Summary: Thomas G. West, professor of politics at Hillsdale College, said he has been working on his new book, The Political Theory of The American Founding: Natural Rights, Public Policy, and the Moral Conditions of Freedom, over the course of the last 20 years. On this episode of Federalist Radio, West defends his interpretations of what the founders meant by ideas like nature, equality, and justice. The basic meaning of equality for the founders is that we are equal in the sense that no body has the right to rule us without our consent, West said. Thats what equality means, and thats the fundamental meaning of liberty, too. West writes about the importance of localism at the time of founding. Their idea was: the closer to home, the better, he said.
