OVERVIEW IN TERMS OF ISSUES

 

This blog has taken the opportunity in the last series of postings to restate its general aims.  It is doing so from a different perspective in that it is and will be presenting the internal dual views of liberty and freedom from a dialectic analysis.  One view is of a republican governance and a theoretical construct known as federalism.  The other is that of a natural rights construct. 

This posting begins with a comparison of the two from the vantage point offered by a set of issues.  Those issues are a general conception among people, moral role of government, era of dominance, and expectation of individual citizens.  Along these issues, each construct relates to them differently and by reviewing those differences, in summary fashion, one gets an overall sense of how they are different and how they have variously affected American history.

Here are these differences with short explanations:

General Conception among People:

Federalism – Political order is equal to a commonweal (an undivided view within a citizenry)

Federalism attaches a communal element to how people view their society and their polity.

Natural rights – Political order is equal to the marketplace (competing interests)

The natural rights view judges governance as an extension of the market and its related politics are a continual series of transactional episodes (something for something else).

Moral Role of Government:

Federalism – A sense of morality that mandates structural prerequisites for self-rule by which local/communal moral views are respected in derived policies.

By insisting at the national level, a non-centered power distribution, one honors both the concern for bigness expressed by Montesquieu and the benefits of bigness promised by James Madison (see previous posting for extensive explanation of this element).

Natural rights – The polity is neutral to moral concerns.  It provides protection of a self-centered view of rights to determine individual moral beliefs.  Structural emphasis on governmental procedures (e.g., due process).

Morality, according to this construct, lies in respecting the individual determining for him/herself what moral principles he/she will adopt for judging the behavior of oneself and that of others.  The only proviso is that this sense of morality is extended to others and therefore, one is restricted by honoring that extension.

Era of Dominance:

Federalism – From the initial colonial period to, unquestionably, the late 19^th century (with a challenged dominance up until the end of World War II).

Federalism was firmly established as the central source of moral thinking with the adoption of covenantal arrangements in the establishments of colonial polities.  One is well advised to attribute a strong religious basis – particularly of Puritanical beliefs – for the origins of this tradition on American shores.

Natural rights – This construct took dominance in the years after World War II and has held that status ever since with ever increasing viability.

Natural rights, through the years of the nation’s history, challenged the dominance of federalism through a series of movements the nation experienced.  One list of such challenges can be the Enlightenment, Transcendentalism, Western-Cowboy Anarchism, Corporate “Laissez-faire”-ism.  Since its success in being dominant, it has challenged the remnants of federalist thinking (New Deal Federalism) with Ike/Nixon Guardian-ism, and then its own well-established movement, Neoliberal (Reaganomics) Natural Rights.

Expectation of the Individual:

Federalism – Expectation that each person actively participates in creating common environments, and the assuming of a caring attitude for community, region, and nation as a whole– resulting attitude akin to one that typifies a partner in a business or other shared endeavor such as a marriage or communal arrangement.

This issue reflects the reality that the American polity – through its national and state constitutions – created a real partnership as in “We the People.”

Natural rights – Respectful of others’ rights, behavior from self-interest point of view.

This aspect of natural rights is self-explanatory but seems to be experiencing some change of late.  The vaccination issue that the nation has been struggling through for a year, seems to indicate that this belief has extended to delegitimize the limited restraint of honoring others’ rights. 

When one does not identify the danger one poses to others by not getting vaccinated, one is expressing a sense of rights without any limitations.  Obeying the law, for example, becomes one of weighing the likelihood of getting caught as opposed to the benefits one derives from breaking a law.

          Hopefully, this overview of these issues helps the reader get a good handle on what distinguishes these constructs.  The above also gives the reader a sense of how each affects the nation’s political landscape.  The next posting will better spell out the historical context by which the dialectic struggle between these constructs has taken place.