We’re Better Off With A King- Patrick Henry Was Right

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The Fraud Of Libertarian Views Of The Constitution Exposed By Patrick Henry

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “This is the exact opposite of what the fairy tale history books tell us about the cradle and the birth of liberty.  Historian Lance Banning has a book and it’s just blasphemous, “Sacred Fire of Liberty”: This is James Madison summoning forth from the ethereal – the penumbras that we have emanating from the Constitution today, Madison could see them into the future.  It’s just a crock.  The whole thing is a crock.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

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Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  In Liberty, the God That Failed, people that have read the book will know this, of course, you as the author know this – Mr. Henry is one of the few founders that escapes the wrath of Ferrara.

Chris Ferrara:  No.  That’s in prominence about the book along the lines of that I devote an awful lot of time to making the other founding fathers look like hypocrites.  Those that say this haven’t read the book very closely or haven’t read it at all.  The point is not to expose hypocrisy among the founders for the sake of making them look bad.  I had a very limited purpose here.  My purpose was to expose a particular type of hypocrisy in terms of the exercise of authority.  My only point is that there is no such thing as liberty in the sense in which it was sold to the people, that is, freedom from government, a paradise in which everyone is left alone to do as he pleases and there’s never any ruler to get in your way.

The point that I make by showing how the founders exercised authority is that what happened with the American Revolution is that one sovereign was simply replaced by another ultimately much more powerful sovereign.  The reality of human existence as revealed by the founders’ own conduct is, you are going to be living under a ruler of one sort or another since the fall of man.  That is the human condition.  The idea that you can escape political authority in some halcyon scenario where government disappears is a libertarian illusion.  That’s why I go into such detail to show how, when the founders actually exercised power, after they overthrew the reign of King George and the reach of the government of England, they did so with voluptuous abandon.

When you listen to Patrick Henry’s speech, you get the distinct impression of the immense irony of what he’s saying.  He’s really saying, whether he realized it at the time or not, that maybe we’re better off with old King George thousands of miles away across the ocean, who couldn’t consolidate his authority here in America because we had already become, to a large extent, de facto independent colonies.  The logic of that arrangement would have worked itself eventually into actual independence, I believe.  Patrick Henry made a very interesting prophecy in opposing the ratification of the Constitution.  He gave several fiery orations against ratification.

One thing he said, which is quite telling, is, and I’m quoting, “The tyranny of Philadelphia may be like the tyranny of George III,” but he didn’t stop there.  In another oration he said, and this is the ultimate irony, “The President and Senators,” meaning of the new government he was opposing, “have nothing to lose.  They have not that interest in the preservation of the Government, that the King and Lords have in England. They will therefore be regardless of the interests of the people.”  Here he is in an exercise, that is so ultimately ironic, predicting that those who were forming the new government, would be less heedful of the rights of the people than the king and the House of Lords.  This is Patrick Henry saying this.

Mike:  This is the exact opposite of what the fairy tale history books tell us about the cradle and the birth of liberty.  Historian Lance Banning has a book and it’s just blasphemous, “Sacred Fire of Liberty”: This is James Madison summoning forth from the ethereal – the penumbras that we have emanating from the Constitution today, Madison could see them into the future.  It’s just a crock.  The whole thing is a crock.

FOLKS, a message from Mike – The Project 76 features, Church Doctrine videos and everything else on this site are supported by YOU. We have over 70, of my personally designed, written, produced and directed products for sale in the Founders Tradin’ Post, 24/7,  here. You can also support our efforts with a Founders Pass membership granting total access to years of My work for just .17 cents per day. Thanks for 17 years of mike church.com! – Mike

Ferrara:  I’ll tell you what.  Another fallacious bit of pure mythology is the conservative-libertarian narrative that the American Revolution was really a very conservative affair, that the founders created a limited government with checks and balances.  Patrick Henry could see that that was nonsense at the very time ratification was being debated.  One of the key pieces he focused on, and there’s a couple I’ll talk about today, is this little phrase “we the people.”

Mike:  He began the speech on – you and I have read the same book obviously, the University of Wisconsin Press’s edition of the ratification debates.  When he opened his oration on the 4^th of June, the first day of the convention, after they had all agreed we’re going to go clause by clause, Henry went: Yeah, right, that’s going to happen.  Henry stands up and goes, “Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people?”  What’s your take on that?

Ferrara:  He’s absolutely right, and I’ll tell you why in a minute.  Let’s see what he said.  “Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states?”  Then he goes on to say, “The people gave them no power to use their name.  That they,” meaning the delegates in Philadelphia meeting behind closed doors, “exceeded their power is perfectly clear.”  That’s why he said that they tyranny of Philadelphia may be like the tyranny of George III, only to go on to say it would actually end up being worse.  “We, the people” would turn out to have unlimited power because the federal government, having been formed by “we, the people” would have a direct line of authority to each individual person in the United States, as Patrick Henry rightly predicted.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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