Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Greg Hamilton
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000284B
|
00:05 Welcome back to the "Liberty Insider."
00:06 Before the break my guest was reading from James Madison, 00:13 talking about the Bill of Rights 00:15 and particularly about the presidency. 00:16 Yes, James Madison was talking about 00:19 basically the need for Bill of Rights. 00:23 And that was a big debate back then 00:24 whether it was either need or not. 00:26 And he goes on to say that the weakest department 00:30 is the executive department. 00:33 In fact Hamilton actually wrote in the Federalist Papers 00:36 that the Supreme Court was actually the weakest branch, 00:40 and some would debate that today. 00:42 But clearly all they can do is interpret the law 00:44 and do nothing more. 00:45 So to say that they are the most powerful branch 00:47 is again skewing the truth. 00:50 Anyway, Madison he goes on, 00:52 he said "The greatest danger lies 00:54 in the abuse of the people or the community 00:56 than in the legislative body. 00:58 The prescriptions in favor of liberty 00:59 ought to be leveled against that quarter 01:01 where the greatest danger lies, 01:03 namely, that which possesses 01:04 the highest prerogative of power. 01:07 But this is not found in either the executive 01:09 or legislative departments of government." 01:11 Did you get that? 01:12 "But in the body of the people, operating by the majority," 01:16 by the majority, "against the minority." 01:19 In other words the fickle masses 01:21 were the greatest threat 01:22 to the downfall of our constituency. 01:24 And Madison and most of his peers feared the majority. 01:28 And he goes in to talk about-- 01:29 They were not majoritarian. 01:30 He goes in to talk about 01:31 the political science of the constitution, 01:33 which he said, actually the constitution 01:35 by the people sending their representatives 01:37 was meant to corral the public into sensibility 01:42 and to sensible directions. 01:43 Otherwise they would be directionless 01:46 and we'll be having forever anarchy and chaos. 01:49 In many ways they were elitist in their thinking. 01:51 They were but, you know, they were right ultimately. 01:54 Well, it made for a more stable situation 01:57 because remember they were observing 01:59 in quick order the French Revolution, so... 02:02 In fact, Madison did not believe, 02:05 at least in his time, that law making 02:09 or even presidential executive orders 02:12 or presidential elections or congressional elections 02:15 would be by putting their finger in the air, 02:17 and whichever way the wind blow politically they would move. 02:20 In fact, Democratic Republic, the way the founders envisioned 02:25 it was that the people would elect their representatives 02:28 to do what they thought was the best thing, okay. 02:31 So not relying on public opinion polls 02:33 but doing what they thought was the best thing. 02:36 And if they trusted that person 02:38 in terms of their personal convictions and morals 02:41 and went to Congress or was elected 02:44 as president that they would-- 02:46 they may not always-- 02:47 That would then relegate certain authorities. 02:49 They may not always agree with their decisions, 02:51 but they would give them that respect 02:53 and due honor afforded to them 02:55 because after all, they elected them. 02:56 Now if they didn't like them, 02:57 you know, vote the idiot out who was-- 03:00 You remember the years of Madison's presidency? 03:03 Yes. 03:04 It had to have been around 1812. 03:07 Yes, 1812 war, yes, with Britain. 03:09 But what was happening at the same time? 03:11 This was Napoleon on the rampage in Europe. 03:13 Yes. 03:15 We forget, at least I think, I studied history in America. 03:18 We see it in isolation. We forget the global context. 03:21 Right. 03:22 And this was as the country was formulating 03:25 its governing model and what it had to look at 03:28 and Jefferson curiously was in favor, 03:30 but it went out of control. 03:32 Yes. You had the-- 03:33 you know, the little corporal tramping all over Europe, 03:36 an army of despotism against other countries. 03:39 Well, what happened-- 03:40 They saw a revolution gone awry 03:42 and here they wanted to shape this one 03:44 into a responsible stable country. 03:47 Just shortly thereafter what did you have? 03:50 You had Napoleon sending Berthier 03:51 to go arrest the Pope, Pope Pius VI. 03:54 Right. 03:55 And forever demonstrating that the church 03:57 will no longer control the state. 