According to the left, conservatives are the main threat to democracy and the American way of life. On this week’s Liberty Cafe, we take a look at the historical ignorance and outright hated of liberty that is driving the progressives’ claims.
This podcast was transcribed by a robot called Otter.ai. Please forgive any errors is the text, as robots till have a lot to learn:
It seems like every time I browse through the mainstream media, I found out that I threat to democracy Well, okay. The progressive never attacked me by name or not too often anyway, but they do attack a lot of the foundations and institutions that I believe are important to liberty. On this week’s episode 109 At Liberty Cafe will talk about the historical ignorance and the outright hatred of liberty that drives the left’s claims that democracy is under assault. Hi, this bill Peacock, and I’m the host of the Liberty cafe. It’s a blessing to have you here with me today. I hope you’ve been here with me for a while. But if you’re brand new welcome, and I hope you’ll be with me for a while moving forward. And also hope that you’ll run over to Texas scorecard, a great group of folks over there fighting for liberty, and they’re the sponsor of the Liberty cafe. So let’s let’s look more closely, digging a little deeper on all these alleged threats to democracy we’re hearing about all the time. What got me thinking about this discussing this topic on the Liberty cafe was an article I ran across on some online rag named balls and strikes. Now I’ve no idea why they came up with that name, but I’m assuming that it’s based on the old phrase about baseball, umpires, I call them like I see them. The idea being that whether a pitch is a ball or a strike is black and white. And the folks at balls and strikes will call politics just like the umpires do. balls and strikes. Well, if you’ve watched a baseball game of light with with the head, the strike zone right there on the TV, you know that what is a ball on a strike is often anything but black and white pitches that was completely across the plate, or fairly regularly called balls and pitches. two or even three inches outside the strike zone sometimes send batters back to the dugouts, just shaking their heads. And these calls often actually take place in very critical situations and again. Now, it’s not that I don’t believe that there is such a thing. There’s such a thing as black and white in this world. Some things are right, and others are wrong. Some are good, and others are bad. The thing is that most progressives have no standard by which to judge what is black and white. Not Not only do they reject God’s word, which is the only standard we can really use to judge these things. But they often deny there is any standard by which we can judge anything well, except, of course, their own beliefs. That’s why I ran it when I ran across this article and black and balls and strikes, and it’s titled The Supreme Court is going out of its way to remain unaccountable. I was quite skeptical of their take on this, even though I’m some in some ways sympathetic with the title. So don’t get me wrong, though. I’m grateful for some of the recent Supreme Court rulings on abortions, gun rights, etc. I’m not the biggest fan of the court. I haven’t done a comprehensive study of all its all of its decisions. But my guess is that unbalanced, the Supreme Court has done this country more harm than it has good. For instance, in a lot of very expensive reading of the Constitution is Necessary and Proper Clause which has allowed for a very expansive government, much more so than I think the founders expected. Then it caved in the 1930s to the threat of FDR, the threats of FDR and allowed his new deal to go forward through an expansive reading of the Constitution, its commerce clause, same kind of thing they’d done more than 100 years earlier, with the Necessary and Proper Clause. And then the court declared in this the Civil Rights Act of 1964 constitutional even though it was almost identical to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, that a previous Supreme Court had overturned as unconstitutional. And of course, in recent years, we’ve seen how the court has cleared the way for the murder of millions of American children, the destruction of American marriages and the corruption of American elections. So you may or may not agree with me on the court, but I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with me The tape by James Lorac, the author of the article on balls and strikes, in the in his article about the Supreme Court make no sense at all. But before we get to his article, I think it might be worth listening to some other liberals out there spouting very similar anti democracy, malarkey. I’ve got four clips that I pulled up off the internet. And most off cable news, the one of them is from Congress. So let’s roll with those. Now. We start off with a clip here from Tucker Carlson, followed by a CNN host complaining about his anti democratic be us. Why is it disloyal to side with Russia? But loyal to side with Ukraine? They’re both foreign countries that don’t care anything about the United States. Kind of strange, easy answer there one’s a democracy, the others a brutal autocracy. The real question here may be why is Rupert Murdoch allowing this anti democratic BS on the air there? I really don’t have a lot to say about what the CNN anchor said here. The only thing I would say is that anyone who thinks that Ukraine, the Ukraine has some idealized or bastion of functioning democracy can’t really be taken seriously. So let’s move on to an another clip this time from CNBC. Robert, it’s great to see I want to read a little bit from your piece. It’s titled The Arizona Republican Party’s anti democracy experiment. In it Robert writes, there is more at stake than the health of the Republican Party when its core activist as well as a growing number of officials. And those campaigning for governmental positions openly espouse hostility not just to democratic principles, but increasingly to the word democracy itself. So this piece was about a nomination of Republicans. In Arizona, there’s a primary like, people like Carrie Lake. But as we know, elections in Arizona’s Maricopa County have been a mess, just this year, back in 2020, as well, but apparently when Republicans complain about this, even though the elections in Arizona were being run by Republicans were According to CNBC, at least we are guilty of espousing hostility towards democracy itself. Now let’s move on to a clip from the United States government. This one has representative Jamie Raskin, and I’m not sure where he’s from, but I’m sure he’s what we might call a northeast liberal. He looks like a northeast liberal anyway. And he is speaking in his role as chairman during a hearing of the US House Oversight Committee on civil rights and civil liberties. Here’s what he had to say. In prior hearings over the last three years long before