Theory 2 Action Podcast
Theory 2 Action Podcast
LM#63--Lovers of Liberty series--Book 4
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Tracing the intellectual lineage connecting America's founding fathers to modern conservatism reveals a profound relationship that's often overlooked in contemporary political discourse. This Liberty Minute episode—part of our special "Lovers of Liberty" series counting down to America's 249th birthday—explores Mark Levin's transformative work "Liberty and Tyranny" as the definitive conservative manifesto for our times.
What makes Levin's book so powerful is how clearly it articulates the conservative worldview while demonstrating its direct connection to the founding principles. While exploring the historical context of conservatism's ebbs and flows—from its decline after Herbert Hoover through its resurrection with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan—we discover that conservative principles never truly changed. They were merely waiting to be rediscovered and reapplied to contemporary challenges.
The essence of both conservatism and America's founding lies in recognizing the dignity of individuals, their God-given natural rights, and the harmony of interests that creates a civil society. As Levin writes, "In the civil society, the individual is recognized and accepted as more than just an abstract statistic or faceless member of some group. Rather, he is a unique spiritual being with a soul and a conscience." This vision stands in stark contrast to statism, which sees the individual as subordinate to centralized authority. The founders understood this distinction perfectly, which is why they created a constitutional republic with limited government and robust individual liberty. Their wisdom remains our surest guide as we confront today's challenges and prepare to celebrate America's semiquincentennial. Have you considered how these founding principles still shape your life and liberty today?
Key Points from the Episode:
• Book four in our "Lovers of Liberty" special series celebrating America's upcoming 249th birthday
• Historical context of conservatism from Calvin Coolidge through Reagan
• Exploration of how conservatism connects to America's founding principles
• The importance of individual dignity, God-given natural rights, and civil society
• The rule of law and private property as inseparable from liberty
• Why conservatism serves as "the antidote to tyranny"
• The essential difference between conservatism and modern liberalism (statism)
• How understanding founding principles helps us prepare for America's 250th birthday
Join us tomorrow for book three in our countdown to July 4th as we continue celebrating America's exceptional national character.
Keep fighting the good fight.
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Over 100 years ago, with FDR's election in 1932, conservatives of which I am one in the conservative movement at the time was without direction. Where and how the conservative movement very much overlapped with the founding of the country is our subject today. Let's talk about it on this Liberty Minute.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser, flourishing life.
Speaker 1:Now here's your host, david Kaiser. Hello everybody, I am David and welcome back to another Liberty Minute. This is book four in our Lovers of Liberty special series five books in five days to celebrate our national birthday coming up soon, 249th birthday to be exact, coming up this July 4th. Now, that's a big deal, but an even bigger deal will be next year's birthday, 250th. So we are preparing now, we are kicking off our celebration of this July 4th by releasing this special series Five Books in Five Days. Yesterday we released book five. Be sure to check out that episode. We will put a link in the show notes for it.
Speaker 1:And you might be asking what do these books represent? Why this special series? What do these books represent? Why this special series? Well, these books, these books, we believe, give you a solid foundation of our history, our direction, our character as a country, and it will help you to appreciate and grow in your love for the United States of America. Now, each book. We are only going to give you the Cliff Notes version, the Mojo Academy Cliff Notes version of these books, but we believe it would be a good enough. Sampler, much like a sampler of food, is just enough. It can get you to eat the bigger dinner, the bigger feast, if you will. So perhaps over the next 12 months you can take a deep dive into one or some, or perhaps all five of these books and brush up on your history of our country and increase your love for the United States at the same time. That is why we are releasing these five books in five days. And enough with the housekeeping duties, let's roll to book four.
Speaker 1:Some 100 years ago the GOP was coming off Herbert Hoover's disastrous performance as president from 1928 to 1932. The conservatives within the party and the direction of that party was in shambles. Fdr's takeover of politics after the 1932 election and his four consecutive terms essentially took the oxygen from the room, so to speak. And the fighting of World War II was very much an existential crisis. So when you're fighting for Western civilization and your own life and your own country's civilization, political movements tend to take a back seat. So the conservative movement finally resurrected itself and came back alive with Barry Goldwater, the Arizona senator, and with Ronald Reagan's speech in support of Goldwater at the 1964 GOP convention. Time for choosing. Now.
