been done in history uh and he he appeals to polities that existed for many uh many

00:33:48.940 decades and centuries uh depending on which which example he's giving uh the iroquois uh is an appeal that

00:33:55.340 he makes which is a very old american appeal uh benjamin franklin uh quite famously as many americans

00:34:01.740 learn in their history class appealed to the same group as a model for the american confederacy uh so

00:34:07.500 too's calhoun appealed to them he appeals to rome uh he sort of talks about these uh uh this political

00:34:13.580 thought from them i if i remember correctly i think he even appeals to poland at one point but i i guess so

00:34:19.740 that's that's that's a very difficult knowledge to obtain as an american from the back country in uh

00:34:26.620 the late uh late 18th early 19th century it's a very impressive thing to just find this book

00:34:32.860 uh he everything that he's talking about in terms of man himself and his need for government he doesn't

00:34:38.700 just say uh man has uh private interests that may conflict on the social level uh cause everyone to be

00:34:44.860 worse off uh he talks about uh man in terms of liberty and equality uh because one of the big

00:34:51.740 arguments that he might have received from the time would be that this view of the concurrent

00:34:55.340 majority would be unequal or it would diminish liberty after all why shouldn't the majority of

00:35:00.540 people be able to uh run the country basically this was a very common argument from a lot of the

00:35:05.980 radicals was that slavery was unpopular uh by majority why shouldn't we be able to basically destroy

00:35:12.380 the entire political structure in order to bring about its abolition unlike every other country

00:35:18.300 on the earth at this point so this was a very radical idea and calhoun gets into uh liberty and

00:35:24.540 equality as subjects he kind of highlights the tension between the two he strongly rejects the

00:35:31.020 more enlightenment notions that everyone is born perfectly equal so this is where his more uh southern

00:35:37.100 uh uh uh political theory uh bleeds into the work it's uh i i would say it's held up very well um many

00:35:45.900 people today still do not hold to this uh to this idea that everyone is born born perfectly equal uh many

00:35:52.060 people on our side will talk about liberty as being something that's not uh perfectly horizontal uh liberty

00:35:58.860 varies by peoples uh different peoples have different forms of government this is something you can see in

00:36:03.980 calhoun's work it's aged very well it's uh very much unlike his opposition at the time and unlike

00:36:09.580 some of the more idealistic people in his corner at the time as well so this is a i i would say this

00:36:15.420 is a part of why uh and to your point about uh we can see the same ideas in mold bug i think this

00:36:21.580 continuity is wise because he is just basing his basing his ideas off of real things that he can observe

00:36:27.580 real things that are known about man uh and he just carries them to their logical conclusion

00:36:32.300 yeah and i was going to get into that in a little bit let's but let's go to it now as you say uh calhoun

00:36:39.260 really digs into uh the difference between or you know the the uh way in which equality and liberty are

00:36:47.740 actually at odds right and this is gonna you know sound shocking to a lot of people of course you

00:36:53.500 declaration of independence and everything involved in there but this was not the only understanding in

00:36:58.540 the united states it's the one that we repeat now but uh you know the idea that that was a sacred

00:37:04.700 idea that the everything about the united states was based on well i mean guys like calhoun i remember

00:37:10.380 this is a guy who's vice president for multiple presidents separate multiple cabinet positions you

00:37:15.820 know senator congressman this is a guy who was a statesman and represented a large chunk of the united

00:37:22.220 states you know outright said this is not true right and so we have to we you know we have to be

00:37:28.300 historically honest right you you might ultimately come down on the side of uh those that say that

00:37:34.300 you know the idea that all men are created equal uh you know that is laid out in the uh declaration that

00:37:40.780 is ultimately perhaps the better understanding but you can't pretend like this was not part of the american

00:37:46.300 tradition the that you know that was not the only american tradition there were in fact many people

00:37:51.660 many of whom were well accomplished and established inside the american government leading it uh you

00:37:56.540 know writing uh you know pieces of political theory on it who said that no this isn't the case now i would

00:38:02.140 say ultimately uh all people are equal in the sight of god in meaning that they all have value before

00:38:09.580 uh before christ and before our creator uh but physically and just you know temperamentally and everything

00:38:16.140 else obviously this isn't true that everyone is equal in that sense there is a difference between