violent insurrectionists bearing Confederate battle flags, overran the Capitol on January 6 2021. We found that violent white supremacy and its partner anti democratic extremism today constitute the most serious domestic terror threat facing our people. This is actually pretty disturbing. Here we have a high ranking member of the United States Congress branding is anti democratic extremists, those of us who don’t like what the FBI has been doing lately, with Russia gate and the Hunter Biden laptop, for instance. We don’t like what’s been going on with our elections, we just want elections that are run under the laws set forth in the Constitution, and by the state legislatures, not by a bunch of judges and bureaucrats. Or maybe it’s just those who decided to vote for Trump, Donald Trump. And then he lumps us in, along with our partners, the violent white supremacist, as the most serious domestic terror threat facing our country. This would be laughable if it weren’t so serious, and because of the power that these folks have and what they could do to us if they continue to pursue this path. Finally, let’s listen to one more clip. This was from MSNBC, where we hear from Harvard Law Professor Steven Levitsky, what would you say are the main anti democratic elements in our Constitution? Well, I will start as you as you mentioned, with the Senate the fact that each state no matter what the population has equal representation in the Senate is extraordinarily undemocratic. We’re the least Democratic Senate and the Democrat in the democratic world outside of Argentina and Brazil. The electoral college is obviously profoundly undemocratic. Now we actually get to the core of what the progressive liberals are complaining about they they’re making up all this stuff all the time to blame us as extremist and white supremacist and, you know, threats to democracy and all these kinds of things. But what they really don’t like, is the US Constitution. And the reason they don’t like the US Constitution is because they don’t like anything in the Constitution that prevents a majority of progressive voters from telling the rest of us conservative Christians from how to live our lives, or from using their majority in Congress, or in the state legislature and City Hall, to take the money away from us and use it for their pet projects, through taxes, or they want to use their majority. And they can’t use a majority, sometimes because of the Constitution. Because they want to take away our ability to speak freely, or they want to find us or even sometimes put us in jail when we disagree with them. So it’s really kind of funny, though, how this actually works out. Because we see it’s not really about democracy. Because when progressives are not in the majority, they’re not complaining about the lack of democracy. They actually complain about the outcomes of democratic elections that results in the election of conservative officials and conservative policies. So I ran across an article in the Texas Tribune recently. If you don’t know the Texas Tribune, is online progressive newspaper, if you will, right here in Austin, Texas, or I’m not in Austin anymore. But I used to be in Austin, I’m still close to it. But anyway, that’s what it is. And they cover things from a very left wing progressive perspective. So let me just read a little bit from the tribune for you about these articles elections on midlane. When Progressive Era advocates pushed for municipal elections to be nonpartisan, they sought to remove party politics from local government. More than a century later, party politics appear to have seeped back in to down ballot races, injecting political ideology into Municipal Affairs in places like Odessa, an oil town in west West Texas. So here we see this discussion going on, about the elections out in Odessa. Now we don’t know what the exact problem is, except we see that political ideology and partisan politics seem to be the problem. Now we can guess what those might actually be. And we’ll find out just about in just a minute. But it turns out that the voters in Midland, through democratic elections have elected a solid conservative majority to the city council, including the mayor. I think it’s four to one conservatives over liberals. And then this newly democratic elected majority fired to liberal city employees. So so that’s what happens. That’s what they’re not happy about. They’re not unhappy about democracy anymore. Matter of fact, I mean, about attacks on democracy. They don’t like democracy in this case. And here’s how the the tribune kind of talks about it and makes their case. During a town meeting this week, the Republican back majority on Odessa’s nonpartisan city council, I guess we could say. Formerly nonpartisan, according to the tribune voted as a block to terminate to city employees, the city manager and city attorney without clear cause. The vote came just weeks after three new city council members were sworn into office. And before these new members had spent significant time working with the employees, they let go. mayor, Mayor Javier Hoeven and four council members, all of whom have been supported by ector County Republican Party voted to fire the two employees, city manager, Michael Marijo mereo and city attorney Natasha Brooks. So notice how the tribune is not cheering the outcome of the democratic elections in Midland. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Democracy is just fine when progressives are winning, but when Christians and or conservatives when the process has spiraled downward in the party politics and political ideology, which according to the trivium are never present, of course, when progressive wins. Alright, so this finally brings us back to the article in black and white about the US Supreme Court. I won’t read the whole article, but here is the author’s primary complaint. He writes, The Supreme Court has always been one of America’s least democratic institutions, both in terms of who’s on it. Nine unelected lawyers, mostly from the country’s most elite law schools and how it operates. So here we have, again, liberals complaining about the undemocratic nature of the US Constitution, whether it’s the US Senate, the Electoral College, or the Supreme Court. The big problem with the Constitution, according these liberal progressives, is that it undermines democracy. So to that, how do I respond? What I say is, you guys are just now figuring this out. My high school government students understand this better apparently, then these liberals do, especially this Harvard law professor, who should know better. I mean, what happened back in 1787, during the Constitutional Convention, is that our founding fathers intentionally put anti democratic elements into the constitution. So the question is not whether they’re in there, there have been in there for a long time, and everybody’s known it for a long time. The question is, why did they do that? And why are people complaining