July 30, 2011 Show Archives/Pod Casts Hour 1 – Hour 2 – Hour 3 – Hour 4
Author and former attorney and U.S. diplomat Preston Fleming rejoins Amerika Now for the entire show to discuss the possible coming Constitutional collision and end of the third American Republic.
The first American Republic was born in 1777 with the Articles of Confederation and died when the government it created failed. The second American Republic replaced the first in 1789 with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. According to Fleming, a third republic arguably replaced the second following the Civil War.
Today, the U.S. federal government is alarmingly close to failure, being financially insolvent, militarily overextended, politically divided, increasingly authoritarian, and distrusted by many of its citizens–America stands at the brink of crisis.
Whether the government survives in its present form, undergoes meaningful reform, or is replaced by something entirely different will likely depend on a little-publicized historical and legal debate over the Constitutional limits to federal power. And now, for the first time since the New Deal, Washington’s nearly unlimited federal power under the Commerce Clause is being challenged by a coalition of Tea Party activists, Red State governors, and Tenth Amendment advocates who aim to sever the tentacles of federal power at the state border.
In response, America’s political powers have stepped up efforts to extend the reach of governmental power over broad reaches of American life, even going so far as to launch fierce attacks against those who demand smaller government, less federal spending, and less encroachment on civil liberties.
If political confrontation spreads across the country, what will become of our third American Republic? Can we reform it in time? Or will our federal system disintegrate like the former Soviet Union, ignite into a second Civil War, or descend into dictatorship like ancient Rome or Weimar Germany?
Preston Fleming will answer these and other questions about America’s future in light of today’s events and the debate over federal power and states’ rights.
Preston Fleming is a novelist and the author of The Kamas Trilogy: Forty Days at Kamas; Star Chamber Brotherhood; and I’ll Die Later. He is also a former tax attorney and former U.S. diplomat, having spent over a decade serving in U.S. embassies around the Middle East. He has a background in government and economics, and holds an MBA and law degree from an Ivy League school. He has written five novels.
For more information about Preston Fleming, please go to his website at:
http://www.prestonfleming.com.
PLEASE CALL 800-259-5791 TO SPEAK WITH PRESTON
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