03:59 They were actually behind in terms of-- 04:02 yes, they produced the Declaration of Rights 04:05 in France which has, you know, 04:07 led to the human rights standards 04:09 that we have in-- 04:10 Well, the current Napoleon still rules in France. 04:13 Yes. 04:14 So there were some good things that came out of it. 04:16 Right, but when you look at-- 04:18 But it was secularism that ran amok 04:20 and restricted the ancient power 04:23 of the Roman Catholic Church 04:25 and has a prophetic meaning as you and I know. 04:26 Oh, yes. 04:27 When you look at the Bill of Rights, 04:30 they are not the end all, be all. 04:32 Let me explain it to you. No, I agree with you. 04:34 Justice Antonin Scalia, abut the only thing 04:36 I've ever really cared for him 04:38 in terms of his opinion came in a ruling involving 04:45 whether "under God" 04:47 should be removed from the pledge of allegiance. 04:49 Michael Newdow, both an attorney 04:51 and a physician came to argue his case 04:53 before the US Supreme Court. 04:54 A radical secular. And an atheist, yes. 04:58 And he came forward and basically said 05:01 that "under God" should remove from the-- 05:03 be removed from the constitution. 05:05 And several of the justices 05:07 objected to that in their questions, 05:10 hypothetical scenarios 05:12 and their questions to him and so on, 05:14 including the liberals who just thought that went too far. 05:18 And in fact they dismissed the case out of hand 05:20 because they said that Michael Newdow 05:23 had brought the case fraudulently to them 05:25 because the facts of the case weren't true, 05:27 that his daughter actually had no problem 05:30 citing the pledge of allegiance with "under God" 05:33 in it back at her school. 05:35 Because she was a Christian so had no problem with that. 05:38 There was a matter of custody, too, whether-- 05:40 Yes, so they remanded it back 05:42 to the California state Supreme Court. 05:44 Well, the bottom line is, 05:47 in that case Justice Scalia and the other justices 05:53 basically took him apart. 05:56 Justice Scalia said, wait a minute-- 05:58 And Michael Newdow had said 06:02 that atheists were frozen out of Public Square. 06:05 They didn't have their rights represented 06:07 and they wanted "under God" removed from the constitution, 06:12 so that atheists would also be part 06:14 of the American fabric of people, not be excluded. 06:18 And Justice Scalia says, "Wait a minute, 06:21 you represent less than 2% of the public, number one. 06:24 Number two," he says, 06:26 "we have to balance majoritarian rights 06:29 represented by 'we the people,' the constitution itself 06:33 and minority rights based upon the Bill of Rights." 06:38 And he says when we weigh the two 06:41 we have to determine 06:42 what competing interests are involved. 06:45 In other words, we rightly say that the Bill of Rights 06:48 was intended to protect minorities 06:53 against the abuse of the majority. 06:55 But he said, we also, if you counterbalance that, 06:59 we also have to protect the majority 07:03 against those who would use the Bill of Rights 07:06 in an abusive way against the will of the people, okay. 07:09 So when you look at the balance it shows 07:12 that the constitutional founders were geniuses. 07:15 I mean, we think about it, you know, 07:17 thank goodness they didn't have TV in that time. 07:19 It seems to me they could have used 07:21 Madison's argument against praying teachers of religion. 07:24 Well, they-- 07:25 Because you could make a good argument 07:27 that the intent of this secular construct of government 07:31 was to keep it secular and not cross that line, 07:34 and in his case, pay the salary or in this case 07:38 use religious language. 07:39 It's not really-- 07:41 it seems to me it isn't narrowly between 07:43 a majority-minority religion and secular. 07:46 It's whether it's being true 07:48 to the established nature of this Republican itself. 07:52 Well, I'm just talking about the general nature of how-- 07:54 But Scalia gets it right a lot of the time. 07:57 And he is interesting to listen to. 07:58 I'm just merely sharing with you 08:00 how the founding fathers arranged the ideal, 08:06 the going back and forth 08:08 between Bill of Rights and the constitution. 08:10 But something more important especially 08:13 in regard to the first amendment 08:14 that says Congress shall make no law 08:17 respecting an establishment of religion 08:19 or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 08:22 The origins of the language of that really go back 08:25 to the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom 08:27 and how that came about. 08:28 It was a bill put forward 08:29 by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 to counteract 08:33 a financial provision bill by Patrick Henry, 08:37 who by the way, most people know this about Patrick Henry. 