00:38:20.780 individuals and there are differences between groups and as you say calhoun lays out here uh very

00:38:26.540 directly uh that he thinks that different groups are capable of different levels of liberty and

00:38:30.940 some are not capable at all and ignoring those differences denies us liberty because uh because

00:38:37.980 equality is the enemy of liberty something that peter thiel has you know made waves by saying that

00:38:43.660 democracy and liberty are not compatible his idea is ultimately that you know there are the the people

00:38:50.460 left to their own devices people who are actually allowed to be free will manifest differences uh so

00:38:56.140 people who have true liberty will manifest inequalities inequalities are natural hierarchical structures

00:39:02.940 are natural and if people are left to their own devices if they are not controlled by the state

00:39:07.820 or they are not tyrannized by a numerical majority they will produce these differences now we obviously

00:39:14.060 cannot separate this ultimately from calhoun's support of slavery a lot of people uh when i posted my

00:39:20.860 first calhoun post uh immediately even conservatives freaked out oh could you have quoted anyone else

00:39:27.180 could you have quoted anyone else in the in this scenario and the answer is of of course no calhoun is a

00:39:31.980 important part of our history he's important part of our tradition uh he represents a different view

00:39:38.700 than is off often uh shown in the current uh you know historical narrative but one that was very real

00:39:46.460 and so i guess uh do you want to speak for a second on why it's okay to read and learn from a guy

00:39:53.500 who agreed with slavery at some point do we have to cast off every person who ever had slaves i hear

00:39:59.820 a few of the founders may have had had one or two you know does that mean that calhoun is completely

00:40:05.740 uh we just we have to write them off as a figure or or are there lessons we can learn even if perhaps

00:40:11.660 ultimately we're not looking for some return to slavery in the united states i mean it's uh just

00:40:18.140 absolutely absurd the idea that you have to uh you can only learn from people that fully agreed with

00:40:23.660 the current political uh opinion about the era uh if that was the case the only people that we could

00:40:29.420 really draw from from uh this point in time the mid 19th century would be like william lloyd garrison

00:40:35.500 who i'm pretty sure probably was not really anti-racist he was an abolitionist at least i think

00:40:39.980 that's the closest you can get but i i don't think even the like we just have to completely destroy

00:40:45.660 all of our history if we tried to find the guy that perfectly aligned with uh with like the prevailing

00:40:51.660 moral opinion uh and then like how do you how do you even tackle like the medieval era where these

00:40:56.700 questions just didn't exist like or is that like a separate universe were they aliens uh like i it's

00:41:04.060 kind of a absurd but um in in calhoun's defense the thing that i thought was interesting was that his

00:41:09.100 first appeal when saying that people are not born uh perfectly free and equal uh is he brings up the

00:41:16.460 example of children is the thing that i actually found the most interesting so uh when he's saying that

00:41:21.900 man uh and this is part of his uh criticism of the state of nature uh enlightenment arguments of

00:41:27.260 hobbes and locke and rousseau they're uh more secular empiricist arguments on the state of nature

00:41:33.500 uh calhoun basically just says no you're born into a family your parents have authority over you

00:41:39.340 um and you're under their protection you learn from them so i i find this very interesting calhoun does

00:41:46.540 not jump like many other southern authors do at this point in time to the uh institution of slavery

00:41:51.820 he doesn't jump to feudal contracts and obligations he doesn't jump to any sort of biological arguments

00:41:57.580 necessarily he points to something that is extremely or not extremely it just is universal um

00:42:04.540 all all people that are born are at some point a baby a child they're under the tutelage of their

00:42:10.460 parents uh they are born into that context that family um their parents protect them presumably

00:42:18.380 and that's calhoun's appeal basically one of his first ones on the disquisition uh that not everyone

00:42:25.020 is born perfectly free and equal uh because no no child is equal to his parents they can't defend

00:42:30.300 themselves that's a physical uh point um they're not free the parents guard and sort of shepherd their

00:42:36.860 child's away or children away from danger so their their choice or their will is bound in that regard

00:42:43.500 so that's a i i was going to actually bring that up uh people i think sort of oversell calhoun's

00:42:49.500 committal to uh like race-based slavery or any of the other scary things that uh we've hyper fixated on

