Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge With Peter Robinson- Larry P. Arnn: 'On the Declaration and Constitution'

Source:Hoover Institution- Larry P. Arn: President of Hillsdale College.

"Larry Arnn, who earned his graduate and doctorate in government from the Claremont Graduate School, is the president of Hillsdale College. He discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, what the founders gave us and how the Declaration of Independence mattered at the time." 

From the Hoover Institution

The United States has a Constitution so Americans and government know exactly their liberties and powers are. So new authority isn't drawn up as we go along and so that government can't take people's liberties away from them. That there are laws and procedures that government has to follow before it takes people's liberty away. And even once people have been arrested, they still have certain basic fundamental constitutional rights that have to be respected. 

The main reason why it's so difficult to amend the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress, as well as two-thirds of each of the states having to approve the propose amendment to the Constitution, is so people who perhaps don't respect our constitutional rights as much as they should be respected, aren't able to mess with the Constitution. That there needs to be more of a consensus to change our Constitution and restrict our constitutional rights. 

The main reason for our Constitution (which I consider the most liberal document ever written) is became it was written by Liberals and Conservative-Libertarians, our Founding Fathers. And when you get people like that in the same room together, you should expect a Constitution that looks like what they wrote, a very individualist document. 

The United States was created to get away from the United Kingdom which was dictatorship in the form of a monarchy. That heavily taxed people in the American colonies, without representing them in Parliament. That restricted what religion they could practice if any and basically their ability to live their own lives. 

And these eventual Americans wanted to get away from this authoritarianism so they can have individual freedom. Thats why they wrote the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights listed with a lot of individual liberties. A lot of liberty for people to live their own lives. 

The U.S. Constitution is not a perfect document, obviously. Thats why it has a bunch of amendments to it, but still they did a hell of a job. And gave us a lot more freedom then we were getting from the United Kingdom and it really was a Declaration of Independence. Because we were declaring our independence from the United Kingdom and wanted our freedom with the United States. 

Our Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) created the foundation for creating the greatest country in the world, because it was based on individual freedom. I just wish they declared individual liberty for all people in America including the African slaves, but again they were not perfect. 

Without the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the United States is not a liberal democracy. Because then our liberties could be taken away from us probably my majority vote and we would become more of a majoritarian democracy. Which is a different form of government than a republic in the form of a liberal democracy. Which thanks to the Constitution and Bill of Rights gives us that.