PRODUCTIVE AND JUST COMPETITION

Many of civic related concerns have to do with maintaining cooperative behavior between citizens by maintaining sufficient feelings of solidarity. Using federal language, the challenge can be described as counteracting social forces that tear at or encourage disunity within a federal association. This challenge can affect families, businesses, communities, cities, states, nations, or international associations (for example, NATO). There are a variety of sources for such challenges. There are jealousies, misinformation, conflicting aims and goals, corruption, use of excessive coercion, and so on. One source that is particularly subtle is competition. This last source is subtle because competition, per se, is not divisive. Ideally, competition can be a process by which the highest level of talent and other assets in the association come to bear in its striving to attain its goals. It can become divisive, though, if certain transcending rules governing competition are not adhered to. And what are those rules? One, given the context of the competition, is that it has to treat all the competitors as equals – equal in the sense that each competitor has an equal opportunity to win the competition. Two, the processes and standards by which the competition is conducted and evaluated need to be logically related to the prize for which the competitors are striving to attain. Three, the process needs to be as transparent as possible. And four, the competition itself needs to advance either the survival of the association and/or to advance the legitimate goals and aims of the association. This last rule needs to be explained a bit more.

For one thing, the consequences of a competition within an association might accrue short term positive results. In the long term, though, it might result in consequences that are not only negative, but also seriously threatening to the health of the association. And in this, lies the purpose of this posting. Take for example, the competition between states to attract businesses. This competition has taken many forms, but a common way is to put in place policies that lower the wages of workers by, for example, undermining the influence of labor unions. Recently, Indiana illustrated this by becoming a “right to work” state in which unions can no longer negotiate to become the sole representative agent for the workers of a business – that is, workers do not have to belong to a union in order to land a job. Consequently, in many states such as Indiana, that have been hostile to unions, collective bargaining has either become less effective or more difficult to conduct. Probably more than any other factor in the last three to four decades, this strategy has been responsible for the average median wages of workers to have first leveled off and then to have actually gone down.¹ The result is that inequality has been increasing during a time when production and productivity have increased. This, in turn, has resulted in the top income groups garnering ever higher percentages of the national income. The point is: this competitive activity by states is undermining a central goal of our nation. We are in effect less equal in terms of not only economic well-being, but also in terms of political influence. Our whole claim at providing equal opportunity has, with these developments, become less and less believable.

Really? Am I just rationalizing in order to excuse the shortcomings of some? Well, I have just become aware of how this competition between states is affecting even the ability of young people from lower income families to attend state universities. In the past, many states, through the efforts of their higher education offices, have provided financial assistance so that academically talented youths from lower income families could attend state universities. Through the reporting of Catherine Rampell,² I have become aware of organized efforts to dry up such assistance to poorer kids and expand the help to richer kids. “The share of state aid that's not based on need has nearly tripled in the last two decades, to 29 percent per full-time student in 2010-11. The stated rationale, of course, is that merit scholarships [exclusive of consideration of need] motivate high-school achievement and keep talented students in the state.”³ Rampell provides enough statistics to back up her claims – for example, about 1 in 5 rich kids (from households making over $250,000 a year) get assistance while only 1 in 10 kids from households making less than $30,000 a year get similar assistance. But my point is that this practice is a form of competition between states, not to attract talent, but to keep talent. The thinking is that these richer kids can easily shuffle off to highly respected universities in other areas of the country; they move to those universities and they don't come back. If, on the other hand, states can keep these students in their home states for their college education, they are more likely to stay in the state after they receive their degrees. At least, that's the thinking. The evidence, though, doesn't support this eventuality. It is needless to point out that the success rate for these wealthier students is much higher than for lower income students, although even richer kids don't do as well at these state schools than those who do go off to the more expensive, farther away schools. So, this form of competition, one that betrays our national commitment to equality, has become counterproductive. While the aim of the policy doesn't seem to be materializing, the policy will still be in effect for years. In the interim, how many poorer kids will be denied a real chance at economic success because they will be deprived of the financial assistance to attend state schools that at one time was there? Besides, one can justly question the sincerity of the stated justification for such a policy change. Is it just a way for those with influence, the wealthy, to get more of the resources that a state government is willing to distribute? Who knows?

