The United States Constitution serves as a nearly perfect blueprint for liberty and freedom. However, a blueprint can only be functional if it is properly understood and actually followed with all that we see around us. And it’s time for us to get back to the foundations of liberty. Welcome back to Foundations of Liberty, brought to you by Veterans in Defense of liberty. I’m Darren Chappell. I’m your host for this series of lessons on the United States Constitution. We’re glad you could be with us today. Today we’re going to be taking a look at three more of the philosophers upon which the founding fathers of the United States based their deliberations and some of the conclusions that they drew to be able to formulate the Constitution of the United States. It’s important for us to understand what it is that they knew and why they did as they did, so that we can more perfectly implement those principles and foundational ideas into our own lives as we continue to try to live in relative peace and prosperity and protect the liberty of ourselves and our descendants. But it’s also important for you, who may be watching in other countries around the world, so that you can see again, not that America is just the greatest country ever. There are people who believe that, and there are others who recognize we have our problems, too. But so that when you’re considering your own government, or maybe you’re creating a new government, you can understand why the founding fathers of America did what they did. So that perhaps you can consider whether you should do something similar or maybe something you should avoid. But the whole point of this is for us to discuss the principles behind the document so that we can better understand the government of the American people and what liberty and the protections thereof are all about. We’ll be right back and begin our study together right after these messages. The first of the philosophers that we’re going to be taking a look at in today’s episode is an individual by the name of Marcus Tullius Cicero. He lived from 106 to 43 BC in Rome. He was a Roman orator and defender of natural law. Natural law being the premise that the rights of an individual, the basic right of governance and society, is given to us by God, and that we all have an innate sense of fairness and justice. We don’t always follow those things, but we all understand when something is unfair and that that is imparted to us by our Creator. Cicero was an individual who lived just before the Roman Empire came to be, just before Julius Caesar became the dictator of Rome, and then his nephew, his successor, Augustus Caesar, became the first Roman Emperor. Cicero was an individual who believed in the concept of the Republic, the idea that the people should be electing representatives to govern them based on their wants and needs and desires and cicero’s, in order, spoke significantly not only about natural moral law, but about the principle of republican government and the defense of that format of government. He was extraordinarily powerful, in his words, about the need for the people to be considered, but that democracy not be the way in which that government occurs. He understood that the will of the people, the passions of the people could overflame and overrun the intentions of good government. So he spoke about republicanism as a very strong principle that he supported throughout the entirety of his life. He also, however, was an advocate for the overthrow of an immoral government. That seems scary to talk about, doesn’t it? He suggested that when a people recognized that their government no longer represented them, that it was the right of the people to be able to rise up, overthrow that government and institute one of their own choosing so that they would be able to live in that peace and prosperity that everyone seeks and desires. That principle of the overthrow of an immoral government is exactly what the founding fathers took upon themselves to put into action in the American Revolution. They, prior to 76, saw themselves as British citizens. They had a king, they had many kings. They had a culture and a language and an identity. And even during the American Revolution, it wasn’t unanimous that the colony should separate from Great Britain, certainly not by revolution. Roughly one third of the individuals involved were patriots, one third were tories individuals supporting the crown, and one third simply did not want to rock the boat. But Cicero, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, they all believed that man has a right to live according to his own abilities, with his own liberties and freedoms intact, his rights granted to him by his God, to be protected by the government. And when government failed to protect those rights and preserve access to property and opportunity, freedom of thought and freedom of religion and freedom of speech, when government would not permit that, when government would not protect that, then the right of the people to revolt was inherent. That was the start of the American Revolution. When the people of the American colonies, overseen by Britain, owned and controlled by Britain, when the people of the colony simply could not take any more, they revolted just exactly as Cicero and countless others had taught them to do. It’s a part of how we came to be who we are. The next of the philosophers that we’re going to be taking a look at today is a few hundred years, a thousand years actually ahead of this. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher from 1588 to 1679. He lived, and Hobbs was a philosopher that was almost exclusively focused on government, and good government at that. Hobbes hobbes really focused at the premise of the people and the concept of what is called popular sovereignty. Now, the word sovereignty comes to us from Latin in Greek before that. And it means, literally, self rule. And so the idea of popular sovereignty is the right of the people to rule themselves. Now, again, we’ve talked about this extensively, but the Founding Fathers were afraid of the premise of democracy and what the mob mentality of a majority as a tyranny of the majority might do to a minority status, even to the individual. So when we talk about popular sovereignty, we’re not talking about democracy, but we are instead talking about the right of government resides within the people. And then they select their representatives to go and govern on their behalf. It’s for them. That’s what President Lincoln said a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. These principles are inherent in our in our system of governance. It’s largely due to the writings of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbs postulated what he called a state of nature, the absence of laws, anarchy, and what human beings would be like if they lived in societies with no rules whatsoever. And he said this state of nature, the absence of laws, the absence of governance and right and wrong and mores of a societal nature, he said that the state of nature, the life therein, would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. And he said it’s the purpose of government to overcome this concept of the state of nature. But it has to be a government that recognizes the principle of popular sovereignty. If you have a monarchy or a tyrant of some sort or an oligarchy or a majority in a democracy and they ignore the basic human rights of the individuals who are subjected to their government, it cannot stand the test of time. There’s no way for the people to long term support or tolerate such an grievous ignoring of their rights and their liberties and their freedoms. They just simply will not tolerate it for very long at all. He focused on the principle of popular sovereignty leading to a monarchy in the sense of being based on the consent of the governed. A king can only be in power so long as the people support the king. But when the king leaves the will of the people and the benefit of the people behind, the people will revolt. They will turn away from the monarchy, and they will not be subjects any longer. Now, Hobbes wrote a book called The Leviathan. Now, the title is taken from Job, chapter 41, verses one through 34 in the Bible, the Old Testament. In this particular passage, Job talks about the power of God in comparison to the power of man. And he begins to question why God even made him. He was feeling sorry for himself because of all of the tribulations that he had suffered. And God points him to a creature and he asks Job, can you defeat the Leviathan? I created the Leviathan. Can you deal with the Leviathan? And of course, Job couldn’t. The creature in the bible is actually described in such a way that it’s massive and has terrible teeth and claws and strength and capacities. But one of the things that specifically mentioned in the Bible about this creature is that its strength is found in its scales, the scales that covered its body, and that the scales were extraordinarily tough. But the real strength was found in the fact that its scales were so tightly joined together that no sword or spear or arrow could pierce through to the animal’s body. Hobbs took that imagery and translated into his theory of government and how it ought to be. Recognizing of popular sovereignty. He suggested that when the people bind themselves together when they become of one mind and one will when they recognize that together they are by far stronger than they could ever be individually. When they become united in purpose and intent the strongest king cannot stand before them. The strongest oligarchy cannot stand in the face of a unified, determined people bound together by common purpose and intent. Hobbs suggested, therefore, that any government that is going to be sustainable and successful has to keep in mind and has to take into account the will of the people. Popular sovereignty is where the right to govern exists and we bestow it upon those who would care for concerns of governmental control only so far as they take care of our needs, our desires and our wishes. And when any government, regardless of format, regardless of time frame of which it is found regardless of where on the earth it is found any government, when it completely disregards the people eventually they will bind together and they will create a new government that they prefer for themselves and their children. We’ll be right back after these messages and we’ll continue on our program together. Look forward to seeing you then. The last of the philosophers that we’re going to be taking a look at in today’s episode is an individual by the name of John Locke. Now, Locke lived from 1632 to 17 four and John Locke is called the father of liberalism. Now, when I say liberalism, I do not mean the way in which many modern politicians and political pundits mean when they use the word liberal or liberalism. Liberalism was a philosophy of political governance that talked about being liberating not to the left as opposed to being a conservative on the right, but being a liberal in that we’re not going to follow traditions. We’re not going to do things the way they’ve always been done. We’re going to look for new solutions which are based on reason and logic and experience rather than just simply saying well, we’ve always done it that way, so don’t even question it. We’ve always had a king. Don’t even question whether we should. Liberalism, classical liberalism it is often called, or big l liberalism is all about looking for that best way, whatever it is, whatever it is that government does. There’s got to be a better way to do things whether it’s removing corruption from the process or being more frugal with the tax dollars or looking for ways to get out of the way of entrepreneurial spirit so that government is not hindering people from expressing themselves and their lives in their best way possible. John Locke was the father of liberalism because he began to question everything. He began to question not only government and governmental forms but the people and how it is that they saw things and how it is that they recognized government in their lives and what that meant to them. He wrote about a concept called the tabula rasa which is Latin. It means an empty tablet or an empty slate. John Locke suggested that all of us when we are born our minds are empty slates that we know nothing. As an infant, there isn’t any inherent instinct. A dog, a puppy is born and it instinctively does certain things. We don’t really have that. There’s some basic biological things that infants they’re able to nurse. They cry when they’re too hot or too cold. But as a general rule, when it comes to society and the premise of humanity and the human experience we know nothing. And absolutely everything that we learn from the time of our birth until our adulthood and all the way through our lives in fact, absolutely everything that we learn through our experiences, our education our observation of the lives round about us it imprints on our minds this works, this doesn’t. This works even better. Don’t ever do that. And it’s that premise of experience and questioning and what if there’s a better way? What if there’s a different way for us to live together? What if we did this? Let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll throw it out and we’ll look for those best ways that bind us together as a society that allow us to be able to live in freedom