THE MAGRUDER AND GLENCOE CASE, PART IX

[Note:  If the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings.  The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html).  Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.  Part of that influence is how the discipline helps guide civics textbook writers.]

If this is the reader’s first time viewing this blog, he/she should look up the preceding posting; it gives a good description as to what the blog is currently attempting to do.  In a word, it reviews and evaluates two popular American government textbooks[1] used mostly to instruct seniors in high school.  That posting describes that in this and the upcoming postings, the blog analyzes random selected paragraphs from these textbooks.  This posting selects three paragraphs from Magruder’s American Government.

Titles:

Topic 4, “The Legislative Branch,” Lesson 3, “The Expressed Powers,” Page 167 –

Content:

Limits on the Taxing Power  Congress does not have an unlimited power to tax.  As with all other powers, the taxing power must be used in accord with all other provisions of the Constitution.  Thus, Congress cannot lay a tax on church services, for example – because such a tax would violate the 1^st Amendment.  Nor could it lay a poll tax as a condition for voting in federal elections, for that would violate the 24^th Amendment.[2]

Context:

          After describing the powers of the federal government to tax people and businesses, this cited paragraph introduces the constitutional limitations in taxing powers that the federal government must respect according to law.

Evaluation:

          Of interest to this review is how Magruder’s introduces the limitations on the federal government’s taxing power that are based on individual rights, the right to freely exercise religion and the right to vote without constraints which is what a poll tax is especially on low income citizens.  This unaffected approach, in itself, is fine if this was the exception.  But it is not.

          The greatest constraint is the political culture that historically has demonstrated a healthy antagonism to unreasonable taxation.  That probably is the greatest restraint on unreasonable taxes.  One cannot think of a more offensive act by government on a person’s dignity than abusive taxes. 

Jonah Goldberg offers a historical description on how pre-democratic societies were governed by bandits who used their institutionalized power to exploit a population.[3]  One of the chief means by doing their banditry was/is through taxation.  That sense might be sobering, but for federation theory, it is quite relevant.

This paragraph, therefore, falls well within the guidance of the natural rights view of governance and politics.  That view emphasizes individual rights – as natural – and opts for a structural/functional language to explain the form and purpose of taxation.

Titles:

Topic 4, “The Legislative Branch,” Lesson 4, “The Implied and Nonlegislative Powers,” Page 183 –

Content:

Members of the House who supported the articles of impeachment contended that the acts of lying under oath and of withholding evidence were within the meaning of the Constitution’s phrase “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  Therefore, they argued, the President’s immediate removal from office was justified.[4]

Context:

          This paragraph describes, in journalistic style, the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.  It is located in that portion of the book dedicated to the oversight role Congress plays in placing Constitutional checks on the other branches of government.  This description follows a similar account of the Andrew Johnson impeachment in 1867.  The account is then followed by describing the near impeachment of Richard Nixon and, in this edition, since it was published before the impeachment of Donald Trump, did not include that case.

Evaluation:

          Given the neutral language of the natural rights view – it only promotes the value of natural liberty – one is treated to an unemotional account of this rare event.  Of course, this last claim needs to be offered with some reserve.  This writer, during his lifetime, has lived through three incidences of this process – Clinton’s, Nixon’s, and now Trump’s.  But the point is, shouldn’t any account convey some emotion if only to express disdain with the idea a president would break the law?  Or with the idea that such an extreme measure – one that is aimed at undoing a national election for the highest office – should meet some valued threshold?  The journalistic style is devoid of such language.

          A federally moved reader would expect a more judgmental account if only to stir up questioning or legitimate concern that some important offense might be at play, one that undermines the partnership the citizenry holds among its members.  Imagine that one runs a business and finds out or seriously suspects his/her partner is pocketing money from the till.  Would that call for a journalistic account in one’s mind?  Barely, one would be incensed – and rightly so.

Titles:

Topic 6, “The Executive Branch at Work,” Lesson 3, “The Independent Agencies,” Page 282 –

Content:

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), for example, is the government’s major crop-loan and farm-subsidy agency.  It is located within the Department of Agriculture, and the secretary of agriculture chairs its seven-member board.  The CCC carries out most of its functions through a line agency in the department of Agriculture – the Farm Service Agency – which is also subject to the direct control of the secretary.[5]

Context:

          This paragraph is one of numerous paragraphs that describe the structural/functional attributes of an element within the federal government.  In the executive branch, the total number of such elements is almost beyond calculation.  This particular agency is listed as a government corporation.  The structural distinctions that make it so are reviewed prior to this paragraph.

Evaluation:

          Most of Magruder’s resembles this paragraph.  That is, the book is full of structural information that describes how some entity within the political system is arranged or organized and how it basically functions within the total system.  That would be both internally and externally with the other entities with which it usually interacts.  One does get a good handle as to why the entity exists and how other entities and actors depend on that described entity to do what it is set up to do.

          The concern of an adherent to federation theory is that a student is exposed to a mechanical view of how the entity is merely a part in this overall machine that provides some service that Congress has decided needs to be provided.  There are some references to controversial aspects of these agencies – the text illustrates a political cartoon that questions the true effect bank regulations have on well-situated bankers.  But these are not well highlighted and function as passing concerns.  The overall take-away is how a portion of the government is set up.

          In general, these descriptions employ positive language; that is, they describe the structure and function as what is needed to meet some legitimate concern.  Naturally, using this approach – one not focused on some relevant problem, say the opioid crisis – the emphasis is on covering the “waterfront” instead of delving into any dysfunctional state of affairs that might be impinging on the students’ lives.  The whole approach lends itself to covering the material, not to involving oneself in it.

          The next posting will address the random page 674 and give an overall reaction to the selected Magruder pages.  Yet to come in this blog is a similar review of the Glencoe text.

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[1] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2019) AND Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United States Government:  Democracy in Action (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 2010).

[2] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 167, emphasis (bolden type) in original.

[3] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).

[4] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 183.

[5] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 282.