Barry Shain on Equality, Rights, and Federalism

Barry Shain talks about American Founding narratives.

00:00 American Visions
02:13 The Declaration of Independence
07:06 Equality
10:00 Abraham Lincoln
11:24 Victimology
12:21 Self-Government
14:26 Localism
19:53 Lincoln Douglas Debates
22:31 Civil, Natural & Inalienable Rights
25:02 1619 Project
27:34 Harry Jaffa
32:26 Federalists and Nationalists
37:01 The Federalist Papers
39:02 Conservatism

[marcguy]

Brilliant thinker and ideas I've never heard of. Thank you, Jon, for this interview.

[timsmith]

Leo Strauss did not end up at the University of Dallas. He’s mixing up Strauss with Willmore Kendall. I’m a graduate of UD.

[timsmith]

Jaffa’s argument in favor of Lincoln was grounded in his understanding of natural law as being above and over democracy, i.e., that self government could not be used to vote in something that went against natural law. Slavery went against natural law and was based on convention. Thus, the claim of self determination of the states was not justified. I’m not sure that this guest is correctly representing Jaffa’s arguments well.

[richardroda]

This well spoken gentleman is so far off base, I don't know where to start. First off, it is obvious that he is a secular humanist possibly a hard core atheist. He is wrong on many fronts such as no one can define what "equal" means, not even Christianity. What does Gal. 3:28 state... " There is neither jew nor greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all in one under Christ Jesus. In other words God see us as all equal. Yes there are different responsibilities etc. but to make a statement that there is no such thing as equality is ludicrous.
I think that the founding fathers were really onto something when they drafted up this awesome conservative REPUBLIC form of government . These gentleman constantly refer to our government as a democracy which historically destroys itself with 200 years give or take. These two sound so well versed and intelligent but couldn't be further from truth. Well did Provebs 14:22 state, " There is a way that seems right to a man but it's end is the way of death".
There are many other examples in this interview that are nothing but seat of the pants wisdom.
Very disheartening...

[timsmith]

This good guy / bad guy approach to history and the history of ideas is highly problematic and generally leads to misconceptions and inaccurate view of key thinkers in the history of Western civilization.