The phonecall is up on YouTube now, I got through tonight during the last part of the third hour. Levin has been asking the question for it seems years now "How would you describe our form of government?" and I have been wanting to answer that question for quite some time now. Last Wednesday(In the beginning of the second hour), he did it again and I took the opportunity to answer the question. This really was spur of the moment, if I would have had my preference I would not have done this so close to my efforts as I described to KrisAnne Hall. But he said it so I called. Here's the transcript of what I said:
Last Wednesday you asked the question "This isn't Constitutional Republicanism, so what is it?" and you talked about it a little while ago as well and you're right it is alien.What we live under is a progressive democracy and I have two pieces of information that I can illustrate this to you.
When I say that we live in a progressive democracy I'm also referencing an out of copyright book by Herbert Croly, that was specifically recommended by former president Theodore Roosevelt.
The first thing, Croly writes about "worshippers of the word" and he talks about the "monarchy of the word." What he's getting at is the Federal Constitution. We've always known that these progressives hate the constitution, and it's written right here on page 44. He says "The Law in the shape of the Federal Constitution"....
Levin: Alright you don't need to read it to me I believe you. As a matter of fact we can do better than that, we can quote Woodrow Wilson.
Yes. Yes, you have a chapter about Woodrow Wilson in your book Ameritopia and I'm so thankful you did that. The other thing I was going to mention, again from Progressive Democracy, is he talks about social legislation. He talks about how legislators have become innovators. And how legislation...... instead of legislation taking care of everything it gets passed off to a commission, and that's exactly what Obamacare does.
Why is Obamacare 3000 pages? Because it's not legislation, it's social legislation. That's why there's been 15,000 regulations that come out of it.
Levin: You know what it really is too my friend, as I'm listening to you, it is a re-writing of the constitution that's what it is. So it's not really a matter of three branches of the federal government anymore. It's three branches and this other thing, which lords over us. Right?
Yes sir, they've been trying to get around the constitution for 100 years and the sad thing is.....
Levin: And it's worked.
They're almost there.
Levin: Let me tell you something, you're very good. Do you have all my books? or...
So here is where he offered me a book and of course who could say no? But I'm certain I left an impression, given that a few minutes after I was off the line he references my call and the things I was trying to get across.
As to the article I mentioned from Theodore Roosevelt, it's Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy"
I skipped a few beats in my call, for example one of the things I wanted to mention is that Croly's influence is still with us today. He co-founded The New Republic. You may have heard of it. When he mentioned Woodrow Wilson I would have liked to have pointed out that I blog about these progressives and that I have it as a personal goal to make it easier to locate the information(and others) that I talked about. But it was not my objective here to go about mentioning the blog site.
Lastly, I intended on using the word framework. This concept of "social legislation" is a powerful one that I wish I could educate more people about; though calling into a national radio show is indeed a good step. But wheras legislation is intended to deal with x y or z, social legislation is different. It sets up a framework in which regulation falls into, like a cup or a bowl, and the regulators take care of the rest. This is how Congress gets away with not dealing with problems and why the massive bureaucracy is abusive of the people. After 100 years, they're arrogant and think nobody can stop them.
Portions of what I stated to Levin, you will catch the similarity to two of my prior blog posts in which I discuss these very things. I don't want to re-hash old posts, but I do want to give you the direct source links and quotes. Here is the post about Progressive Democracy, page 44:
The Law in the shape of the Federal Constitution really came to be a monarchy of the Word. It had been imposed upon the popular will, which was the only power capable of disputing its authority; and its friends came more and more to assume that the imposition was wise and beneficent. A systematic attempt was made to justify the supremacy of the Law. The people were warned that, if they rebelled, the just and awful judgment of the Lord would overtake them. Thus the aspirations and the conviction of the early democrats that popular political authority should be righteously expressed hardened into a system, which consecrated one particular machinery of possibly righteous expression. Reverence for law was made to mean reverence for one specific formulation of Law. Reverence for order was made to mean reverence for an established order. All that the American people had to do to insure their political salvation was vigilantly to safeguard the specific formulation of law and order which was found in the sacred writing.
There's more in this book and on these pages, I hope that people will be encouraged to read it. Here's my past post about social legislation, Progressive Democracy page 362:
Legislation is being used as a means of modifying social behavior, not social behavior as an excuse for formulating legislation. The legislator has become an innovator. He is dealing with an extremely complex and elusive material, and it is most difficult for him to define in advance how the objects of the law are best to be realized. The difficulty of the job has not prevented him from very frequently trying it out ; but he has learned something from his failures. He is learning that an extremely detailed and comprehensive statute is usually ineffective, because of the impossibility of anticipating all the conditions which affect the operation of a specific rule. Social legislation is coming more and more to demand results rather than prescribe means. Statutes are being passed in the interest of the safety of employees in factories, which merely define safety as such freedom from danger to life and health as the nature of the employment will reasonably permit. The duty of drawing up a set of regulations which will provide sufficient safeguards for the life and health of the operatives is intrusted to a commission. All that the legislature does is to declare that industrial employment shall be reasonably safeguarded. The commission makes a comprehensive investigation of the conditions upon which the health and safety of the industrial employees depend and it issues orders based on the result of its investigations.
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