The Defiant Citizen

Episode 13: Who Gets to Decide? In this episode of The Defiant Citizen , Gary Mullins takes a real-world look at federalism — not as a dusty civics term, but as one of the most important safeguards of American liberty. Using examples from Little Rock, the national drinking age, marijuana policy, COVID restrictions, public schools, and today’s national political warfare, this episode asks the const...

Episode 12: Why We Distrust Power Most Americans can tell you there are three branches of government. Far fewer can tell you why they exist. In this episode, we explore one of the most important—and least understood—ideas in the American constitutional system: the separation of powers. The Founders did not divide government because they trusted politicians. They divided government because they did...

Episode 11: Flawed Men, Enduring Ideas Phase II of the Restoration Project begins here. For generations, Americans have argued about what the Founders believed, what they meant, and which modern political movement they would support. But before we can understand the Constitution, we have to understand something even more important: What assumptions were the Founders making about human nature when...

Episode 10: The Cost You Never See What if the biggest cost of government isn’t what you pay… but what you stop trying to do? Episode 10 explores the hidden “mental tax” of the modern managed state — the delays, approvals, paperwork, compliance systems, and endless hoops that slowly train ordinary Americans to hesitate instead of build. Through real-world stories of permits, small businesses, cont...

Episode 9: It's a Great Big Club..And We Ain't In it! You don’t have representation. You have the illusion of it. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on how the system actually works—and why your vote doesn’t carry the weight you think it does. From the “Wealth Primary” that decides who gets to run… to the donor networks that shape decisions behind the scenes… to the closed loop that...

Episode 8: Who Governs? During COVID, businesses closed, movement was restricted, and millions complied. But here’s the question no one asked: Who actually had the authority to do it? In this episode, I examine how “experts” moved from advising decisions to making them - and what that means for a system that was designed to be governed by citizens. This isn’t about left vs. right. It’s about wheth...

Episode 7: A Nation of Citizens...Or a System of Clients? There was no vote. No announcement. No single moment when Americans chose to become dependent. It happened slowly, through a thousand small, reasonable decisions that traded responsibility for stability. In this episode of The Defiant Citizen , we move beyond structure and into identity. From Social Security and Medicare to Medicaid, SNAP,...

Episode 6: The Permission Society – When Everything Requires Approval At what point did everyday life start requiring permission? In this episode of The Defiant Citizen , we examine the next phase of the shift—from a system that manages…to a culture that conditions. What begins as regulation gradually becomes expectation. What starts as oversight becomes dependency. And over time, a subtle transfo...

Episode 5: The System Behind the System You can see the rules. But can you see the system that created them? In this episode, we break down the rise of the administrative state—how power moved from elected representatives to a system that writes, enforces, and interprets its own authority. From Wilson’s vision of expert administration… to the expansion of agencies during crisis… to the legal frame...

Episode 4: The System You Can’t Vote Against You can vote for your representatives. But what about the system that actually runs your life? In this episode, we apply Restoration Paper No. 3 to the real world and examine the rise of a system where rules are written, enforced, and interpreted by people you will never vote for—and may never even know exist. From everyday regulations to crisis-level d...

Episode 3: The Great Displacement — From Governance to Management We’ve been taught that we live in a republic where elected representatives write our laws. But look closely at the rules that shape your daily life—and you may find something very different. In this episode, we explore the quiet shift from constitutional governance to administrative management. Over time, authority has moved away fr...

Episode 2: Survival Without the State When Washington shuts down, what actually happens to the country? In October 2025, a federal funding lapse brought the machinery of government in Washington to a standstill. News headlines warned of crisis, chaos, and national disruption. But something surprising happened across the country: most communities kept functioning. Trash was still collected. Local p...

Episode 1: When Did Americans Stop Acting Like Citizens? The American system of government was never meant to run on autopilot. It was designed to operate alongside a citizenry that understood how it worked and accepted responsibility for preserving it. In this first episode of The Defiant Citizen , we introduce the Publius Project and explore the principle behind Restoration Paper No. 2: The Base...

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