Denny Burdine Returns: The 17th Amendment, America’s Greatest Crisis — the Family

0:00 · Both

Show open. Then Zach brings Coach Denny Burdine back into the chair — football, track, AP government, and a man who still lives in the Founders’ notes.

1:20 · Zach

Hello and welcome to The Zach Rateliff Show. I’m Zach. This is Denny. What’s up, Coach?

1:28 · Denny

I understand totally, and I’m the same way. You know me — I’m always reading politics and government. I taught it. History is important to me, and economics. Watching the world be what it is today is very exciting, and very discouraging at times too.

3:00 · Zach

My number one principle is Jesus Christ is the answer. He’s the way to heaven. Number two is I want to be a good dad. I want to have the courage to say what a lot of these cowards won’t. Number three is I want to be a good son. I want to make my dad proud — who you’re friends with — and I want my mom proud, and I want them to say, golly, Zach will carry the torch.

5:20 · Zach

When it comes to the Federalist Papers and just understanding the history of our formation of our Constitution, you’re probably the most knowledgeable person I know about it.

6:00 · Denny

I spend a lot of time with the founding fathers and the framers. I’m reading Madison’s notes — his journal that he kept during the Constitutional Convention — at the present time.

8:00 · Zach

I keep falling back to the 17th Amendment being one of our main problems right now.

8:20 · Denny

The 17th Amendment was a change from what the founding fathers wanted. They wanted the states to have more say so in the federal government. One way to do that is to let the state legislators elect the senators instead of letting the people do it directly.

12:00 · Denny

The idea of federalism is the same thing as our solar system. In the center of our solar system is the sun, and evolving around the sun are all the planets. They’re all different. One thing keeps them tied together: the gravitational pull of the sun.

16:00 · Zach

I feel like we’re almost post-constitutional. I feel like we’re operating so far outside the bounds that if we don’t reel it in somewhere, we’ve gone astray.

20:00 · Denny

Really the government is set up for one purpose: to protect our lives, our liberty, and our property. If men were angels, we wouldn’t have governments. We wouldn’t need them.

21:10 · Zach

The purpose of a government? To maintain a marketplace and a free society where I can thrive.

25:00 · Zach

The family unit — we taught our kids character and morals and virtues. We taught them all those things at the family unit.

25:40 · Denny

When the family started falling apart, and it has fallen apart, then we lose all those things. So now who teaches that to our kids? Our government.

28:00 · Denny

Once the government controls your family, then they can do anything they want to you, and groom those kids to be what you want them to be.

29:20 · Zach

The only way to get that family back is the family. We can’t let the government be dad or mom.

38:00 · Denny

The richest nation in the history of the world got there because of capitalism.

44:00 · Zach

The founding fathers hated the idea of majoritarian vote. That’s why pure democracies are so bad.

50:00 · Denny

Read the Bible. Read the Constitution. Read the Declaration. Read the Federalist Papers. Read King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

54:00 · Zach

If we’re not talking about this — our rights and our expectations of what our government should do — at the dinner table with our kids, wherever we are, we will lose them because nobody will remember what we’re doing.

57:00 · Zach

Coach, thank you. We’ll get you back. There’s more Constitution to cover.

57:20 · Denny

Appreciate it. God bless.