Crom Carmichael Discusses the Phenomenon of Human Nature and the Repetition of History

 

Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio who contrasted the writings of the Declaration of Independence and Common Sense by Thomas Paine correlating between human nature and the repetition of history.

Leahy: Crom before in the previous segment we were talking about the propaganda that the bureaucrats in Minnesota are trying to place in front of K-12 students.

Carmichael: Well, let me give you an example of something. I will say one thing that COVID has done. Prior to COVID, I enjoyed reading books, but frankly, I didn’t read All that many. I was busy doing other things. With COVID in the lockdown,  I have gotten to where I probably read a couple of hours a day now and I found some very interesting subjects that just because I read a review of a book and then I would then I assume that’s interesting. and I’d read that book and then from that I would then find other books to read.

Leahy: You just follow where your thought process leads you. I do that often myself.

Carmichael: Now here’s something that’s interesting though about and with is the type of thing that with this Minnesota thing would never be taught. And that is that there’s a section in the Constitution that says that slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person. Now to listen to the left describe that they were describing that as the South only wanted the slave to be counted as three-fifths of a person because they didn’t see them as a person.

And it actually was the north that wanted them counted as three first three-fifths of a person because slaves were not going to be allowed to vote at the time. And the number of people in your state determine how many members of Congress you would have. And the north said if you’re not going to let slaves vote then you’re not going to count them as a full person so that White people in your state then have more power to vote to maintain slavery than northerners who don’t want to abolish slavery.

So the teaching by the left is actually the opposite of what the facts were at the time. There was a wonderful article in The Wall Street Journal called the Founders Guide to Knock Down Drag out Fighting. And it talks about what the country went through and the arguments and whatnot at the time that the Constitution was written and adopted because.

Leahy: It was ratified and the debates were just madness.

Carmichael: Yes. So if you eliminate that part of our history from our educational system, then people will draw false conclusions because it would be virtually impossible to fall to the correct conclusion if you don’t have any information on which to base it. This is so interesting to me. The Declaration of Independence was written after Common Sense.

You have to read Common Sense by Thomas Paine to understand a lot of the thinking in The Declaration of Independence. And as Thomas Paine says that the revolution was with well before The Declaration of Independence. It just started the fight and it encapsulated why we would fight. Now I don’t know if I can say that word now because it might incite people.

Leahy: You’ve got to be careful about that.

Carmichael: You have to be careful about words.

Leahy: As always Crom you are absolutely on point historically Common Sense published on January 10, 1776 in advance of the Declaration of Independence by at least six months.

Carmichael: Yes. And Paine points out that even what he wrote was already in the minds of the people. It was the most it was the most popular. Back in those days, they didn’t write books as much as they wrote pamphlets because books were very expensive.

Leahy: And I don’t even think there were many book publishers in America at that time.

Carmichael: And do you know why that is?

Leahy: I’d like to know.

Carmichael: Because the British kept control of the printing presses.

Leahy: Control of information.

Carmichael: Control of information. back in those days, they kept controls the number of printing presses. And so you could print a pamphlet much more easily and many more of them than you could then you could print a book.

Leahy: I didn’t know that. History repeating itself.

Carmichael: Yes. And so and it is fascinating how history repeats itself given the technologies of the time. and the reason that history repeats itself is that human nature is constant. Human nature is constant. And so so given the tools of the time human beings will act a certain way as the tools change they’ll still act the same way.

Leahy: Well James Madison wrote the Constitution with the separation of powers and checks and balances because men and women are no angels.

Carmichael: Yes. That’s right. I think he said if we were angels you wouldn’t need the Constitution. but the fact is we’re not. and so you do need to have you Need to have constrictions. But at any rate, this is such wonderful stuff. I’m studying in two areas. I’m also reading another book that I think I mentioned to you. It’s called Reaganland.

Leahy: I didn’t know about that one.

Carmichael: And my son-in-law gave it to me for Christmas. It’s a fairly thick book.

Leahy: Who is it by?

Carmichael: Rick Pearlstein.

Leahy: I’ve heard of that. Wasn’t he in the Reagan administration?

Carmichael: I don’t know.

Leahy: I think he was.

Carmichael: I don’t know but here’s one thing one part of the book that it starts with Jimmy Carter. I’m not very far into the book. I’m only down about 60 or 70 pages of it. But Carter when he got into office, the economy was weak. Do you know what Carter called for? A $50. subsidy to every American. a fifty dollar subsidy for every American to boost the economy.

Leahy: Oh my goodness.

Carmichael: Is that not hysterical?

Leahy: I mean, it’s believable. Is there anybody worse than him in modern history?

Carmichael: Let me say this. I want to think about that because there were two there were three things that happened while Jimmy Carter was president that were absolutely fantastic. And he had a guy named Alfred Khan.

Leahy: Okay. I know where you’re going and I agree with you on this.

Carmichael: He was called I don’t think this was the formal title, but he was called the deregulation czar. And believe it or not, under Jimmy Carter trucking was deregulated. Airlines were deregulated. And telecommunications were deregulated. And when trucking was deregulated it happened to be at that time when I was in the Converse athletics distribution business. And I remember that a truckload of shoes cost the freight from Lumberton. North Carolina to Columbus, Ohio was $1500.

Leahy: Before deregulation.

Carmichael: And after deregulation within 120 days the price was $700.

Leahy: Okay. So I will concede that Alfred Khan’s effort as the head of the Civil Aviation Board and other areas to deregulate those industries had an economic benefit. So we will give Jimmy Carter credit for that.

Carmichael: Yeah, I will. And here’s what’s interesting though. The book talks about Carter as a person and that he was trained as an engineer. But he also was a part-time Baptist preacher. So he said that combination of things, Jimmy Carter apparently thought the tax code needed to be rewritten. He actually read the whole thing. (Leahy chuckles) And so so the author says that’s the engineer in Jimmy Carter.

He had to know every detail before he could make a decision. Well, you cannot be an effective president of the United States and know every detail. You have to have a core. Ronald Reagan, for example, had a core set of values and he applied all of his decision-making against those core set of values. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be reporting more on this one book because it’s just a great read.

Leahy: I can’t wait to hear it. By the way, just to correct the statement that I made. Rick Pearlstein was not a member of the Reagan administration, but he’s written extensively about conservatives and Barry Goldwater. So there you go.

Carmichael: Well, I’m having a great time reading this.

Leahy: It’s been a great week here for The Tennessee Star Report. I think we’ve had a very lively week and lively discussion.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.