American Liberty: Strong Women and Local Government

A five-part interview with the author of this book. The title of this post comes from Chapter 3 of the interview linked below, describing Tocqueville's observations about some of the differences between early America and, say, France. I knew about his admiration for voluntary American civic organizations, but I was surprised to learn that he thought that this civic involvement was only possible because of the involvement of Americans in local governments. I had also not made the connection between his observations about the differences in the roles of American and European women of his time and the American population's attachment to civic liberty.

The quality of the short videos linked below is enhanced by clicking on the "full screen" icon at the lower right after the video has started.

Progressives might want to watch the first "chapter" of the interview last.  The language may seem extreme and inflammatory to you. The universities have had half a century to train you to eliminate some "old" ideas from consideration.  The subsequent "chapters" below present some background ideas which help illuminate "Chapter 1".

The following notes represent only summaries of one or two of the ideas in each linked segment:

Chapter 1: Is the administrative state REALLY now assuming power over our lives which could be considered to be tyrannical?

Chapter 2: The nanny state reflects the "inner nanny" in all of us, so we naturally have some level of comfort with the "nanny" role of government. But there are also reasons why people are often comfortable with life UNDER THE CONTROL of a nanny state.

Chapter 3: French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville made remarkable observations about the American culture of his day. He also predicted comfortable, solicitous "soft despotism" in liberal democracies long ago. Since he was so accurate in his predictions, maybe we should pay attention to what he wrote.

Chapter 4: The major roots of modern soft despotism in America, from the German research universities of the 1870s, through Woodrow Wilson and FDR, and beyond. They never taught me in school, in any depth, where these philosophies came from.

Chapter 5: Is an all-encompassiing welfare state inevitable? Does such a state ALWAYS nurture the seeds of its own decline and destruction? Why is Mark Steyn so pessimistic?

RELATED: EASY-TO-REMEMBER reminder of the differences between America an other democratic countries. At least, until recently.