00:42:56.780 in the modern age if you just read calhoun that doesn't really uh come up that much at all um but

00:43:02.940 once again it is part of his idea that groups are different and unequal as well so i'm certain that

00:43:08.940 would not be allowed uh to be spoken today but it uh it does present a uh sort of humanitarian

00:43:15.100 hypothetical uh what what if what if calhoun is correct wouldn't it be more humanitarian to

00:43:20.460 acknowledge that and allow it but that's a that's a debate on the veracity of his work rather than just

00:43:24.940 the content and how it could apply today uh that's not it doesn't all have to be scary edgy stuff

00:43:30.060 uh is kind of what i'm trying to get out here sure and and one other thing i wanted to get to

00:43:35.740 before we uh move on and by guys by the way i encourage you to read this like uh ryan said it's

00:43:40.620 very short what is it 80 something pages uh for the text itself and so uh it's it's pretty readable

00:43:48.140 it's really compact um you know i think you can get it on audiobook and listen to it in like three

00:43:53.900 hours so if you would like to uh go to primary sources on this i really encourage you to it's it's

00:43:59.900 not as daunting as you think and it's important to go back and read these things for yourself it's

00:44:04.460 i appreciate people watching and you know obviously it's good that we can sign post some of this

00:44:08.940 discussion for you but you know take the time it's only 80 pages and it it'll give you an idea of

00:44:15.740 uh a different strain of thought thought that was real and uh was uh inside the american tradition

00:44:22.940 and can help you round out your understanding of maybe some of these two-dimensional historical

00:44:28.860 debates that have been presented to you uh by our current education system popular culture those

00:44:33.900 kind of things but the last thing i wanted to touch on before we go to the uh questions of the people

00:44:39.260 ryan is his point on uh the role of the press because i found this again to just be very very prescient

00:44:47.260 just just predicting everything that would happen here remember the you know mass media is still

00:44:52.940 something that is developing in his day obviously we don't have radio uh you know telegram is it even

00:45:00.220 around at his time it's close right it's got to be pretty close i don't know if we have actual a lot

00:45:04.860 of cables running by the time he was dying it was just becoming like a widespread technology yeah because

00:45:10.780 it was in the 1850s or so when he passed and so uh so this is you know the the idea that the press

00:45:16.860 would have this constant influence was still relatively new you had newspapers these kind

00:45:21.900 of things but that was the extent of mass media and even then he said when you have a numerical

00:45:27.100 majority system you cannot count because he says a lot of people will assume the press will do what

00:45:32.700 we talk about today oh it's this fourth estate and it's going to protect us from the government

00:45:36.540 it's going to be this government watchdog and he says no man under the numerical majority what's

00:45:40.860 going to happen is the press is going to be used as a tool of the party in power the party

00:45:45.820 in power is going to be able to control the press they're going to be able to give benefits

00:45:50.300 to uh journalists and others uh who agree with them they're going to use the press as a tool to attack

00:45:57.100 their enemies they're going to wield it as a way and this is the really important part the party

00:46:01.420 predicts from the beginning they're going to use this to control popular opinion and once they control

00:46:06.060 popular opinion they're really never going to get out of out of power so basically he gives the article

00:46:11.740 for the cathedral back in the 1850s right he's saying look you're what's going to happen in the

00:46:17.500 under this numerical majority system is the party in power is going to be able to manipulate the

00:46:22.460 public opinion with the press and then once they have controlled public opinion with the press

00:46:27.260 they'll be almost impossible to unsee they're going to control the ballot box they're going to

00:46:30.700 control the purse they're going to control the military and they're going to be able to control

00:46:34.140 what people think and once you have control of all of these institutions the flow of money

00:46:38.300 the flow of information then you're just going to be on you're never going to be removed it's only

00:46:43.820 the ability of these small communities these particular communities and their ability to veto

00:46:50.220 stuff that's the only thing that's going to stop this otherwise these public opinions are just going

00:46:54.380 to be completely run through they're going to be completely uh managed by the press and this is

00:46:59.260 going to become the mechanism by which the numerical majority ends up controlling the entire

00:47:04.860 country i just thought that was uh very impressive that he called that shot you know a couple hundred

00:47:11.340 years out and just just really beautifully right that's uh that analysis belongs at the at the earliest

