Laurie Thomas Vass

Equal Rights For All. Special Privileges For None. Laurie Thomas Vass

The purpose of this book is to start over in American history, at the point of the anti-federalist arguments, and re-examine the Populist's legacy of fair political participation, and to explore the question of the relationship between the pursuit of individual self interest, free market economics, and the constitutional public purpose. The book's main argument is that the anti-federalist arguments would have been a better pathway to preserve individual freedom than Madison's arrangement of rules of procedure. In making the claim that the current constitutional system is beyond redemption, the book's premise is that the new constitution must empower citizens with more democracy, at the most local level of state and city government, to the end that citizens can rely on their own initiative to preserve and protect their freedoms.