Irrespective of its justification, I would judge such a competition contrary to the stated goal of equality that our nation claims it has. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with entities in a federal union competing. Competition motivates people to work hard and it increases the chances of entities developing their potential skills. In turn, such developments make it possible for organized people to do what it is they want to do successfully as long as the competition is productive and just.

1I claim this factor to be primary because I feel that all of the other factors, such as transferring work assignments to foreign workers, are negotiable developments that unions could have moderated and made less effective in lowering wages. I must admit a lack of expertise in this, but the decline of wages among American workers mirrors, in terms of timing, the decline of union membership.

2Rampell, C. (2013). Freebies for the rich. The New York Times Magazine, September 29, pp. 14 and 15.

3Ibid., p. 14.

SCIENCE AND/OR RELIGION

Some have argued that the belief some other people have in science amounts to those people making science a religion. I have never fully appreciated this claim. Yes, science does provide theoretical answers to many of the puzzling aspects of life, such as how all this stuff around us came about. When considering all the different forms of knowledge and the processes of knowledge acquisition, people who ascribe to scientific explanations and methods tend to place in priority that knowledge and those processes. They might almost label other accounts and methods as, if not illegitimate, inferior. And this priority extends not only in the way they view or study the physical elements of existence, but also how they view human behavior and human consciousness. The exclusion of other knowledge content and methodology, by the more “extremist” advocates of science, seems to place on science such a privileged position that it at least seems “religious” to those who observe this level of devotion.

I tend to agree that such an attachment does seem to exist and that it is problematic, but there is at least one aspect of scientific thought that is not religious – even for the extremists. The one thing all religions promote that science does not is a belief in a supernatural. Now, science does not deny the existence of the supernatural but, at best, it limits its judgment of a supernatural existence to the observation that if it exists, it does not fall under the purview of scientific study. Science is concerned with learning about natural existence, not the supernatural.

Therefore, science is a secular concern or field of study. It is not the only secular concern or field of study. There is historical study;¹ there is philosophic study; there is mathematical study, and so on. Each of these areas, as itself, is secular and does not pass judgment on whether there is or is not a supernatural realm of existence.

I have in previous postings gone over the essence of scientific substance or content and a description of scientific methodology. The scientific content, as most depictions of truth, can be structured as a continuum, going from the most abstract to the most concrete, by the following terms: paradigm, general theory, theory, generalizations, concepts, and facts. Some might use different terms; for example, the term law for generalization, but in the main this progression seems to be in play when structuring scientific knowledge. The methodology, at least as indicated by the standard arrangement of scientific research reporting, consists of

• reviewing theory to formulate hypothesis,
• developing appropriate experiments or other data collecting protocol by which relevant data can be gathered objectively,
• testing the hypothesis by analyzing the gathered data,
• determining the truthfulness of the hypothesis, and
• applying the result of the testing to either support or, if necessary, adjust the theory according to the results.

Actual operation of scientific research does not necessarily follow the above phases in cookbook style. Actual research can be quite messy and seemingly unorganized at times. But the logic entailed in the above process is adhered to and reporting of scientific findings is arranged according to this logic.

Now, and here comes the issue of this posting; nowhere in this process is there room for preconceived notions of what the truth is. Nowhere is there a call for inspiration, at least when it comes to determining what the truth is. If there is a problem with the prevailing theory – and that includes the governing paradigm – the theory is not automatically discarded or “overthrown” and it is not replaced by a theory or paradigm that is suggested by some belief in the supernatural. To attempt to do so is not science, it's political.

I bring up this issue because in Texas there has been a concerted effort by politicians and appointed officials to unduly influence the content of science curriculum and the purchase and use of textbooks in science classrooms. These politicians and officials are believers in either “creationism” or “intelligent design” theories. These theories question the Darwinian theory of evolution that has served as the governing paradigm in the study of biology ever since the middle of the nineteenth century. Motoko Rich² reports that, for example, these critics question the often cited evidence of fossil records that support Darwin's theory. They claim that the fossil data can be interpreted in other ways. I claim no expertise here, but even if this is true, the scientific process does not call for relinquishing the prevailing paradigm or theory, but it does suggest further study. It suggests reviewing research techniques. It suggests attacking the problem from a different angle. The reason the prevailing theory is the prevailing theory, in the first place, is because there are overwhelming and consistent findings that support the theory.