00:47:19.420 at the start of the 20th century like that's when you start really getting that theory promulgated

00:47:25.020 like as i think spengler was basically making this point uh in the early 20th century about the freedom

00:47:31.260 of the press being a captive uh interest group to power basically um and this is uh being written

00:47:38.940 in the 1840s published in the 1850s which is a just another reason uh especially if you're an american

00:47:46.220 to engage in your own history uh turns out we have some really bright thinkers that we can learn from

00:47:53.340 yeah and and you know it's really interesting again because one of the reasons i think we often you know i

00:47:59.820 know for me personally one of the reasons i went to so many foreign authors and thinkers when i started

00:48:06.140 my intellectual journey is we don't get to talk about american reactionaries very much uh they they've been

00:48:12.700 expunged from history to the point where again calhoun multiple vice presidencies multiple cabinet

00:48:18.860 appointments and if you ever heard anything ever about him in high school it was uh he hated black people

00:48:26.620 and did the nullification thing and they just move on right like you don't hear anything else about this

00:48:31.340 guy so you don't know that there's actually like bodies of political theory written by people inside

00:48:37.100 your tradition who lay out many of the points you'll find somewhere else and so i think it's very valuable

00:48:42.860 to come back to this now that we have a wider understanding of the problems and find that as you

00:48:47.660 say seated inside our own tradition our own history because if you don't do that then it's all outside

00:48:53.900 voices speaking in on on and observing these issues but if you can see that this has actually

00:48:59.260 been something laid out over and over again inside our own country that our own countrymen recognize

00:49:05.260 some of these issues then it's not a bunch of foreign attacks on our system right it's not a bunch

00:49:10.300 of outsiders pointing out the oh the the problems with the constitution no it's guys inside the system

00:49:16.380 who revere the system who love the country but see some of these problems coming and point them out

00:49:21.820 and say hey if we don't understand this aspect of our government now then the system is going to

00:49:26.140 come apart and we're going to get well exactly what we got right so again i i think it's just very

00:49:31.180 valuable it's less than 100 pages you can read it in afternoon if you want to and i i think that it's

00:49:36.780 probably something worth investing in for pretty much everybody because again you're not just getting

00:49:41.900 the political theory you're also getting it uh inside the context of our tradition speaking to our issues

00:49:48.380 the history of our country and that's really critical right and the last thing that i could

00:49:53.420 really add is that the the fact if you're an american especially the fact it's coming from your own

00:49:58.860 uh prevents or presents rather a very subtle difference with perhaps the more foreign attacks

00:50:03.900 on our political arrangements uh because every group that settled in the uh in the on the american

00:50:10.940 continent had some idea of liberty and that was something they held dear they didn't view it as some new

00:50:16.220 idea either they thought it went back to the medieval age it was the history of their people

00:50:20.540 especially in the english colonies it was the uh liberties the rights of the englishmen that was

00:50:25.260 so central to their society since time immemorial or uh uh i forget what the phrase was especially

00:50:31.900 the puritans used but every group that every english group in particular that settled the country

00:50:37.020 of which calhoun was a descendant from and that was the society in which he lived

00:50:41.580 had this view that liberty was something uh to be upheld as this ancient uh gift uh to the people

00:50:50.060 here uh other peoples other societies uh don't necessarily have that uh so that's that's something

00:50:56.700 that you lose by going elsewhere instead of what we have here at home even though we have basically

00:51:02.300 the same caliber of insights if you just know where to find them uh sometimes you don't and that's fair

00:51:07.740 um but the fact that you can hear this coming from your own means that it's uh you're not at risk of

00:51:13.340 it delving too far in a direction that was foreign uh to to your heritage basically calhoun would never

00:51:20.220 eschew the idea of liberty for instance whereas many other constitutionalists uh given continental contexts

00:51:27.980 uh viewed the cause of liberty as perhaps a dirty word uh something to be destroyed as a disordered

00:51:34.300 and malforming force uh on the continent so that's a uh perhaps the most uh pressing thing the reason

00:51:40.460 why i've been delving back into american history primary sources in particular uh is to get this

00:51:46.780 thing that gets lost from other places and other contexts now again really good point because you're

00:51:52.860 right that when you look at many of these other traditions you forget that they're speaking in their

