An Interview with Peter Berkowitz

The US Constitution is one of the greatest governing documents in history. No other charter has so deliberately advanced the belief that the government’s main purpose is to protect the individual rights of its citizens. The founders, recognizing the natural rights of mankind, created a seminal document that protects an individual’s unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  

Despite the exceptionalism of the Constitution and its battle-tested endurance, there are grave threats that could severely undermine and weaken it. 

As we continue our 20th anniversary celebration of Bradley Prize winners, our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Peter Berkowitz, one of the country’s leading political thinkers and Constitutional scholars. Berkowitz warns that a decades long movement to distort the meaning of rights, the weaponization of the legal system, and a general lack of understanding of our rights, pose serious challenges to the preservation of the Constitution.    

Topics Discussed on this Episode: 

·         What drew Berkowitz to the study of the Constitution and America’s founding principles 

·         Current threats to the Constitution 

·         Politicization of the Supreme Court 

·         Expansion of the administrative state 

·         Differences on the right about the role of government and foreign policy 

·         America’s role in the world 

·         Pro-Palestinian protests and anti-American sentiment 

·         Opportunity for higher education reform 

·         Will the Constitution endure? 

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He previously served as the Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, executive secretary of the department's Commission on Unalienable Rights, and senior adviser to the Secretary of State. Berkowitz is a columnist for RealClear Politics and is a 2017 Bradley Prize winner.