The Auron MacIntyre Show - February 08, 2024


Why We're No Longer Governed by the Constitution ｜ 2⧸8⧸24


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

158.73442

Word count

1,184

Sentence count

60

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Most conservatives view the U.S. Constitution as the central element that binds the nation together, but what does it actually mean and how did it come to be? And what role did it play in shaping the nation s identity?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:00:02.320 Rocky's Vacation, here we come.
00:00:05.060 Whoa, is this economy?
00:00:07.180 Free beer, wine, and snacks.
00:00:09.620 Sweet! 0.95
00:00:10.720 Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
00:00:14.760 And with live TV, I'm not missing the game.
00:00:17.800 It's kind of like, I'm already on vacation.
00:00:20.980 Nice! 0.94
00:00:22.240 On behalf of Air Canada, nice travels.
00:00:25.260 Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
00:00:27.200 Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply.
00:00:28.720 CRCanada.com
00:00:30.000 Most conservatives view the U.S. Constitution as the central element
00:00:34.000 that binds the identity of the nation together.
00:00:36.480 But constitutions don't make peoples. 0.97
00:00:38.700 Peoples make constitutions. 0.99
00:00:40.960 The Catholic political theorist and Enlightenment skeptic Joseph de Maistre
00:00:44.860 believed that no true constitution can ever be written by human hands
00:00:48.860 but can only be inscribed on the hearts of a nation's people by the Almighty God.
00:00:53.620 For de Maistre, the notion that a constitution would, in and of itself,
00:00:57.840 create the character of a nation was absurd.
00:01:00.320 The values and norms contained in a constitution reflect the traditions and folkways
00:01:05.320 that organically emerge from the character of a people.
00:01:08.100 The shared moral vision of the people, which serves as the real force of the constitution,
00:01:13.980 pre-exists the written document itself.
00:01:16.060 Any rights enumerated in the document are only a written formalization of that which is already
00:01:21.860 held deeply sacred by the people, and their protection is entirely dependent on the continuance
00:01:27.440 of that tradition.
00:01:29.520 De Maistre didn't push for a universal form of government,
00:01:32.920 but instead believed that the best government would be one that naturally fit the needs
00:01:37.420 and traditions of the people over which it ruled.
00:01:40.560 An artificially imposed regime with no connection to the way in which different communities
00:01:44.980 lived their lives couldn't hope to govern them well.
00:01:48.460 Virtuous leaders had a duty to guide their people toward a better future,
00:01:52.000 but that could only be done in the context of a shared understanding of the common good.
00:01:56.080 A constitution couldn't enforce this vision.
00:01:59.160 It could only represent the spirit that already existed within the polis.
00:02:04.080 America is a vast and complicated nation.
00:02:07.120 It's always been a collection of very different regions, cultures, and traditions separated by
00:02:12.060 the kind of geographic distance that would have formed individual nations in a different
00:02:16.080 place like Europe.
00:02:17.820 That's why the country was originally governed as a confederation of separate states instead
00:02:22.780 of one unified whole.
00:02:24.600 Due to its divergent ways of life, geographical separation, and intermittent waves of large-scale
00:02:31.280 immigration, America never truly achieved ethnogenesis.
00:02:35.180 Instead, it relied on one consistent factor that most of its residents shared, Protestant
00:02:40.660 Christianity.
00:02:42.380 While Catholic, Jewish, and eventually Muslim waves of immigration would arrive, America's 0.98
00:02:47.540 initial population were Protestant Christians, and it is from this firmament that the moral 0.93
00:02:52.240 vision of America arose.
00:02:54.760 America was founded by those who chose to leave their homes and strike out for new lands rather 1.00
00:02:59.120 than compromise their way of life, and that deep instinct to prefer exit over assimilation
00:03:04.600 persisted well into the nation's history.
00:03:07.920 Due to its size and regional diversity, America never truly formed a single national culture or
00:03:13.800 identity.
00:03:14.300 Whenever two or more groups disagreed, rather than being forced to reconcile and become