00:51:56.620 voice and their particular way of being their people the way they understand things and you know

00:52:02.220 even if you just look at the anglo version of monarchy versus others you know the monarch is never

00:52:07.500 absolute right he's always a constitutionally you know ever since the magna card is a constitutionally

00:52:12.140 restrained monarch uh calhoun talks about this actually because the british empire is one of the

00:52:18.460 civilizations along with poland and rome and and the iroquois that he talks about and he says okay

00:52:23.420 yes it starts as a monarchy but it becomes a constitutional government because it places these restrictions on

00:52:29.100 the king so he would never be up for say uh you know the the sun king in france or some god emperor

00:52:35.420 out of egypt or or or the orient he would be somebody who always understood even if he had

00:52:41.820 a conception of liberty that perhaps is uh not as libertine as today's conception he would still

00:52:49.260 understand that as a critical value and and that again is so important the you pointed out you know

00:52:55.180 some of the aristotelian uh backing that he seems to have in there aristotle's understanding of

00:53:01.100 ordered liberty is always one that exists inside a tradition inside a community and so i think for calhoun

00:53:06.540 here he would never abandon as you point out that understanding of liberty but the liberty would exist in

00:53:12.860 the community in the tradition it would not be this wide degenerated form of uh post-enlightenment

00:53:20.700 you know libertarian uh you know uh liberty and so i think that's really the the difference here and

00:53:27.020 that's again it's good to know that exists inside our tradition because a lot of people will just point

00:53:32.540 to the founders and say oh well they said liberty therefore i should be able to do heroin in the

00:53:37.180 street right as where a guy like calhoun would say absolutely i support liberty which is why you doing

00:53:43.820 heroin in the middle of the street should get you shot right like they like the these are these are both

00:53:48.860 fighting for liberty uh but a very different understanding and one that i think was probably

00:53:53.500 healthier uh in many ways uh for the overall society so uh that's another critical point but we have a

00:53:59.580 number of questions from the people here so we should get to those ryan before we do i know you're working

00:54:04.460 on some excellent history related series can you tell people where to find your work uh so most recently

00:54:11.020 if you head over to the old glory club on youtube uh there's a new uh stream series called american

00:54:16.940 spirits uh we have just uh taken two streams to review albion seed and the folkways that were

00:54:23.980 alluded to in this stream uh in brief uh so if you're interested in the sort of cultural history

00:54:29.340 of america and uh how it relates to the the modern right i would encourage you to head over there next

00:54:35.740 week we're covering the puritans maybe doing a little bit of uh revisionism on the puritans uh perhaps

00:54:41.020 they weren't as bad as many people have memed them into being had faults like everyone else but

00:54:46.620 maybe they weren't the root of all evil um and then also i have a few articles that should be

00:54:52.060 coming out on mises.org uh going into some of these older conceptions of liberty that have been around

00:54:57.740 especially for the english peoples uh once again since time immemorial those should be uh published

00:55:03.740 sometime soon i think uh so those those two places in particular if you want to get a uh a more

00:55:09.900 traditional understanding of liberty uh ordered liberty in particular where it comes from what are the

00:55:16.060 specific places you can find that uh those two places especially the uh old glory club stream

00:55:21.820 uh is where where i would go look excellent all right guys let's go to the questions of the people

00:55:27.020 here real quick uh andrew geller says have either of you found value in reading reformation area

00:55:33.420 political theory for instance uh i'm not sure how to say all of that uh or lex rex i cannot say

00:55:40.940 unfortunately that i have are you familiar with any of those authors ryan uh not those particular

00:55:46.380 two um i mean in my own contexts i find it useful because uh reformation political theory sounds very

00:55:52.380 different from uh like current political theory propagated by at least the lutheran church so uh i i tend

00:55:59.820 to find benefit in that but that's a very uh niche context i don't know people in the audience are lutherans

00:56:05.820 but i i bet the same pattern would persist if you're a presbyterian i'm sure that uh some of

00:56:12.060 the older presbyterians might sound a little different than the current presbyterians as an

00:56:16.220 example primary sources are always your friends guys you'll be amazed what you can find in those

00:56:21.340 primary sources turns out that uh if you read books written before 1945 a whole different world opens up