Technically, a scientific theory is not even considered “fact.” Theories are not facts; they are instead made up of generalizations that in turn are made up of concepts that are categorical representations of facts. In other words, facts are a far cry from theory. A fact is, for example, the lamp I am seeing across the room has a red shade. A generalization is, for example, if the temperature of water reaches a level of heat measured to be 100 degrees Celsius, the water will then boil (made up of the concepts water, heat, and boiling). A theory is, for example, the whole explanation of the state of organic life on the planet that we call Darwin's theory of evolution.

Now, if you have a religious motive and you find Darwin's theory offensive because it does not indicate any grand plan for life, as it is manifested, but instead a natural process that is quite arbitrary, then you might be tempted to find some problem with Darwin's theory. You might be tempted to bypass the scientific way of doing things and promote a non-scientific explanation for the way life exists on the planet. If you can cast doubt on Darwin, you can suggest that there are alternative ways of “interpreting” the data that, in turn, indicate a supernatural answer. Hence, the explanations of creationism or intelligent design take form. And under the guise of being “critical” and of promoting “critical thinking,” you can argue that in science classes we should present these alternative views and have the students study these views, debate them, and then they can make up their own minds as to what is true. The problem is that you are not abiding by the ways of science; you are instead using a subtle form of indoctrination under the guise of science. It is dishonest and does not belong in science classes.

Why be concerned with this issue here, in a blog dedicated to civics? Because with civics, one can find an answer for these religious advocates – and by religious, I mean fundamentalist religious advocates. Present your alternative theories in civics or history classes. This question of whether creationism or intelligent design should be presented in science classes has become a political issue. You can present the whole “theory” of creationism or intelligent design and have students review, debate, and arrive at their own decisions as to what should be taught in public schools. Through this strategy, the one in eight teachers who presently teach creationism or intelligent design can have their beliefs critically reviewed by students.³ Of course, such a study would also look at the meaning of science and what constitutes legitimate science content. Students, in this debate, would learn that words are important and what you call science needs to comport or, at least, account for what the practitioners of science mean by the term.

1I recently saw on CBS' 60 Minutes an interview with Bill O'Reilly in which he promoted his recent book, Killing Jesus. He was asked why he does not refer to Jesus as God, savior, or Messiah. He simply states that his is not a religious book; it is an historical book. Aired on September 29, 2013.

2Rich, M. (2013). Creationists on Texas panel for biology textbooks. The New York Times, September 29, National section, pp. 14 and 22.

3The rate of teachers who include creationism or intelligent design in their science instruction is reported in the Rich article that cites the research by political scientists, Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer.

“MY FELLOW AMERICANS”

I have just returned home from a long car trip. One stop on our trip was a visit to Franklin D. Roosevelt's home and library. Of course, one needs to stroll through the gift shop at the end of seeing the exhibit and there I bought a souvenir coffee mug. On the mug there is a famous FDR quote: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” This is a nice sentiment, but is there any justification for such a contention? After all, such progressive aims usually mean tax dollars being taken from some to be given to others. How do we justify this type of policy other than to say it might make us feel better or that we have religious obligations to support such actions? After all, as I have stated elsewhere in this blog, secular reasoning – reasoning that does not impose religious beliefs on others – demands that government action promote societal welfare; that is, the policy needs to further ensure the society's existence or advance the aims and goals of its people. I choose to rely on secular reasoning when it comes to evaluating public policy. I believe, as an educator, that any attempt at moral education in our public schools needs to be secular in its approach – short of that, we are merely indoctrinating young people to our biased beliefs. Therefore, if civics instruction were to entertain whether or not FDR's words should be taken seriously, then his contention needs to be analyzed by secular standards. What could they be?

