The Bob Zadek Show

Latter-day patriots often speak of the U.S. Constitution as if it's sacred scripture – the wisdom of ages, revealed to men of letters through the divine faculties of reason. Although this makes for a good story, Bob and past guests have poked holes in that narrative, and revealed how certain compromises required for ratification were a bridge too far for some of the wisest Founding Fathers. The skeptics, known as the anti-federalists, worried that the limited powers outlined in the Articles of Confederation were not circumscribed clearly enough in the new constitution. Seeing the end result of these compromises – a too-powerful federal government – we must give credit to the anti-Federalists. William J. Watkins Jr., a research fellow at the Independent Institute and author of a new book, Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America's First Constitution, says we should go a step further and seek the reforms they sought, as previewed in the Articles of Confederation. Widely viewed as a failure for granting states too much power, the short-lived Articles may be ripe for a revival, as Americans tire of a president who acts like a King, a congress removed from the people, and a judiciary that legislates from the bench. Join Bob and William as they discuss the relevance of anti-federalist ideals to current events, from Trump's executive orders to California’s new secession movement.

• Website: independent.org
• Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America's First Constitution (Book) 

• All Powerful Federal Government – Did the Founders Blow It?, Clark Neilly III, April 6, 2014

• Was The Ratification of the Constitution A Mistake?, Thomas Fleming, Oct. 21, 2012

Link

Under President Obama, Republicans grew accustomed to their role opposing the prevailing winds of Big Government. Apparently the fastest way to turn conservative hawks into libertarian doves is to elect a national security hawk and Democrat as president. Now, the Right’s small-government rhetoric will be put to several key tests. Chief among them is whether they will bring military and entitlement spending under control, or let the national debt grow to even more unsustainable levels. Ivan Eland (Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute) spent 15 years working for Congress on national security issues, and served as Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office; he knows a national security threat when he sees one. He joins Bob to point out the elephant in the room – one that's not going anywhere just because of the new “elephant” in the oval office. Eland identifies the United States’ precarious fiscal situation as the single greatest threat to our security, citing retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen as one authority who can read the writing on the wall. President Trump may talk a big game when it comes to cutting wasteful military spending, but will he keep his promises to scale back U.S. intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere?

Download this episode as a podcast in iTunes.

• Website: Ivan Eland: Articles (The Independent Institute)

• Twitter: Ivan Eland (@Ivan_Eland) | Twitter

• "Is Trump Already Headed Down the Path of the George W. Bush Presidency?", by Ivan Eland. Huffington Post, 11/9/16

• "National debt is our biggest security threat," by Ivan Eland, USA Today, 1/10/17

• VIDEO - Washington Journal Ivan Eland US Policy Toward | Video | C-SPAN

United Iraq Falls: Ivan Eland on Partitioning for Peace, June 29, 2014

With the inauguration of President-elect Trump coming later this week, citizens of the United States have developed radically divergent expectations for the next four years. Those who enthusiastically pulled the lever for Trump see a man who can “Make America Great Again” with policies prioritizing domestic interests, while many others fear that he will roll back the progressive, big-government victories of the last eight years. However, the two camps may share more in common than they realize. Both, after all, view government as a primary force to manipulate industries and individual actions to improve outcomes. Dr. Tom Palmer, executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Network, has an alternative way of looking at things. His new book, “Self Control or State Control? You Decide,” goes beyond mere ideology to questions that every thinking person should be asking. His essays (among several others featured in the book) speak to the importance of personal responsibility to freedom, and offer both a historical and practical perspective to support the central conclusion: if you seek self-determination, then you must also strive for self-control.

• Website: AtlasNetwork.org – Dr. Tom G. Palmer

• Twitter: Tom G Palmer (@tomgpalmer) | Twitter

• Book: SELF-CONTROL OR STATE CONTROL? YOU DECIDE by Dr. Tom G. Palmer

• The Morality of Capitalism with Tom Palmer, October 28, 2012

Libertarians constantly warn partisans of both sides to be wary of expanding executive power. With each changing of the guard, the ascendant party seems to suffer a collective amnesia in its push to grant the president ever greater authority to enact their preferred agenda. Republicans and Democrats alike neglect the fact that giving power to “Leviathan” works like a ratchet: it only moves in one direction. In the waning hours of President Obama’s lame duck term, his administration is rushing to pass hundreds of new regulations which will saddle the nation well beyond his formal exit from office. Sam Batkins, Director of regulatory policy at the American Action Forum, is putting a spotlight on the costs of this “midnight regulation.” His research shows how this is problem is getting worse with each out-going administration. Batkins joins Bob to review that latest round of administrative lawmaking, with the EPA leading General Obama’s “last stand” – battling to the end for efficiency standards for every imaginable machine and appliance. To paraphrase George Orwell, if you want to picture the future, imagine a fluorescent lamp stamping on a human face – forever.

• American Action Forum

• @SamBatkins

• Regulations at the End of the Obama Administration - Podcast, The Federalist Society,  September 23, 2016

• [Audio] “I’ve got a pen and a phone” - President Obama

• Professor Bernstein vs. President Obama: Battle of the Con Law Professors, January 3, 2016

• Lawson Bader on *I, Whiskey* & Curtailing the Regulatory State, July 19, 2015

• Has America Become an "Elective Monarchy"?, October 24, 2014

• The New Royal Prerogative: Philip Hamburger on Administrative Law, September 04, 2014

• The Supreme Court Has Spoken: The Unanimous Decision in U.S. Army Corp of Engineers v. Hawkes, July 5, 2016

On this day in 1790, President George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address to the assembled Congress in New York City.

Casey Given is a man on a mission. Ever since founding the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Liberty in 2009, he has worked tirelessly to advance “a free academy and a free society” – writing and organizing on behalf of the libertarian minority on college campuses across the country. Now, as Director of Young Voices, an initiative of international nonprofit Students for Liberty, Casey helps students and young professionals jumpstart their careers as classically liberal pundits, and compete with the dominant progressive liberalism espoused by millennials. Young Voices recently published a collection of 13 essays that bodes well for the future of liberty in our lifetime (A Future for Millennials: Policies that Can Restore Prosperity). Reminiscent of Milton Friedman's classic *Free to Choose,* A Future for Millennials renews the case for using the power of the market to solve the most pressing issues of 2016. Casey joins Bob to talk about what is on younger people’s minds, and how the Young Voices network is penetrating the thick fog of ideological conformism on college campuses and in the mainstream media. 

LINKS:

Young Voices website

Students for Liberty (International nonprofit)

Follow @CaseyJGiven on Twitter