Page 4 - Constituti Constitution News Today

president obama arriving in france for the g-20. the big story is greece, gamble with the global economy, and how could it cost the membership in the eu on this "american morning." good morning to you. it is thursday, november 3. welcome to "american morning." ali velshi is in stormy france. bad weather there. we will be talking to him in a few minutes about the g-20 minutes. >> stormy weather and stormy politics. up first, the scandal dogging herman cains presidential campaign. grow...

Right? >> thats right. and i believe the fellow youre talking about is rosco pound, who was the dean of harvard law school at the tail end of the progressive era. pound was basically someone who was responsible for applying progressive ideas to the law. and what its called today is legal realism. thats the name of theory or the legal philosophy. and basically what legal realism does, glenn, it tries to take what the constitution says, which isnt what a lot of the judges thinks it needs to say an...

In schools and colleges and also elementary school, et cetera, et cetera, is accurate? >> a lot is inaccurate. starting with the progressives attack on the constitution. that the founders were not motivated by putting together a document that had eternal truths in it. that one generation should follow, the next generation should follow and so on. but it was a self-interested document that the founders wrote it and designed it to protect their economic interest. >> right. >> it became also that w...

But what other judgments said the law means. its a case law approach. >> it would be like if youre repairing or restoring a car, and you never go back to the original schematic of the car, you just see all of the repairs and what everybody has done no the to the car. a 1965 mustang, 200 years from now if you are only basing what you are doing on all of the repairs, it aint going to be anything like a 1965 mustang, right? >> right. this is why you see during the supreme court confirmation hearing...

The founders, the most brilliant thing i think the founders did when the constitution is changed, you dont erase anything. you add it. for instance, the progressive prohibition is still in the constituti constitution, its just repealed later. so you leave the scars of history and you can see, we made a really bad mistake here. when did we stop, when did we stop talking in public about changing the constitution? for instance, healthcare in the 1930s f.d.r. said we got to have a second bill of rig...

Ever-sewa ever-evolving and living. that was not the original intent with the founders and its really the definition of the progressive movement. back with our panel. were looking at progressives. america, i and i want to go to the law here. i want to go to r.j. r.j., help me out because my memory is sketchy here. im trying to remember the name of the guy, i believe he was the head of harvard law in about 1920. hes the guy who made a fundamental change in america. they no longer studied the cons...

Tradition of the american founding. franklin roosevelt did that as well. so to the extent that people become aware of what is really at work in the progressive movement, both of yesterday and today, that is the only hope we have. >> at hillsdale college where r.j. and i both teach we have a required course on the constitution. i think if we had colleges and schools across the nation requiring courses on the constitution, studying the document, what does it say and then what do other people say t...

They detested the constitution because the constitution put limits on the national government which were designed to uphold those rights. as you said in the introduction, the progressive dream was one of unlimited national government, redistribution of wealth was part of that plan. progressives knew political founders stood in their way. so its to move beyond the constitution. do you agree with that here? >> it is. i think its even more in that there is an assumption about human nature thats bui...

Tradition of the american founding. franklin roosevelt did that as well. so to the extent that people become aware of what is really at work in the progressive movement, both of yesterday and today, that is the only hope we have. >> at hillsdale college where r.j. and i both teach we have a required course on the constitution. i think if we had colleges and schools across the nation requiring courses on the constitution, studying the document, what does it say and then what do other people say t...

With the chains of the constitution, so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. that is the founders saying you are never going to perfect people. its always going to be this way. >> if you give somebody too much power, eventually that power will corrupt that person and ultimately the nation. you have to have separation of powers according to the founders. wilson wanted centralization of power because you have to centralize power to accomplish government programs to redist...