Speaker 1:Many claim that Goldwater and the conservative movement was demolished in the 1964 election because of its bad ideas and its bad politics. Well, I don't agree with that popular wisdom. More and more evidence is coming out that, frankly, lbj just got a sympathy vote after the JFK assassination. So it was never a true test of conservative politics, principles or policies. Test of conservative politics, principles or policies. Calvin Coolidge was long forgotten by the 1960s, especially after the war, and he was the last conservative. Dwight D Eisenhower Ike for short was no conservative in the preceding decade, from 1952 to 1960. So it isn't until Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 that you get a full-throated conservative president back in the White House and you can begin to get the conservative principles and policies espoused again.
Speaker 1:So with that backstory, you might be thinking what does all this have to do with the founding of the country and our national celebration on this July 4th and our 249th birthday? Well, that backstory was needed because when you look around at the contemporary books and you ask the question what is the conservative political Bible, what is the book that we contemporaries today can point to, that ties us down through the last two centuries to our founding fathers of the principles and the policies and what is the bedrock character of the conservative movement? To me, there is only one book that I know of, despite all the great books written by many conservatives for conservatives, not. The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, not Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, not Richard Weaver's Ideas have Consequences. All good books, but not the one book. What about Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom? What about Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom? It's a very good book, but not a conservative manifesto that ties everything together in a simple book for all of us to read.
Speaker 1:Okay, you might ask then, what about the Road to Serfdom by FA Hayek? Again another good book, but in it a defense of classical liberalism and the warning against centralized power. And that's all good. But that is not what we're seeking in this episode. What is the one book that we can go to which will articulate what conservatives believe and how we view the exercising of political power and its administration? But we could certainly read the Founding Fathers. That is very good stuff there. The Federalist Papers, yes, but we do have a contemporary book. So with that let's go to our first pull quote. To put it succinctly, conservatism is a way of understanding life, society and governance.
Speaker 1:The founders were heavily influenced by certain philosophers, among them Adam Smith, spontaneous Order, charles Montesquieu, separation of Powers and especially, john Locke, natural Rights. They were also influenced by their faiths, personal experiences and knowledge of history, including the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Edmund Burke, who was both a British statesman and thinker, is often said to be the father of modern conservatism. He was an early defender of the American Revolution and an advocate of representative government. He wrote of the interconnection of liberty, free markets, religion, tradition and authority. The conservative, like the Founders, is informed by all these great thinkers and more.
Speaker 1:The Declaration of Independence represents the most prominent official consensus position of the Founders' rationale for declaring independence from England. It states in part when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them. God entitled them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The founders believed, and the conservative agrees, in the dignity of the individual, that we as human beings have a right to live, live freely and pursue that which motivates us, not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights. Oh, that is so good, so good music to my ears. Good music to my ears, and that, my friends, is the book, the conservative manifesto, that lays out the contemporary conservative worldview succinctly, and it comes to us from the great one, mark Levin's monumental work in 2009, liberty and Tyranny. Let's go back to the book for more goodness.
Speaker 1:Like the founders, the conservative also recognizes in society a harmony of interest, as Adam Smith put it, and rules of cooperation that have developed through generations of human experience and collective reasoning that promote the betterment of the individual and society. This is characterized as ordered liberty, the social contract or the civil society. What are the conditions of this civil society? In the civil society, the individual is recognized and accepted as more than just an abstract statistic or faceless member of some group. Rather, he is a unique spiritual being with a soul and a conscience. He is free to discover his own potential and pursue his own legitimate interest, tempered, however, by a moral order that has its foundation in faith and guides his life and all human life through the prudent exercise of judgment. As such, the individual in the civil society strives, albeit imperfectly, to be virtuous that is, restrained, ethical and honorable. He rejects the relativism that blurs the lines between good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust and means and ends. In the civil society. The individual has a duty to respect the unalienable rights of others and the values and customs and traditions, tried and tested over time and passed from one generation to the next, that establish society's cultural identity. He is responsible for attending his own well-being and that of his family, and he has a duty, as a citizen, to contribute voluntarily to the welfare of his community through good works.
