Gravitas: A Voice for Civics : 9/13/15

A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...

While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, September 18, 2015

DOG WHISTLE

Just when you think we’re done with the stupidity of the birthers, we’re all dragged back in. If you haven’t seen the tape, a participant at a Donald Trump rally pointed out that we all have a big problem: Muslims. And of course, our president is one of them. By the way, according to this guy, Muslims have training camps in which they are trained to do us harm. As one of the pundits on TV pointed out, there are camps teaching Muslims to inflict harm; they’re known as US military training camps where they are volunteers who go through basic training. Apparently, there are about 3,500 members of our armed forces who profess the Muslim religion.

In the last few postings, I have revisited the case I made early on in the history of this blog. That is, that due to some quantifiable indicators, we can conclude that our civics instruction in this country needs some changing; we’re not doing a good enough job. One such indicator was the level of political knowledge. At the time, I used the incidence of birthers, the belief among a significant number of Americans who believed that President Obama is, one, a Muslim and, two, born in some foreign country (Nigeria being the most common location cited). I also mentioned that there were – and probably still are – a significant number of people who believe President Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attack so that he could take us to war in Iraq. In either instance, the level of delusion is worth considering. When one ponders the amount of collusion such realities demand and the absence of reasonable evidence to support either contention, one is hard pressed to understand why anyone is so taken in by such outlandish claims.

Here is an aim for public education: get the number of people so disposed to only an insignificant number – say under five percent of the population. That would be refreshing. Our media’s reaction to the incident at the Trump rally is to question why the candidate did not correct the misinformed supporter. We are reminded how John McCain, under a similar situation, did just that. But look at this from the Donald’s position: how much support would he lose if he did correct the audience member? After all, the bulk of his support is from this type of mentality, this type of misinformation. Why don’t his numbers go down as he commits one gaffe after another? Because his base is this population. Trump has, I believe, garnered a whole lot of participation from people who usually are either not interested or so cynical they don’t bother. In the main, this is his crowd. Now, let me add that this is not his entire crowd; I am sure there are a lot of responsible people caught up with this unorthodox politician. These people have responsible complaints, but there is the other portion.

The other portion find Trump saying the right (no, at times, extreme right) things. It is almost like a dog whistle going off. It is that citizen who has been mis-served by our efforts in our civics classrooms. And with that, I end this review of why we need to change civics and government instruction.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

NUMBER ONE?

One of the factors I addressed some years ago in this blog was that our crime rates, as measured by incarceration numbers, indicated we need to do a better job in our civics classrooms. One good bit of information on this front is a lowering crime rate. For example, the rate of victims per 1,000 population has dropped in the US from 51.7 in 1979 to 15 in 2010.[1] Yet before we celebrate, there are other relevant numbers. Another statistical site offers the following:

Total persons brought into formal contact with the police and/or criminal justice system, all crimes in 2011 (top ten nations)

United States 12,408,899 with a population of 322 million (38.58 per 1,000)

Germany 2,112,843 with a population of 81 million (26.08 per 1,000)

France 1,172,547 with a population of 67 million (17.5 per 1,000)

Russian Fed. 1,041,340 with a population of 147 million (7.08 per 1,000)

Italy 900,870 with a population of 61 million (14.77 per 1,000)

Canada 688,920 with a population of 36 million (19.14 per 1,000)

Chile 611,322 with a population of 18 million (33.96 per 1,000)

Poland 521,942 with a population of 38 million (13.74 per 1,000)

Spain 377,965 with a population of 46 million (8.22 per 1,000)

Netherlands 372,305 with a population of 17 million (21.9 per 1,000)[2]

Whether one is looking at total numbers or rate numbers, the US does not fare well when compared to other countries. I will point out that the above list of countries varies in terms of reported freedom as opposed to repression. Whether a nation is ruled by a liberal regime as opposed to an authoritarian regime is relevant to how levels of criminality are measured.

The closest country in terms of rate is Chile. Chile is a Latin country and an example of a nation that has a culture, described by Daniel Elazar, as one that harbors an anarchistic individualism. This blog has argued that we, the US, started out with a more federalist sense of individualism, one that “recognized the subtle bonds of partnership linking individuals even as they preserve their individual integrities... .”[3] This blog has also argued that our nation, especially since World War II, has abandoned a federalist view, at least as a prominent perspective of governance and politics, and has shifted to a natural rights view. This latter construct is noted for its individualism. These numbers are but one indicator of how far that shift has made itself known.

Criminality can be seen as a higher degree of incivility. I reported earlier that a low level of civility is a definite social problem. By historical standards, it is difficult to determine whether incivility is more or less acute today. But numbers like these on criminality and other numbers I have reported in this blog indicate that a general lack of civility has been an ongoing concern among certain journalistic and academic sources. Summarily, one can describe this concern as follows:

Civility in America continues to erode and rude behavior is becoming our “new normal,” according to the fourth annual study on Civility in America: A Nationwide Survey, conducted by global public relations firm Weber Shandwick and public affairs firm Powell Tate in partnership with KRC Research.[4]

Irrespective of how relatively severe the problem of incivility or, in its more severe manifestation, criminality, is today, it is definitely a problem that should be addressed in our schools, not only as one other topic, but as a concern central to the mission of civics education. And as for over-zealous policy in terms of drugs – we Americans have laws against drugs that are unreasonable and ruining lives – we know other crimes are downplayed. As I write these words, the nation is being told that there are under-reported cases and under-addressed cases of ignored, sexual abuse cases against women in the military and on college campuses. Whether such meager attention outnumbers cases of long prison sentences for drug crimes, I don't know. But I do know that no one is claiming that people are readily going to jail and prison for legal behaviors and, as I reported before in this blog, America’s prison population outnumbers that of any other country by far. This indicates that whether our laws are overly zealous or not, one can safely believe we can do a better job when it comes to educating our youth in terms of the law and in having respect for the law, not to mention behaving with more civility.

[1] Of course, this reflects reported crime events. Whether people in general are more prone to report crime is an interesting question. I do not know the answer to that question. There is an array of statistical information readily available supporting this overall picture of a falling crime rate. See https://www.google.com/search?q=crime+rates+in+US+over+time&espv=2&biw=1093&bih=514&tbm=isch&imgil=P4g2P-obB-jlRM%253A%253BcPni19546Kal8M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.gallup.com%25252Fpoll%25252F150464%25252Famericans-believe-crime-worsening.aspx&source=iu&pf=m&fir=P4g2P-obB-jlRM%253A%252CcPni19546Kal8M%252C_&usg=__zxIEm18APlIHiED8D3gsYadxZL4%3D&ved=0CCcQyjdqFQoTCJeJut67-ccCFcY8PgodmAwJGA&ei=NUj4VdeaD8b5-AGYmaTAAQ#imgrc=P4g2P-obB-jlRM%3A&usg=__zxIEm18APlIHiED8D3gsYadxZL4%3D .

[2] Maps of the World, see www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-reported-crime-rates.html .

[3] Elazar, D. J. (1994). How federal is the Constitution? Thoroughly. In a booklet of readings, Readings for classes taught by Professor Elazar, (pp. 1-30) prepared for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute. Conducted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Quotation from pp. 10-11.

[4]See http://www.webershandwick.com/news/article/civility-in-america-2013-incivility-has-reached-crisis-levels. A 2014 report further supports the findings of this account; see https://www.webershandwick.com/news/article/civility-in-america-2014-forecast-bleak-but-with-hope-for-millennials .