08:40 He opposed the ratification of the constitution 08:45 and he also opposed the ratification 08:47 of the Bill of Rights 08:48 unless certain pieces of language is in there. 08:52 But he opposed specifically 08:54 the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom 08:56 that Thomas Jefferson had put forward and said, no, 08:59 we need to keep our church establishments, 09:00 we need to keep the Anglican church 09:02 as established church, and but we can change it. 09:04 We can call it the equal rights bill 09:09 that each parishioner in any church 09:12 can give to the church and school the pastor 09:15 and teacher of their choice, okay. 09:17 So-- The European model. 09:19 Yes. Okay, you can give-- 09:21 For example Germany has that model. 09:22 And Madison said, no, that means minority religions, 09:26 like at that time the Baptist religion, 09:28 would be basically frozen out. 09:31 That would lead to mob rule, 09:33 that is, majority rule 09:34 and the majority and most powerful churches 09:36 would not only get the most money, 09:37 but maybe get exclusively all the money 09:39 because it would create a mafia like mentality of the people 09:43 to pressure other people 09:44 to give to certain denomination. 09:46 And so they said, 09:48 Thomas Jefferson and Madison said, 09:49 especially Madison, 09:51 his memorial and remonstrance says, no, 09:53 we can't go down this road. 09:54 Every religion must be treated equal 09:57 and guaranteed to be equal under the constitution. 10:00 And so therefore, 10:01 the state should not be in the business 10:03 of funding religion. 10:04 It was a wonderful way of coming at it, wasn't it? 10:07 And, of course, we are reaping the benefits today. 10:09 Yes. 10:11 But, you know, I sometimes think, 10:14 is there a difference between 10:15 saying a country is a Christian nation 10:17 and having an established church. 10:19 You can have an established church 10:21 and still not call it a Christian nation. 10:23 It seems to me this Christian nation concept 10:26 is more dangerous, 10:27 because it gives rise to American exceptionalism. 10:30 The idea that whatever you do is automatically God's will. 10:33 And it could-- it leads to military adventures. 10:38 It's just, it's very, very dangerous. 10:41 So, you know, most people sort of breeze over it. 10:45 American, you know, Christian nation, 10:47 what difference does it matter. 10:48 A lot of things flow from this, don't they? 10:50 We're a pluralistic nation of many religions 10:53 who are treated equally under the constitution. 10:55 And that's been the genius of the United States. 10:57 And there is no other nation that does that as thoroughly 11:00 and as well as the United States. 11:03 And we hope that that continues. 11:05 Yes. 11:06 And really even in post 9/11 11:08 the US has been quite true to that constitutional intent. 11:11 Hasn't it? Yes. 11:12 I mean, it's paid good lip service. 11:13 Oh, absolutely. 11:14 And religious freedom is America's first freedom. 11:17 And that's important to remember 11:18 because all the rights flow from that. 11:20 Free speech, freedom to assembly, 11:22 freedom of the press, freedom to redress grievances, 11:26 et cetera, et cetera. 11:27 We live in a marvelous nation. 11:28 Let's not forget the price 11:30 that was paid to give us religious freedom. 11:35 In the biblical account of God's dealings 11:38 with the Old Testament nation of Israel 11:40 things began to go awry with His rule over those people 11:44 when they demanded, as they said, a king, 11:47 give us a king like the rest of the nations. 11:51 That was bad enough, 11:52 but that new kingly system went totally off the rails 11:56 when King Saul took it upon himself 12:00 to offer the priestly sacrifice. 12:02 There was a total amalgam of church and state 12:05 and it was unacceptable to God. 12:07 And as the prophet said, your kingdom is taken from you. 12:12 I believe today in modern America to define it 12:16 as a Christian nation is to go the other way, 12:19 moving from secular to religious without authority, 12:23 without mandate and with all of the risks 12:26 that are implicit in such a shift. 12:28 God will raise up a holy people, 12:31 you and I have that ability to respond individually. 12:35 But He does not lay out the scepter, 12:38 He does not put the oil upon any nation 12:41 just because they say so. 12:43 We need to keep that in mind 12:45 when we speak about a Christian nation 12:48 and how it defines itself. 12:51 For "Liberty Insider," I am Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2015-06-22