Speaker 1:Oh, that writing is just fantastic. Frankly, it is majestic. Frankly, it is majestic. Now, to sum up those major points, we have a simple listing that was just rattled off to us by the great one Mark Levin.
Speaker 1:The dignity of the individual is important. Right to life, right to liberty, god-given natural rights come to us from God, not from the state. We understand the civil society is a good thing, along with the rule of law. Conservatives understand the harmony of interest and how it influences the civil society. Each person is their own unique spiritual being. A moral order exists. We talk about this often on this podcast, from this microphone, about the building of a life of virtue. Another thing that conservatives believe in their worldview is we have a duty as a citizen in our country.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to the book to finalize all of this. In the civil society, private property and liberty are inseparable. Right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and or physical labor. As the individual's time on earth is finite, so too is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his private property enslaves him to another and denies him his liberty. In the civil society, a rule of law which is just known and predictable and applied equally, albeit imperfectly, provides the governing framework for and restraints on the polity, thereby nurturing the civil society and serving as a check against the arbitrary use and hence abuse of power.
Speaker 1:For the conservative, the civil society has as its highest purpose its preservation and improvement. Society has as its highest purpose its preservation and improvement. The modern liberal believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the declaration and the order of the civil society in whole or part. For the modern liberal, the individual's imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state, and this modern liberalism promotes what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville described as a soft tyranny, which becomes increasingly more oppressive and potentially leading to a hard tyranny, some sort or some form of totalitarianism, as the word liberal is, in its classical meaning, the opposite of authoritarian. It is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the modern liberal as a statist.
Speaker 1:The founders understood that the greatest threat to liberty is an all-powerful central government where the few dictate to the many. They also knew that the rule of the mob would lead to anarchy and, in the end, despotism. Despotism is what we are finding in most of our major cities these days. Just look around, I don't have to prove it to you, it's right there before your lying eyes, as fleetwood mac sang about so many years ago I think it is Fleetwood Mac, not sure, not sure who sang it, but it's a great song nevertheless.
Speaker 1:And here's where Levin captures the heart of the matter in the conservative worldview, in its essence, going back to the book, the conservative does not despise government, he despises tyranny. This is precisely why the conservative reveres the Constitution and insists on its adherence. An effective government that operates outside its constitutional limitations is a dangerous government is a dangerous government. The conservative is alarmed by the ascent of a soft tyranny and its cheery acceptance by the neo-statist. He knows that liberty once lost is rarely recovered. He knows of the decline and the eventual failure of past republics and he knows that the best prescription for addressing society's real and perceived ailments is not to further empower an already enormous federal government beyond its constitutional limits, but to return to the founding principles. A free people living in a civil society working in self-interested cooperation and a government operating within the limits of its authority promote more prosperity and opportunity and happiness for more people than any alternative. Happiness for more people than any alternative.
Speaker 1:Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny, precisely because its principles are the founding principles, and let me repeat that once more, because that is our nugget of wisdom for this whole episode.
Speaker 1:Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles. Let that sink in, because its principles are the founding principles. As we go through this next year and we gear up for our 250th celebration of our country's founding and its existence, keep that nugget of wisdom in the back of your mind. Keep that nugget of wisdom in the back of your mind. Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny, precisely because its principles are the founding principles. So, in today's Liberty Minute, in the short term, as we approach our national birthday this July 4th, our 249th, let us point to the good works that tell the American story as a land of hope that we learned about yesterday. As Americans, we know we are always working and striving towards the ideals of our country and please remember that, as Americans and as conservatives, that conservatism is the antidote to tyranny, precisely because its principles are the founding principles. Now, join us tomorrow where we will reveal book three in our countdown to our national birthday, celebrating our great country and the exceptional nature of our national character.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.