and peace. It’s not an accident. There are a lot of people that suggest that, well, you were born in the United States and I was born in this other country and I live under this dictator and you live and you’re very, very lucky. Okay? Amen I’m blessed? I’ve been blessed with me and my family to live in the United States of America. That’s absolutely true. But the United States of America didn’t get to be the way that it is by accident. It’s more than 200 years of individuals building upon the philosophical basis that we’ve been studying in these last two episodes striving to find the better way. And we have failed. Over and again. We failed in this experiment that we call the United States. We have made mistakes. We have gone backwards. We have ignored the rights of minorities, the minority of the one. We’ve ignored the rights of minority groups. We’ve allowed the passions of the people to overwhelm the good, reasoned government that we’ve got before us. We’ve elected terrible politicians in the past. We’ve ignored the foundation of our very country. We’ve left the foundation that the founders established us on. We’ve sought the almighty dollar. We’ve sought entertainment. We’ve sought relative ease in our lives and forgotten the responsibility to know what it is that we are supposed to know about our Constitution and about our country so that we can fight for it today, to maintain it in its pristine form, and just as importantly, to pass that down to our children and grandchildren. We are not perfect, but as good as we are. It’s not an accident that we got that way, this principle of locks, that we start this world with nothing in our minds, and we learn by our experiences. The founding fathers believe that, and they learn from the experiences and the teachers of the philosophers who went before them. They learn from the positives of countries that had gone before them. And the negatives don’t do that because of what happened to that country. Let’s do this because of how that country had succeeded. It’s not an accident. It’s reason. It’s logic, and it’s being brought all together in one document. Now, Locke also wrote about the premise of these God given rights, these rights that could not be taken away from us. Locke wrote about these God given natural law rights of life, liberty, and property. Now, when Jefferson wrote about those things in the Declaration of Independence, at that time, the concept of plagiarism was not nearly as big of a negative as it is today. In academic circles, it was actually considered an honor to reference Locke so directly, and it wasn’t necessary to cite him as a reference. Today, that gets you trouble in academic sets of circles. But Jefferson wrote about unalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Locke talks about life, liberty, and property. But as we recognize in the United States, the concept of the pursuit of happiness is being able to own property, to be able to utilize your property, your capital, whatever it might be that yours, to utilize it for your best interests, for your best outcomes, so that you can live your life in liberty and freedom. You ought to be able to have access to your life. And therefore, in the Constitution, we have guarantees that your life will not be taken from you without due process of law. You actually have to commit a crime before we’ll take your life away from you, your liberty. We won’t put you in jail unless you have due process of law and you’re found guilty by the jury of your peers, your property. You have that right to exercise that as you see fit. It is your pursuit of happiness. All of these things are given to us by John Locke because he questioned what if we did it differently. Let’s don’t go by tradition. Let’s see what works be right back after these messages. Don’t go away. So, as we’re able to see in this study of these philosophers cicero, Thomas Hobbs, John Locke the Founding Fathers didn’t just rely on the ancient Greeks. They relied on the Renaissance philosophers as well. They relied on English philosophy, Scottish philosophy, even Roman philosophy, with the intent that they would try to get as much information and data as they possibly could. They wanted to know. They didn’t want to guess. They didn’t want to do things the way that we’ve always done them traditionally. They didn’t want to follow the parameters and the paradigms that Europe had set out for hundreds of years. They wanted to create a new form of government that would protect the people of the United States of America, the states individually. The people, they wanted something that would stand the test of time. And so they took bits and pieces from all of these different philosophical basis and they brought them together in this new form of government, this constitutional republic, in the hopes that people would be able to live together in peace. Being able to express themselves without fear of ramification from government. Being able to utilize their property to their interests and intents. Being able to hand down the fruits of their labors to their families, their children, their grandchildren. Government is not supposed to overrule the people. Government is supposed to be the framework in which the people can achieve their very best versions of their own lives. That was the intent of the Founders. That’s the whole reason why we are a republic. That’s the reason why popular sovereignty is so very important to us here in the United States. And that’s the reason why the people are asked to have input through election processes. The people, through laziness and ignorance, oftentimes mess it up. But it’s not supposed to be that way. And if we would study, if we would understand, if we would apply the principles of our foundation to our modern day lives, not only would the United States be a better country, the world would be a better place, because we could help everybody. We could show them the way. Not out of arrogance, not because we’re better than everyone. That’s not true. But it’s not an accident that the United States of America is where it is today. It’s not an accident. And it won’t be an accident if we continue to carry the torch to future generations. If we fail, the failure will be on us, because the Founders, they set us in the right motion. They gave us everything we needed. All we have to do is apply them again. This is Darren Chapel for Veterans and Defense of Liberty, bringing you this program, foundation of Liberty. We’re very thankful for your presence with us again today, and we look forward to seeing you at our next episode. We’re going to continue to talk about some of the philosophical basis of the constitution. And in the next episode, we hope to see you there. God bless.