Peaceful Political Revolution in America
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, James Wilson, Thomas Paine, and many other American patriots and revolutionaries completely agreed with this simple but compelling statement made by President Washington. Yet today, very few Americans know what the basis of our form of government is, let alone understand what it means.
This Podcast will dive into the most important and most censored story in America. We will uncover the myths behind our constitutional history and reveal some of the startling facts about our founding as a nation. Hang on tight! If you haven't honed up on your American history, if you think you understand our American political system, you may be in for a shock.
Peaceful political revolution is your unique American heritage. It is what makes our democracy so special and what makes your role in American politics so important. Are you ready for a peaceful political revolution? Where does it come from? How does it happen? What can you do to change our political system for the better?
We will address these questions and many more in the upcoming Podcasts, so hang on. If you think our politics are bad and only getting worse, you may find that a peaceful political revolution is the antidote.
Peaceful Political Revolution in America
S3 E8 A Constitution For The Living with Beau Breslin
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Hi, I'm John Mulkins. Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast.
When the National co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America talks about abolishing the Senate, a lot of Americans panic. It's hard for most of us to imagine living under a constitution other than the one we all know — even though our faith in government is at an all-time low. We are living in extraordinary times, and it's fair to say the framers of our 238-year-old Constitution had no idea what today's society would look like two remarkable centuries after they were all gone. Still, they understood, at least in principle, that our Constitution would need to evolve with our society, with technology, and with the challenges and discoveries they could never have imagined.
George Washington may have declared that "the basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government, when done as an explicit act of the people as a whole" — but he never explained how that could happen. Surely the framers were in no rush to make it obvious. They were still shaken from Shays' Rebellion, staring down the collapse of the Articles of Confederation, and they wanted stability more than they wanted democracy in 1787. So, they gathered themselves in Independence Hall, locked the doors and shuttered the windows, and in secret, sweltering in the heat, built a system designed to secure their role as political elites — one built to restrain the spirit of democracy the War of Independence had unleashed just eleven years earlier.
But Thomas Jefferson had his concerns. He argued that the earth belongs to the living, that no generation had the right to bind the next, and that constitutions should be rewritten every 19 years. But Americans have never grappled with the question of how to do that, let alone should they. Today, we'll have a look at what could have been had they taken Jefferson's advice.
Beau Breslin holds the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government at Skidmore College, where he has served as Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He's the author of The Communitarian Constitution, From Words to Worlds, and his latest book, A Constitution For The Living, imagining how five different generations of Americans might have rewritten the nation's most fundamental law.
He'll walk us through those imaginary halls of history: the constitutional conventions that might have happened, the amendments that could have been written, and the fate of the Senate, which has outlived every challenge to its undemocratic authority...until 2022.
It's a fun thought experiment, but a serious one, as it forces us to ask not just whether our political system is working, but whether Americans could ever create the tools we need to fix our Constitution when the Constitution itself becomes the problem.
This is my conversation with Beau Breslin. I hope you enjoy it. Please like and subscribe if you find this conversation thought-provoking!
AUDIO PODCAST:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1861129/episodes/19623624
YOUTUBE:
https://youtu.be/4Q-kOrPGoe8
A Constitution For The Living
https://a.co/d/0bi5T1Fh
Article:
https://thepenngazette.com/constitution-revised/
The Earth Belongs to the Living
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-james-madison-17/