Hi, I’m David Barulich.
David Barulich is a professional Persuasionist and a first-time book author. Whether advising commercial borrowers or writing political essays, he tells compelling stories to coax readers with evidence, arguments, logic, and passion. His avocation for political action began in Washington, D.C., with a Congressional internship while attending college. His passion for concrete policy proposals led to his co-authorship of California’s school voucher initiative, Proposition 174, in 1993. He served on the Los Angeles School District Blue Ribbon Citizens Oversight Committee. He has written op-eds for the Los Angeles Times, Education Week, and online magazines on various topics, including education, immigration, public debt, foreign policy, and Constitutional reforms.
I purchased a Sony shortwave radio in 1983 and installed several long wires in my bedroom to serve as an antenna. I selected the station broadcasting Radio Moscow and tried not to miss Vladimir Pozner’s critiques and observations of the United States from the Soviet perspective.
As an American Patriot who hated Communism, Mr. Pozner’s arguments were challenging and compelling. He forced me to reformulate my political arguments to address the weaknesses in the foundations of my beliefs. I understood Mr. Pozner so well that I could frustrate my anti-communist friends by adopting the Soviet position, outmaneuvering them, and playing the devil’s advocate in debates.
I would also be a faithful listener to KPFK, the Pacifica Radio station in Los Angeles, a platform and purveyor of extremist, left-wing views closely aligned with Mr. Pozner’s arguments in the 1980s about Pershing nuclear missiles, the nuclear freeze, and aid to anti-communist forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
For many years, I relished reading and listening to thinkers who challenged my assumptions and forced me to refine and sharpen my thinking about issues and problems in politics, health, morality, and other fields of inquiry.
I learned academic empathy and developed the talent of a Persuasionist, making me uniquely qualified to write this book. This is why I am particularly adept at adopting a bi-partisan perspective and authoring The Anti-Elitist Constitution. Chapter Two’s Declaration of Reformation displays my understanding of the pain points of Progressive and Conservative partisans.
I am not a Constitutional Law or Political Science Professor, which provides an excellent advantage for composing a bipartisan reform of the US Constitution. As an outsider, I bring a fresh perspective to issues typically considered the exclusive domain of these specialists, who have spent years developing opinions resistant to persuasion.
Without being bound by the established canon of Constitutional scholarship in academic journals, I can introduce my Persuasionist methodology to mediate this battle. This approach promises to resolve the conflict between two ideological armies of highly intelligent and capable combatants, paving the way for progress and a more unified understanding of the Constitution.
The authors who have most influenced my thinking about politics and other fields are Daniel Dennett, Joseph Henrich, James Scott, Daniel Everett, Napoleon Chagnon, Michael Oakeshott, and Friedrich Hayek – a motley crew of philosophers, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, economists, and linguists.
I value thinkers with an interdisciplinary background, and I discount the value of philosophical tracts like John Rawl’s A Theory of Justice and Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia as theological writings divorced from empirical testability. My 1981 Claremont McKenna College thesis, Justice and Social Organization 1, Justice and Social Organization 2 is the first example of this fusion of philosophy, history, economics, and science when formulating political theories that moved beyond the confines of traditional political philosophy.
I honed my skills in economics, accounting, and finance while teaching college courses at California State Universities at Long Beach and Pomona and earning a master’s degree in economics from UCLA.
My avocation for political action began in Washington, D.C., with a Congressional internship while attending college. My passion for concrete policy proposals led to my co-authorship of California’s school voucher initiative, Proposition 174, in 1993. I wrote op-eds for the Los Angeles Times, Education Week, The Constitutionalist, The Federalist, and my Substack blogs (TheUSRecon, David Barulich) on various topics, including education, immigration, public debt, foreign policy, and Constitutional reforms. I served on the Los Angeles Unified School District Blue Ribbon Citizens Oversight Committee from 1997 until 2001, bringing an economic and financial perspective to education policy.
All four of my grandparents immigrated to the United States from present-day Croatia, islands off the Dalmatian Coast. My mother lived through World War Two while her island was occupied, first by the Italians and later by the Germans. She and her mother suffered many hardships during the war. After the war, when the Communists took power, her father brought his wife and daughter to the United States. My mother endured Fascist, Nazi, and Communist rule within a short time, so those three ideologies were reviled and scorned within our household from an early age.
The United States was a refuge from these oppressive ideologies. My father was born to immigrant parents, so he did not speak English until he attended first grade. He eventually found success as an entrepreneur and, along with my mother, were enthusiastic proponents of America’s advantages compared with the shortcomings of other nations.
My son enlisted in the Marine Corps, and my daughter served as an officer in the Army. Both were on active duty. Their mother, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and I inculcated an appreciation for our country and an understanding of the factors that make it great.
The Anti-Elitist Constitution expresses my devotion and love for my country. It is the culmination of a Patriotic upbringing and an optimistic belief that failure is not an option for the United States of America.