about it today, when they really haven’t been complaining about it? Before this. So they did it because they wanted to protect against what is happening now in our country, a majority of citizens using the institutions of democratic government to abuse or take away the inalienable rights given to us by our Creator, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is so straightforward. Any high school students should know about these things, college political science students should know about these things. Certainly a Harvard law professor should know about these things. But if they do know about it, they’re just if the Liberals know about it, they’re just totally ignoring it. And they’re just going with this anti Democratic majority, because their will is being thrown sorted. And that’s a good thing, because what what the founding fathers did was put this stuff in the Constitution was to protect against what they call at the time, the tyranny of the majority, or what you might also call mob rule, which is a lot of what we’re seeing today. So here’s how James Madison, in Federalist 47, explained the rationale for the elements of the Constitution that kept power from being accumulated in just one place. He wrote the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many. And whether hereditary, self appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. So what he’s talking about here, is that power, constituted or put into a majority of the citizens hands, and just being able to wield it right and left, that is tyranny. The founding fathers were far from perfect. And many of them like Madison, I think successfully fought for a centralized government far stronger than has been good for our country. But to a man, they all even those who were not Christian, understood the fallen nature of mankind. And they also understood that without some elements in the Constitution that kept power from being accumulated either institutionally different branches of government, or geographically, well, for instance, in Washington, DC are temporarily, you know, being able to exercise all the power all at one time, America would be in trouble, kind of like we are today. So the founders were strongly influenced in this perspective, why they were concerned about tyranny of the majority under democracy, because they were strongly influenced by Augustine, the theologian from the four hundreds ad, and it was either directly for some of them and indirectly for others. So Augustine’s work, for instance, on original sin, which was the idea that humans are all fallen and corrupt because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience against God. Right. So that that was his concept, its understanding of the Bible, I think correctly, so about original sin. And see in his view was very popular with the leaders of the Protestant Reformation over in Europe, and England and Scotland in the 1500s or so, and it was those reformers were very influential and really laid the foundation nation for American independence, it wouldn’t have happened. I don’t think if it weren’t for those men who and women who fought against the Catholic Church and reformed Christian doc brought reformed Christian doctrine out into the public eye. So if we’re looking at Augustine, this is one way that he described the human nature. In his book, The City of God. He wrote, The Society of mortals spread abroad through the through the earth everywhere, and in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own interest and lust. While that is what is long for either suffices for none, or not for all because it is not the very thing for in almost all nations, the very voice of nature somehow proclaims that those who happen to be conquered, should choose rather to be subject to their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike destructions. He sees very nothing very good about human nature. And I think he’s right. So the founders tried their best to protect Americans from this fallen human nature. But it appears that they really underestimated the problem. Because as America has moved into its post Christian phase, you might call today, we’re looking more and more like the people that Paul wrote about in Romans chapter three. None is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God all of turned aside, together, they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive the venom of ASP is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their pas are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known. I’d suggest that this is really what we are seeing. In those on the progressive left today, many of those, at least on the progressive left today, who are fighting to make the country more democratic. People whose mouths are full of curses and bitterness, whose feet are swift to shed blood. They’re not interested, really in democracy, they are interested in power and wealth, and to be honest, eliminating those who stand in their ways. Now, as Christians, we can’t gloat over that we’re not one of them, we can oppose them, and do so from a righteous position and a righteous cause. But we can’t gloat. Because it is only by the power of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit that we have turned, we have not turned out like them, but instead turn to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. So I think this also points us to the truth that we cannot change society through elections, or education, or think tanks. These are all important, no doubt. But the only way if we see humanity in this way that Augustine and the reformers in the Bible sees humanity. Really the only way the only changes that move us towards liberty is through changes in the hearts of 1000s, and ultimately millions of our fellow citizens. And the only way we can bring this about as Christians is by worshiping God, by praying to Him. And by bringing the whole council of his word to the public square. We need to be engaged in the public square speaking about Jesus but not just Jesus in a gospel sense. But Jesus is the King of the world, who’s who’s ruling over us and whose laws mean something when we’re debating, having public debates over laws and public policy, and social justice and those type of things. The only thing I can say from that is just thanks be to God. That this is not only possible that it can happen, but that we can be sure one day it will come to pass. Well, thanks once again for being with me on this week’s episode of liberty cafe. And thanks also again to our sponsor, Texas scorecard, please go over to Texas scorecard.com and see what they’re doing in the fight for liberty today. Thank you for listening to the Liberty cafe with Bill peacock. This show is produced by Texas scorecard. You can learn more about this show and find other shows at Texas scorecard dot Come be sure you subscribe and rate the show on whatever platform you listen on See you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
