The author of the first book said this next one would be different
The Courage to be Free: A Memoir of Thomas Paine and the Rise and Fall of the United States in the Era of Donald Trump
Much of that platform came from his book, which takes its title from Thomas Paine’s 1791 work, “Rights of Man.” And like Paine, Skidmore was a universalist who rejected the notion that rights were limited to people of a certain class or station. There is no power that can destroy the rights of others, but there is a power that can be used to harm others. “Having been originally equal, they remain so, and nothing but force or ignorance can keep them out of the rightful owner’s possession.”
He was not a political theorist. He was, at the time of his writing, a machinist who had taken a prominent role in the newly formed New York Working Men’s Party. He wrote its platform, which included a call for land redistribution to every man and unmarried woman over the age of 21, an end to commercial monopolies and an end to the hereditary transfer of wealth.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday will release his book, “The Courage to be Free,” to much anticipation ahead of his expected plunge into the 2024 presidential race. But it’s not the first time DeSantis has dabbled in authorship to jumpstart his political ambitions.
DeSantis’ views on the country’s founding document and the reach of the federal government is informed heavily by the Federalist Papers, the essays produced by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to persuade New York to ratify the US Constitution. The best source for exposition of the principles underlying the constitution of the united states of American is represented by these essays. These writings often support the criticism of Obama and the insistence that he is not in keeping with the vision of America. To DeSantis, the very notion of a “transformative” presidency flies in the face of the static role of the executive envisioned by the Framers. The word transform appears 75 times in the short work.
This orthodoxy, though, is also built on a belief that the federal government’s powers are far more limited than what is delegated to the states. Does this mean that DeSantis would chart a new path as president, were he to ascend to the highest office? Or does he believe that the “transformational” presidency he so maligned has changed the office for good in ways that he intends to follow. His next book could contain some of these answers.
Obama was accused of failing to pay fealty to the Constitution with the same zeal as his predecessors, as a result of his inability to look beyond the codification of slavery at the nation’s birth. The opinion of Obama was that he couldn’t go through the front door of the country’s founding.
DeSantis as governor, though, has often eschewed public opinion when taking actions and has proudly declared, “I’m not going to lead based on polls.” Despite the fact that he supported making abortion available to women, DeSantis signed the most restrictive abortion law in Florida history.
Obama was characterized by the descriptions as a messianic figure and one of singular historical significance. But his own closing message to Florida voters last fall came in a 90-second video that suggested he was made by God on the eighth day to be a “fighter.”
He compared Obama to George Washington, who he said possessed a deep sense of humility, a humility that was compatible with the ethos of republican government. He noted that the founding fathers warned of demagogues who use questionable rhetorical techniques or intentionally sow divisions among different interests within the body politic.
Thurgood Marshall, the country’s first Black justice, was criticized for his position on slavery’s perversions. The Framers created a government that was faulty from the start, according to DeSantis.
DeSantis went on to argue in his book that Obama’s views were more closely aligned with the slavery defender Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, who lost the 1860 presidential election to Abraham Lincoln, than the great emancipator.
DeSantis would use this rhetorical trick again in the book to accuse Obama of ascribing to “the same doctrine that Chief Justice Taney invoked in Dred Scott” – the Supreme Court case that found enslaved African Americans could not claim citizenship and didn’t enjoy the rights ascribed by the Constitution.
The 2010 passage of theAffordable Care Act was an example of the topics that animated voters at the time of the book being published.
The law’s proponents were accused of putting American on a course to a government run system, which has yet to happen, even as several Democratic candidates for president ran for such a policy in the 2020 election.
The redistribution of wealth was one of the more controversial justifications for a federal overhaul of the health care system that was found after post-passage euphoria.
Even the requirement for insurance companies to cover adults and children with pre-existing conditions appeared problematic to DeSantis because it could lead to higher insurance costs.
“Though this sounded noble, the law had the effect of undermining insurance coverage for children,” DeSantis contended. Insurers were forced to either absorb financial losses or increase premiums if they took more risk than is economically justified.
The Role of the Constitution in Disney Foundations: Standing Up and Fighting for What You Don’t Like About The Executive Branch, or How You Think You Are
It is stated in the book that leadership is defined by strict reading of the Constitution and adherence to fundamental law with stable meaning. Limitations on the executive branch’s abilities are included.
“If you are in one of these corporations, if you’re a woke CEO, you want to get involved in our legislative business, look, it’s a free country,” DeSantis said in 2021. I shall be fighting back against you if you do that. I will make sure that people understand your practices and anything I don’t like about them.
It’s a lesson Disney certainly learned. Disney objected to the state restrictions on classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity. Earlier this month, state lawmakers voted to give DeSantis new powers over the government that controls the land around Disney’s Orlando-area theme parks.
What Is The Declaration of Independence About? How Did Lincoln and the United States Start the Civil War? It Was Lincoln’s Way to Disrupt Founding America
In particular, Roosevelt, who is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania, says that we get the Declaration wrong. The Declaration of Independence was not a statement on human rights, he writes. It wasn’t a declaration of concrete human rights. Instead, the Declaration of Independence was about, well, independence:
It first explains the origin and nature of legitimate political authority. It then explains when the exercise of political authority ceases to be legitimate. Showing that the situation of the American colonists fit the criteria for justifying rebellion is part of the effort.
The problem, argues Roosevelt, is that tying our modern egalitarian commitments to the Declaration and the founding is to say, in no uncertain terms, that our values can survive, even thrive, in a world of profound inequality and injustice: “In asking modern Americans to see the founding as an Edenic movement, to see the founders as role models who stated our deepest ideals, we are asking them to accept that those ideals can coexist with slavery, with rape, with enslaving one’s own children because of the color of their skin.” We are implying that justice can always wait since we will eventually reach our ideals.
Roosevelt’s answer lies in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Lincoln claimed the Declaration for a new birth of freedom in his Gettysburg Address, giving it much of its modern meaning. But to do that, he and the United States had to overturn the old order. Many people think of Reconstruction as a process of change set out in the constitution, writes Roosevelt. We would do better to think of it as a revolution that destroyed Founding America.”
The results of that revolution — the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments — transformed American society. They were meant to give everyone full freedom, without regard for race or color in the United States.
“In order that this intention should be carried out and acted upon,” Douglass continued, “power for that purpose was given by conferring upon Congress the right to enforce the amendments by appropriate legislation.”
