The Constitution with Paul Rahe

[Valin]

Uncommon Knowledge/ You Tube:

Paul Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage at Hillsdale College and is the author most recently of Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift. He discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, the definition of a republic

Paul Rahe discusses the founding fathers, how they created and developed the ideas and ideals for the Constitution, their intellectual capacity, and what they took from the ancient Greek republic.


What went wrong.

Paul Rahe discusses how the modern world subverted the Constitution and how commercial societies leave people anxious.

Paul Rahe discusses partisan politics, polarization, the courts, and why the 2012 election is so important.

Paul Rahe discusses the importance of the 2012 elections and how much political liberty we will have in the future.




This explains better than anything I've seen in explaining something I've thought/said for some time. There are two fundamentally different visions of where America should go, and what kind of nation we should be. Choose...but choose wisely.

[clearvision]

Thanks Valin!

[Valin]

Thanks Valin!

 

 

Even though Paul Rahe is a bit more doom and gloom than I, still thought it was really really good. So the question is...Quo Vadis?

You know how I feel about history , I am of the opinion that we (and not just America, but the West) are at a decision point. One way leads to more freedom, but (it must be said) less equality/fairness, and the opposite. One thing I notice is what both side talk about, on the left its Equality/Fairness, on the right its Freedom/Responsibility.

 

I often wonder if the leadership of the GOP understands this. One of the reasons I like Newt is I think he does...at least he talks like he does. (I can't believe I'm saying this) I think Ron Paul does also.

[Saltbag]

Don't get me wrong - Hillsdale is wonderful. But... there's always a but...

 

One reason I get irritated by Uncommon Knowledge is that I want them to be be pissed off and get more focused on solutions. It's a constant pretentious diatribe where they find fault with everything analytically. It's good information and brilliant insight on the constitution, no doubt, but the time spent on what we should do going forward is almost an afterthought. It's all about history, which if you're presenting it as solely a discourse on history, no problem. On this speech, after an hour of fantastic and brilliant discussion on history and how it applies to modern times, the summation I took away was "Obama is a tyrant destroying the country. Paul Ryan should be morally obligated to run, but he's not going to, so we're screwed."

[Valin]

Don't get me wrong - Hillsdale is wonderful. But... there's always a but...

 

One reason I get irritated by Uncommon Knowledge is that I want them to be be pissed off and get more focused on solutions. It's a constant pretentious diatribe where they find fault with everything analytically. It's good information and brilliant insight on the constitution, no doubt, but the time spent on what we should do going forward is almost an afterthought. It's all about history, which if you're presenting it as solely a discourse on history, no problem. On this speech, after an hour of fantastic and brilliant discussion on history and how it applies to modern times, the summation I took away was "Obama is a tyrant destroying the country. Paul Ryan should be morally obligated to run, but he's not going to, so we're screwed."

 

A. You want ranting and raving...go to yuck Michael Savage, and you;ll get all the yelling and screaming you want, and it might make you feel good, but I'd rather win the debate.

B. If you don't know where we've been, how do you know you're moving forward in the right way? It's one of the reasons I study history.

[Saltbag]

Fine, respond like that. I was just being snarky.

 

I don't know how much clearer I could have been that they are fantastic on history and didn't at all diminish that. After listening to that entire brilliant lecture, when posed with the question of roughly "what should we do now," it fell short.

 

Sarcasm doesn't translate well to forums, but I obviously didn't mean for them to get "pissed off."

 

But those guys are pretentious. Brilliant, and pretentious. Okay, I'll quit stirring the pot.

 

 

Joking around aside, thank you for sharing Valin. I watched the whole thing and found it very interesting.

 

Edit:

P.S. I can barely tolerate Michael Savage. My angry guy is Mark Levin.

[Valin]

Fine, respond like that. I was just being snarky.

 

I don't know how much clearer I could have been that they are fantastic on history and didn't at all diminish that. After listening to that entire brilliant lecture, when posed with the question of roughly "what should we do now," it fell short.

 

Sarcasm doesn't translate well to forums, but I obviously didn't mean for them to get "pissed off."

 

But those guys are pretentious. Brilliant, and pretentious. Okay, I'll quit stirring the pot.

 

 

Joking around aside, thank you for sharing Valin. I watched the whole thing and found it very interesting.

 

Edit:

P.S. I can barely tolerate Michael Savage. My angry guy is Mark Levin.

 

Sorry. I go off like that sometimes. I don't like that about myself but...there it is.

 

Agree about Mark Levin and Michael Savage. Savage...I don't get it, why he is so popular. You never hear other talk show hosts attacking their competitors the way he does, personally.

[Saltbag]

Love ya, Valin. If we weren't passionate about this stuff, we wouldn't be here.

[clearvision]

Next you guys will be using cute emoticons....

[Valin]

Next you guys will be using cute emoticons....

 

 

I DON'T DO cute. I am a cuteaphobe

[Valin]

clearvision Saltbag

 

Example Time...

Reason: What’s the Matter with Rachel Maddow?

The MSNBC host champions bureaucratic power at the expense of regular people and their rights.

Sheldon Richman

November 18, 2011

 

Progressives today say people should come before profits. Now in a privilege-ridden corporate state, that’s a worthy goal, though progressives have no clue how to achieve it. How nice it would be if they were equally committed to putting people before bureaucracy. Here they fall down rather badly because their signature ideas would subordinate regular people to the dictates of the power structure.

 

Take MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Maddow is intelligent, serious, and well-meaning—which makes her vision all the more unsettling: It has ominous implications not only for individual liberty, but also for its concomitant: authentic spontaneous social cooperation.

 

Maddow might say that if she had her way, the bureaucracy would reflect the people’s interests, perhaps even consult them from time to time. But the naiveté of that vision is apparent from even a brief reading of political-economic history. When has bureaucracy actually represented—or cared about—plain people rather than being a tool of the power elite she claims to abhor (at least when Republicans hold some branch of government)?

 

(Snip)