Richard Dagger¹ makes such an attempt of imposing secular reasoning to the question: do we have any obligation toward the less advantaged? He begins this analysis – by way of providing context – by simply claiming that we have an obligation toward others because of our right to autonomy. What he specifically claims is that individual autonomy is reliant on individuals respecting the demands of civic virtue – that virtue that is concerned with societal welfare. Why do we have such an obligation? There are several reasons: concern over corruption (the antithesis of civic virtue), concern over necessary sacrifice for maintaining national independence, and the factual reality that we are, no matter how autonomous we feel, interdependent in a variety of ways such as providing the rule of law, providing the common defense, providing protection from diseases and disasters, providing education, and providing a general cultural promotion of individual rights. These last realities of interdependence are all accomplished by communal institutions and manned by, for the most part, civic-minded individuals. All of these factors point to obligations based on practical concerns. Civic virtue relates, in terms of motivation, to those behaviors that make the levels of social trust and bonding necessary to meet these obligations that are inherent with social interdependence. But Dagger is still not finished in justifying us having special concerns for those disadvantaged fellow citizens. He approaches the affirmative position from the point of view that we have an obligation to better the plight of those who are less advantaged and live in our nation. He asks: why do fellow citizens deserve more assistance than those who might live in other nations?

Early on in this blog, I stated that liberated federalism argues we should hold a concern for the disadvantaged from the perspective that any one of us can find him/herself in a disadvantaged state. But there is more to it. As a member of a federated union, we have value due to our humanness, our potential, and our consent to belong to the union. Federalism is based on a societal union that is formed through agreement to a covenant or compact which obligates us to its terms regardless of what others do. Yes, as Dagger points out, there are a number of other justifications for privileging fellow citizens for special concern:

• the psychological bonds for fellow citizens; after all, we can't actually hold equal emotional commitment for every member of the human race – although in diverse nations, this is often challenged by having conflicting emotional ties encouraging us to include or exclude those who belong to other racial, ethnic, religious or other groups less identified with one's own identity –
• proximity of our fellow citizens – although given where you might live, citizens of other countries might live closer – and
• efficiency of sharing resources with those who live under the same national jurisdiction – although efficiency might be better served, for a variety of reasons (such as the distribution facilities available), by providing assistance to citizens of other nations.

But when we are considering fellow citizens, we are talking about a special interdependence, one of reciprocity. We are dependent on each fellow citizen meeting his or her obligation – such as obeying the law – in order that a society can function and our own welfare can have the chance of blossoming toward its potential. This reciprocity is further advanced by a system established under a federal model – one of consenting members coming together to form the societal and political union that define and constitute a national essence. Therefore, due to a variety of reasons, some accidental and others inherent in the nature of societies, we do have secular reasons to not only be concerned with all human beings, but also have a special concern for those with whom we share citizenship.

What does all this mean for civics education? I believe each of Dagger's reasons for having special concern for our fellow citizens should be shared with students. Students should then express their own feelings toward each of them. Perhaps using the emotional reaction that Americans expressed after such events as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or al Qaeda's attack on 9/11 could be used as context for such discussion. Having been around for the 9/11 attack – I was teaching during that time – I can remember how people responded. There was a visceral reaction of anger and disgust and a lot of it had to do with the attack being directed against Americans. So there is an emotional link between citizens. It's just there. Good citizenship, according to a secular way of thinking, though, calls for a reasoned reflection on the part of citizens that would aim at justifying any special considerations people have for fellow citizens that extend beyond the purely emotional.

1Dagger, R. (1997). Civic virtue: Rights, citizenship, and republican liberalism. New York, NY: Oxford.

SHALLOW CLAIM FOR LIBERTY

Advanced nations and their social structures tend to be pluralistic, at least by historical standards. The economic opportunities that characterize these nations act as magnets culling immigrant workers from areas of the world where such opportunities do not exist. In nations where such diverse populations exist, they struggle to find some semblance of social harmony. In pluralistic societies, where a common vision of the good is difficult, it is highly daunting for a political system to count on such a uniting vision. At its core, this is the allure of a natural rights conception – or known philosophically as a liberal conception – of political governance. Where there is little to no chance of formulating a set of aims and goals that reflects the vast opinions and desires of a population as to what is worth attaining, then a system, according to natural rights advocates, should organize itself around the notion that everyone be free to define what is the good for him or herself. Of course, there is the exception to those values that seem to be universal; the value for peace and the protection of property should be recognized as transcending values. The value of stability, if you will, can be the basis by which a nation can be established and even advance as each member of the society strives to advance his or her interests. Perhaps the words of Michael Sandel can express this idea better:

Society being composed of a plurality of persons, each with his own aims, interests, and conceptions of the good, is best arranged when it is governed by principles that do not themselves presuppose any particular conception of the good; what justifies these regulative principles above all is not that they maximize the social welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they conform to the conception of the right, a moral category given prior to the good and independent to it.¹

By the “right,” Sandel simply means what we consider our rights – those areas of behavior we are free to pursue, such as speech and religion. If one is at a loss in trying to promote a notion of the good authoritatively, the solution is to get the government, as much as is humanly possible, out of meddling with questions of what is good and what is not good, especially if any such effort interferes with a person's rights.

And here comes the word games: the Constitution identifies in its Preamble a list of goods and one in particular goes beyond the ideal of peace, protection of property, or stability. That good is the promotion of the general welfare. Given this aim, it follows that in order to pursue a more perfect union, we need to define – in particularly concrete terms – and promote something called the general welfare. This state of a general welfare is not stated in our founding document as individual welfare – as in a phrase, “to advance each citizen's opportunity to maximize his/her interests” – but it is stated as a common state inclusive of all citizens as a whole. Now, natural rights devotees might argue that only through a system that allows all individuals to pursue his/her interests (that is, through a free market) will the general welfare be pursued. But now, with this admonition, the “good,” in this natural rights perspective, takes on more substance. When one argues for such a system, a whole array of goods seems to come into play. To establish and maintain a viable free market, a whole style of life becomes operational. And not only is such a style extensive, but it is downright inimical to many people's vision of a good life. You can include, for example, traditional ways of life that one can associate with those immigrating from lesser developed nations.

This stream of argument that natural right advocates present, such as for liberty and getting government out of our lives, seems very shallow. When we view how the defenders of the free market have used government agency to further their aims in our history – the use, for example, of coercive means to put down labor unions or, more recently, the use of government to interfere with reproductive rights – then one wonders how sincere these claims for liberty are. For each of these uses of government, there are rationalizations, but I think it is quite fair to say that those in power, including those who lead in “liberal” economies, tend to lean toward the power of government when it comes to promoting their visions or versions of the good.

1Sandel, M. (1998). Liberalism and the limits of justice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Quotation on p. 1. Emphasis in the original.

WHAT IS IT YOU DO?

A while ago, I suggested that a good exercise or project for high school students was to identify those individuals in their communities who held power. I went on to suggest a method to do this and an initial inquiry into where these individuals worked and lived. I cautioned that students not be too aggressive in finding this information and that they should depend on publicly available sources. The main idea of this second phase of the project was to look into how much these powerful people actually mix with other segments of the community, especially with those who are lacking in advantages – the poorer segment of the local population. In this posting, I want to suggest a further step in this inquiry: devising questions that could be used in interviewing the powerful.

Again, this methodology is suggested by an old study: Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers by Floyd Hunter.¹ The next apparent step in Hunter's study was to formulate questions that would be part of a survey to be administered to the forty identified powerful members of the community he called Regional City. Hunter's account of the interviews does not contain the questionnaire, but from the type of information the study reveals, I have devised a set of questions – at least initial questions – that seem to have been asked of these people. I will list these questions in no particular order, but I will advise any teacher who wants to pursue this type of assignment that the overall aims are to see how the individuals saw their good fortune, how their success reflects a system that provides equal opportunity, how the individuals are using their good fortune to promote equal opportunities for other members of the community, what kinds of experiences – particularly reflecting their own efforts – seem to aid one in becoming powerful, and how conscious the powerful are of how dependent they are on communal resources to advance their careers.