00:03:19.840 one people, they simply split, venturing farther and farther into a seemingly endless frontier.
00:03:26.380 A federal model allowed individual communities and states to operate very differently as long
00:03:31.980 as they held to the shared moral framework of Protestant Christianity.
00:03:35.980 Subsidiarity, the idea that political problems should be resolved as close to the locality where
00:03:42.680 they originate as possible, meant that the traditions and folkways of each region could be maintained
00:03:48.460 while still working inside the larger system of the nation.
00:03:52.220 The religious character of America's people may have changed, but the bedrock of its founding
00:03:57.980 documents has not.
00:04:00.600 In modern America, the Constitution is held up as a secular procedural blueprint for a
00:04:05.960 objectively navigating disagreements between groups with vastly different moral visions,
00:04:11.200 but nothing could be further from the truth.
00:04:14.100 As John Adams explained, the Constitution is made for moral and religious people,
00:04:19.120 and it's wholly inadequate for the governance of any other.
00:04:23.320 America's founders didn't believe that the Constitution contained some kind of magical,
00:04:28.140 universal property of governance.
00:04:30.400 They understood that the Protestant Christian moral vision shared by most of the populace
00:04:35.060 was critical to the nation's success.
00:04:38.320 When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?
00:04:41.940 When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard?
00:04:46.780 When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill?
00:04:49.460 When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner?
00:04:53.180 Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer, so download the app and get delivery in
00:04:57.700 as fast as 60 minutes.
00:04:59.400 Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.
00:05:02.560 I don't personally call myself a Christian nationalist, not because I disagree with the idea that
00:05:13.920 biblical principles should be reflected in the laws of our nation, but because this has
00:05:17.980 been a core aspect of the American nation since its inception.
00:05:22.600 The problem with the term Christian nationalism is that it turns a crucial pillar of our American
00:05:28.320 identity into a fashionable, political slogan that can be easily painted as new and radical
00:05:34.400 by a hostile media elite.
00:05:36.960 An approach to politics that's fundamentally Protestant in its character is not revolutionary
00:05:42.980 or novel.
00:05:44.500 It's exactly what the Constitution represents.
00:05:47.840 As hard as it might be to admit, we are no longer really governed by the Constitution,
00:05:53.220 primarily because we're no longer the kind of people who can be.
00:05:56.480 Conservatives like to believe that restoration of constitutional governance will fix our woes,
00:06:03.000 but the founding document can't make a people virtuous or grant them liberty.
00:06:08.060 The Constitution was only ever the formalization of a way of life present in America's founding
00:06:14.580 stock, and without that shared character, our most precious documents become meaningless.
00:06:19.800 The Constitution was never meant to objectively mediate the differences of two sides with radically
00:06:26.920 different moral visions, and it never will.
00:06:30.800 Protestant Christianity was central to the identity of the United States and the formation
00:06:35.120 of its Constitution.
00:06:37.040 Until the nation reforges a shared moral vision on that anvil, it will continue to be governed
00:06:43.280 by the corrupt, progressive, theocratic oligarchy that currently terrorizes its people.
00:06:49.340 Thanks for watching, guys.
00:06:53.980 If you enjoyed this video, go ahead and click like, and if you haven't subscribed yet, now
00:06:57.300 is a great time to do so.
00:06:59.100 If you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, go ahead and subscribe to The Oro McIntyre Show
00:07:03.660 on your favorite podcast platform, and when you do, if you leave a rating or review, that
00:07:08.140 really helps with the algorithm magic.
00:07:10.120 If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, or Substack, or Gab, if you'd like to get these
00:07:14.500 videos on Rumble or Odyssey, the links to do all of that are down below in the description.
00:07:19.640 And of course, you can watch all of my episodes and read all of my columns over at The Blaze.
00:07:24.560 Thanks for watching, guys, and as always, I'll talk to you next time.