00:56:27.180 to you uh principled uncertainty says the ten commandments have little sway anymore how long do you think a

00:56:34.140 man-made list will uh withstand the horde yeah i mean a fair point right that ultimately uh if if the

00:56:41.420 word of god is uh has lost grip to some extent on the behavior of the people then the constitution itself

00:56:48.140 will probably not have a significant one which of course was the argument of the founders themselves

00:56:52.940 right that you needed to have this base you needed to have this understanding of uh the the good if you

00:56:59.660 were going to operate in a frame of a uh society that provides liberty uh and so uh whether it's uh

00:57:06.620 the ten commandments or the constitution ultimately uh people must believe on the foundation for the

00:57:12.140 words to have uh the power and so if you you know if you believe in god and you follow his ways uh then

00:57:18.700 the ten commandments are going to have significant uh influence on you but if you don't then they're

00:57:23.260 just going to be some words that you forgot somewhere the same is true of the constitution you

00:57:26.940 have to be someone who ultimately values this history values this tradition wants to live in

00:57:32.300 this way uh for those words to ultimately direct your actions and i i believe that we have a prior

00:57:40.060 discussion uh on uh the uh state's relation to the church uh in early american contexts uh where the

00:57:48.380 founders weren't strict separationists between church and state not only did they think religion

00:57:53.180 was necessary to uphold this polity uh they they allowed the states to impose it in some cases or

00:57:59.500 at least restrict things that they thought would uh would destroy that necessary religious uh foundation

00:58:05.740 so i forget the name of that of that episode but i i think we talked about that we did i think it had

00:58:11.660 something to do with the 14th amendment so if you would like to oh the incorporation doctrine i think was

00:58:15.900 probably in the name somewhere but if you would like to find out where the 14th amendment and its

00:58:20.060 consequences were a disaster for the united states then you should most certainly go there uh let's

00:58:24.860 see here we've got uh spring in uh fialta uh with a very generous donation thank you very much sir

00:58:31.820 appreciate that uh the fact that most u.s states still have bicameral legislatures even though both houses

00:58:38.620 are based on popular rather than one based on concurrent representation is a further side of the

00:58:43.340 sheer fantasy of our representative democracy yes unfortunately in many ways our bicameral legislatures are

00:58:49.500 are vestigial uh and this is of course uh true as we change the way that they're selected we try to

00:58:56.220 inject popular sovereignty everything ultimately this was gaetano mosca's argument about why the

00:59:01.180 united states had become an oligarchy because we had basically dismantled all of the concurrent

00:59:05.820 protections uh even even up to and including many of the judicial uh nominations you can now see

00:59:11.180 regularly how the supreme court uh seems to be playing to an audience itself even though it's supposed to be

00:59:16.220 the body that is the most insulated from public opinion it seems to be subject to that just as

00:59:22.140 much as everyone else and so what you get is basically a system where public opinion determines

00:59:26.460 everything and as calhoun and mosca both warned us once you have that system then the press can just

00:59:32.940 tell people what to believe and that's kind of the game you know the game is over you no longer

00:59:36.940 have a representative republic anymore and then matt gradere says your streams are always the best

00:59:44.620 part of the work day well thank you very much man i appreciate that a lot i am somebody who i used to

00:59:50.060 work as a courier i i was in the car all the time i had to listen uh to the radio is like my only way to

00:59:56.380 distract myself while doing that work or same thing with construction i'd listen to the radio when i was up

01:00:01.100 on a roof uh so i i i really appreciate that because i i think of all of the talk radio hosts

01:00:06.700 that i was listening to that were getting me through the work day and so if i can do that for

01:00:11.420 for anyone then that's that's an honor and a privilege to to be able to do uh something like

01:00:15.500 that so thank you very much for listening everybody and we really appreciate it uh we're gonna go ahead

01:00:20.940 and wrap this up if it's your first time on the channel of course please make sure to subscribe on

01:00:26.620 youtube in fact we have so many people who watch on twitter and of course i thank you for watching

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01:01:10.300 you everybody for watching as always i will talk to you next time

The Auron MacIntyre Show - July 16, 2025

John C. Calhoun's Disquisition on Government ｜ Guest： Ryan Turnipseed ｜ 7⧸16⧸25

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