Of course, the tone of the interview should be complimentary of these individuals' positions and accomplishments. It should avoid in any way reflecting jealousy, rancor, an accusatory tone, or negativity. I would suggest the general approach can be to communicate a purpose for the interview; that is, to share with students those qualities useful in attaining success – students would benefit from such insights. This positive demeanor need not be devious or untruthful. In the process of obtaining and reporting this information, one can report, as context, the true conditions that lead to advancement and an honest account of how likely it is for any particular, hard working person to eventually meet this type of success. I believe that educating young people as to these matters is a very responsible thing to do. It is responsible in terms of students' personal interests and in terms of educating students as to the true level of equality that exists in their community.

Naturally, what I am proposing is just a suggestion, but I want to emphasize that these questions are listed here only to spur in teachers or a class of students ideas that can serve as a starting point. Students should be totally free to take them and change them in any way they might feel would be suitable given the aims the teacher offers to guide their efforts. Here is the list:

• With what business are you employed?
• What is your role in that business? Generally describe your duties.
• With what other businesses are you or your business linked or associated?
• With what associations – such as professional or communal – are you or your business engaged?
• What are your roles in those associations?
• How would you describe your role or activities in advancing community interests?
• How many jobs does your business provide?
• How would you describe these jobs – in terms of actual duties, skills, pay, and the like?
• How would you describe your role concerning civic affairs?
• How would you describe your rise within your business – in terms of time, experiences, level of effort and difficulty, and the like?
• What previous jobs did you hold before coming to the present business or employer you presently have?
• Do you have any family members employed by your business – now and before you took on the top position of leadership?
• How does your business, your industry, your community, the nation promote leadership?
• Are these methods of promoting leadership effective? If yes, how? If not, in what ways are these methods deficient?
• Given a position of leadership, as the one you hold, what are the moral responsibilities of a person holding such a position to the welfare of a community? Please expand.
• To prepare for a position such as the one you hold, what type of educational experiences are essential? Which are, if not essential, useful? Which are, if not essential or useful, a waste of time?
• Given all the factors that affect you and your business, what is right with your community, with the region where your business is located, with the nation, with the world?
• Given all the factors that affect you and your business, what is wrong with your community, with the region where your business is located, with the nation, with the world?
• If you were asked to account for your success, what percentage would you say was due to your effort (hard work) and what percentage was due to good fortune? Please explain.

In regard to these kinds of questions, I will share with you, in some future posting, what Hunter found out about the leaders he studied. While his study is now dated, it would be interesting to compare what business and other community leaders say today with what their counterparts reported over a half century ago. Also, it would be interesting for the students, before administering the survey, to answer the questions as they believe an ideal powerful person should answer them. They can then compare their version of the ideal with the reality that exists in their community.

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

PRIVATE EYES ARE LOOKING

What value does privacy have for us? Given the recent uproar over the revelations regarding the methods used by the National Security Agency (NSA) in gathering information on the communication activities of Americans, one can assume quite a bit. The idea of government having access to our phone calls, emails, other social media use, and the like makes us very uneasy. We know that the history of totalitarian regimes and their reliance on gathering such information lend to our imaginations of government overcoming our liberties – and rightly so. After all, the founding generation had such concerns, one, from our experiences under British rule and, two, from concerns that a newly formed central government could exert such power over our recently gained freedoms. So concerned were they that the political process produced and ratified the Fourth Amendment. That bit of constitutional law protects against government unreasonably searching and seizing our things, including our papers and other information without a warrant. My purpose here is not to review or comment on this NSA scandal, but to suggest that if all this is troubling, we might want to give some very serious attention to what the private sector is able to acquire in terms of our personal information.

I want to review some of these capacities – relying on Amitai Etzioni's account¹ – of how private corporate entities, often in conjunction with government and sometimes not, have magnified the ability to gather a great deal of information about us. Never mind that the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (1994) requires that telecommunication businesses build in capacities for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to have the ability to perform wiretaps. Private corporations, for their own uses, have developed and expanded their abilities to gather information on us. Seemingly, their purposes are limited to marketing aims, but the potential is chilling. Someone is keeping track of what you buy on the Internet, whom and how often you email, what you watch on cable, where and when you go about town or wherever else, your net worth, your real estate holdings, social security numbers, where you live and where you've lived, phone numbers, fax numbers, neighbors' names, and on and on. A lot of this information is in the public domain, but some is not, and these businesses that make it their business to know about you are using more and more sophisticated technologies to do their work. Here is Etzioni's summary of these efforts:

In short, corporations do almost everything that the federal government has been banned from doing under various laws … . [O]ne must note, first of all, that the violation of privacy by private agents often has the same effects as identical violations committed by government agents. Thus, when gay people who seek to keep their sexual orientation private are “outed” by the media, or banks call in loans of those they find out have cancer, or employers refuse to hire people because they find out about their political or religious views, privacy is violated in a manner about as consequential as if the same violations had been carried out by a government agency.²

All of these potential abuses – chilling just in terms of their possible eventuality – could dampen our liberty in very real ways. And before you think that all of this is limited to private entities, remember that all of this information is available to government.

It's not as if we haven't had presidents who formed lists of enemies and attempted to circumvent constitutional safeguards in order to discredit and intimidate opponents of their policy aims. Oh! I know a plot for a political thriller: devotees of Richard Nixon gather DNA from some old hairbrush of the former president and clone a slew of humans with this DNA so they can grow up to be the former president's genetic copies. Eventually, one is bound to become a future president and accomplish what Nixon tried to do. The only thing is, in the future this Nixon will have much more advanced technology and a stored bank of information that private corporations have already accumulated. We can call the thriller, Boys from Silicon Valley.³ Oh, that's right; the plot has already been used.

Let me share two businesses Etzioni identifies as particular firms that are doing quite a bit of gathering and have contracts with government agencies in which they share a cache of information. There is Choicepoint – 35 government contracts including with the Justice Department – and SeisInt – gathering criminal records, SSNs, bankruptcy information, property ownership, family names, credit, and other information.

Of course, such activities are an affront to the natural rights view of government. In terms of this construct's concern over private businesses gathering such information, this construct is not so clear. After all, what these businesses do, as long as laws are not broken, might not be really interfering with others' rights. If you come to the conclusion that such gathering is what someone wants to do, then others can be free to protect that information from being detected. Don't use social media, don't write emails, don't watch cable TV, don't go on the Internet, don't make a call on your phone, don't own a cell phone, don't live a modern life. A federalist concern transcends this view. The mere fact that if a person's individual ability to freely and in a non-threatened way participate in the political process is limited in any way, then federalist thinking is concerned with such a development. Such an eventuality diminishes the ability of people to be federated with each other. And this concern can be what a civics class can use to address this whole area of invading a person's privacy.

1Etzioni, A. (2013). The bankruptcy of liberalism and conservatism. Political Science Quarterly, 128 (1), pp. 39-65.

2Ibid., p. 50.

3For the sake of the younger readers of this blog, Boys from Brazil (1978) is a film starring Gregory Peck and Lawrence Olivier. The plot idea in the text is borrowed from this film.

WHO WERE THESE GUYS?

Who were the founders of our nation? I mean, really, who were they? Were they the guys whom we see depicted on those paintings? Or were they other people? Jack Rakove makes the very convincing argument that the founders were the people who made up the ratifying conventions that voted for the constitution that those guys in the paintings proposed to them.¹ Yes, the “painted” bunch wrote our constitution, but that document didn't take effect until it was ratified by nine of the conventions. It was eventually ratified by all the states. In total, by my count, there were 1,648 representatives at the various ratifying conventions. Not all conventions had the same number attending: the largest had 355 (Massachusetts) and the smallest had 26 (Georgia). More populated states tended to have more representatives, but there was no ordering of the number of representatives by the population size; Virginia, the largest state with about 821,000 people, had 168 attendees at its convention. In almost each state, a few of the representatives at their respective conventions were also members of the Constitutional Convention, but they made up a relatively small portion of the 1,648 representatives.

I relate some of these facts regarding the ratifying conventions because I want to support a claim I have made in numerous postings; that is, that more than any other mental construct, the founders held a federalist construct or worldview in terms of their political perspectives. Note: I don't say it is the only influential construct. As it turns out, this notion of how the founders saw politics, governance, and ideal citizenship is somewhat contentious today. According to Richard C. Sinopoli,² there are scholars who attribute to the founders a strong republican view. This would be in keeping with my contention since federalism is a particular form of republican thought. There are others who argue that the founders were influenced by liberal thought – what I have called a natural rights perspective. Here, the emphasis is on the idea that the founders were motivated in their political writings and actions by a desire to promote individual rights. Some of these scholars see these founders being swayed by the ideas of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers.

