Is Democracy Possible Here?
Principles for a New Political Debate
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Narrated by:
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Michael Kramer
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By:
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Ronald Dworkin
About this listen
Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders.
The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized?
Dworkin, one of the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share. He shows that recognizing such shared principles can make substantial political argument possible and help replace contempt with mutual respect. Only then can the full promise of democracy be realized in America and elsewhere.
Dworkin lays out two core principles that citizens should share: first, that each human life is intrinsically and equally valuable and, second, that each person has an inalienable personal responsibility for identifying and realizing value in his or her own life. He then shows what fidelity to these principles would mean for human rights, the place of religion in public life, economic justice, and the character and value of democracy. Dworkin argues that liberal conclusions flow most naturally from these principles. Properly understood, they collide with the ambitions of religious conservatives, contemporary American tax and social policy, and much of the War on Terror. But his more basic aim is to convince Americans of all political stripes - as well as citizens of other nations with similar cultures - that they can and must defend their own convictions through their own interpretations of these shared values. The book is published by Princeton University Press.
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Best-selling author Ted Stewart explains how the Supreme Court and its nine appointed members now stand at a crucial point in their power to hand down momentous and far-ranging decisions. Today's Court affects every major area of American life, from health care to civil rights, from abortion to marriage. This fascinating book reveals the complex history of the Court as told through seven pivotal decisions.
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Polemical, downright ridiculous at times
- By Joe Igla on 11-04-17
By: Ted Stewart
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Our Divided Political Heart
- The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent
- By: E. J. Dionne
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Our Divided Political Heart will be the must-listen book of the 2012 election campaign. Offering an incisive analysis of how hyper-individualism is poisoning the nation's political atmosphere, E. J. Dionne Jr., argues that Americans can't agree on who we are because we can't agree on who we've been, or what it is, philosophically and spiritually, that makes us Americans.
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Good points and lots of good information
- By Jamie B on 08-15-12
By: E. J. Dionne
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How Rights Went Wrong
- Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart
- By: Jamal Greene
- Narrated by: Ryan Vincent Anderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Rights are a sacred part of American identity. Yet they were an afterthought for the Framers. Only as a result of the racial strife that exploded during the Civil War—and a series of resulting missteps by the Supreme Court—did rights gain such outsized power. Over and again, courts have treated rights conflicts as zero-sum games in which awarding rights to one side means denying rights to others. As eminent legal scholar Jamal Greene shows in How Rights Went Wrong, we need to recouple rights with justice—before they tear society apart.
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A different way to look at rights.
- By Nicolas Pabon on 07-11-23
By: Jamal Greene
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Capitalism
- The Unknown Ideal
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The foundations of capitalism are being battered by a flood of altruism, which is the cause of the modern world's collapse. This was the view of Ayn Rand, a view so radically opposed to prevailing attitudes that it constituted a major philosophic revolution. In this series of essays, she presented her stand on the persecution of big business, the causes of war, the default of conservatism, and the evils of altruism.
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Ashame this is not taught in our
- By Karen on 08-18-07
By: Ayn Rand
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The Great Delusion
- Liberal Dreams and International Realities
- By: John J. Mearsheimer
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad.
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Dense, fact filled, sober analysis and prescription
- By John Brynjolfsson on 12-15-18
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We the People
- A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century
- By: Erwin Chemerinsky
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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From gun control to reproductive health, a conservative Supreme Court will reshape the lives of all Americans for decades to come. The time to develop and defend a progressive vision of the US Constitution that protects the rights of all people is now.
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Hypocritical evaluation of the constitution
- By surya on 03-23-19
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The Majesty of the Law
- Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice
- By: Sandra Day O'Connor
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In this remarkable book, Sandra Day O’Connor explores the law, her life as a Supreme Court Justice, and how the Court has evolved and continues to function, grow, and change as an American institution. Tracing some of the origins of American law through history, people, ideas, and landmark cases, O’Connor sheds new light on the basics, exploring through personal observation the evolution of the Court and American democratic traditions.
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Informative and well-written
- By James on 07-11-05
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Ayn Rand Answers
- The Best of Her Q & A
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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After the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, Ayn Rand occasionally lectured in order to bring her philosophy of Objectivism to a wider audience and apply it to current cultural and political issues. These taped lectures and the question-and-answer sessions that followed added not only an eloquent new dimension to Ayn Rand's ideas and beliefs, but a fresh and spontaneous insight into Ayn Rand herself.
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It sounds like Ayn Rand
- By Anonymous User on 06-09-18
By: Ayn Rand
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A New Textbook of Americanism
- By: Jonathan Hoenig - editor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hoenig
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people have no idea what the United States represents. Ayn Rand did grasp America's political essence down to its roots. Seventy-two years in the making, this book illuminates why the United States is "the only moral country in the history of the world" and features never-before-published discussions with Ayn Rand, plus work from Leonard Peikoff and the New Intellectuals.
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A Great Introduction to Objectionism
- By Lester C Liby on 06-27-19
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The Constitution
- An Introduction
- By: Michael Stokes Paulsen, Luke Paulsen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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From war powers to health care, freedom of speech to gun ownership, religious liberty to abortion, practically every aspect of American life is shaped by the Constitution. This vital document, along with its history of political and judicial interpretation, governs our individual lives and the life of our nation. Yet most of us know surprisingly little about the Constitution itself, and are woefully unprepared to think for ourselves about recent developments in its long and storied history.
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The Constitution-A must reading for All Americans
- By Robert on 06-12-15
By: Michael Stokes Paulsen, and others
What listeners say about Is Democracy Possible Here?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John in PA
- 07-18-14
Circular and ideological
Would you try another book from Ronald Dworkin and/or Michael Kramer?
No!
What was most disappointing about Ronald Dworkin’s story?
No clear argument. So ideological that he can't even see that it is ideological. Dworkin takes it for granted that his perspective is correct simply because it is his. He does not seek arguments against his position and therefore makes no sound argument FOR his position. Considering he titled the book with a question, one expects a deliberated, clear and supported argument. I can't find it without extreme efforts toward bypassing his ideology to get to the meat.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Michael Kramer?
Mr. Kramer did a good narration EXCEPT for way too much hissing on his "s" sounds. For those who are affected by such white noise the way I am, he just puts you to sleep.
What character would you cut from Is Democracy Possible Here??
Mr. Dworkin
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