I want to point out that I never claimed that the founders were ideologues or “true believers” of the federalist train of thought. Again, what I do believe is that more than any other construct, the founders were influenced by federalist thinking. Whether they consciously knew they were following a federalist line of thinking or even went about identifying themselves as federalist devotees or not, I, frankly, don't know. I have never read anything that makes me believe they thought this way other than the fact that those founders who were promoting the new constitution of 1787 jumped on the title, Federalists. But what I do think is that their ideas and how they saw government needed to be organized and structured – from local government to national government – following a federalist model. That model first took root on American soil with the writing and implementation of the Mayflower Compact. The basic format of the compact agreement can be noted in just about all of the founding documents that set up local jurisdictions, regional arrangements, colonial/state charters and constitutions, and of course, our national constitution – even our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation.³

Here is Sinopoli's take on how “republican” or “liberal” the founders were: “Normatively, I conclude with at least two cheers for a conception of liberalism that recognizes the value of community and participation even if it is not one such liberals as Madison and Hamilton themselves would have endorsed.”⁴ This scholar points out quite emphatically that the founders harbored both republican concerns for community and liberal concerns for individual rights and prerogatives. He seems to lean in favor of the side of the debate that sees the founders as liberals, but goes on to argue that liberalism can include a concern for communal interests. I believe that the nuanced view of the founders can be best described as federalist because integral to the federalist view is its concern with the commonwealth being formed by independent and free-willed individuals who voluntarily enter compact agreements – a presumption of liberty that is extensive and profound. By the late eighteenth century, these founders had become quite accustomed to the, by that time, traditional way of seeing political arrangements. They saw them structurally as outgrowths of the arrangements which had formed their congregational churches. It was just the way these types of things were/are done.

This goes for those attending the Constitutional Convention, although among these elites the concerns for individual rights were beginning to take a stronger hold as they saw their property rights becoming more and more threatened by “highly democratic” state governments. These entities, the states, were experiencing policy decisions – such as whether higher taxes on the big land owners and talk of nullifying debt contracts should be instituted – that were beginning to undermine the institution upon which their riches relied. Incidents such as Shay's Rebellion were highly unsettling. But as the argument over the new constitution went out to the countryside and the people got to elect their representatives for the ratifying conventions – when it got closer to the regular folks – we find a different emphasis expressed. Sinopoli points out:

Anti-federalist conceptions of civic virtue and the sources of allegiance also resided in a complex moral and political psychology, one that relied on ties of personal acquaintance and the bonds of benevolence to explain political loyalties and to argue for the inevitable weaknesses of such loyalties in a large, extended republic.⁵

Anti-federalists – a poor title for those who opposed the proposed constitution – were elected to these ratifying conventions. They were fearful of this large national government being formed and being able to take away the prerogatives of their state governments. Again, for these founders, they believed the emphasis in governance should be on the independence and integrity of the entities that make up the national federal union – in this case the former individual colonies. These entities, now the separate states, were closer to the communities they knew and loved; they were closer to the biases, prejudices, and parochial beliefs that constituted who they were. Both Federalists (promoters of the proposed constitution) and Anti-federalists were all federalists; their argument would have been better titled Centrists vs. Anti-centrists – that would have been more descriptive. The question was not whether federalism had to be instituted or dismissed. The question, better posed, was whether the level of governance was better at local federal entities or a national federal entity. The resulting compromise was a dual federal arrangement which is today symbolized by a flag with fifty stars.

1Rakove, J. N. (1996). Original meanings: Politics and ideas in the making of the constitution. New York: Vintage Books.

2Sinopoli, R. C. (1992). The foundations of American citizenship: Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

3A scholar who has done extensive work in this area is Donald S. Lutz. You can find a good summary of his work in Lutz, D. S. (1992). A preface to American political theory. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

4Op cit., Sinopoli, p. 15.

5Ibid., p. 15.