POTENTIAL SHIFT

Since last I wrote this blog, the political punditry is all aglitter with the fact that former president, Bill Clinton, administered the oath of office to the incoming mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. What could it all mean? With Hillary Clinton sitting just a few feet away, does all this mean that the Clintons are moving to the left since the new mayor ran on a platform of progressive promises? Is this just another sign that Hillary will run for president and is this the Clintons' way of shoring up the Democratic base support? Who knows, and at this point of the presidential cycle, who should really care that much? What I found more interesting were President Clinton's remarks in introducing the new mayor. He spoke of the collective nature of New York society – you can consider that the American society – and that we cannot ignore what all that means in terms of governmental policy.

Clinton's presidency was noted for its push back from extreme liberal politics.¹ His administration was no enemy of Wall Street and its interests. But what we have to remember were the times when Clinton ran for office, back in 1992. At that time, one can say the nation was still – I would call – staggering out of the eighties, an apogee of natural rights thinking. That was the age of Ronald Reagan, a president who projected an image of extreme individualism, anti-government sentiment, and pro-business policy. The reality was not so extreme, but the language was right there, and I do mean “right.” Here comes an attractive and vibrantly young Democrat who spoke of a compromise, not of big government, but of “the end of the era of big government.” Again, we are talking language, not substance. Big government continued – perhaps the pace of growth slowed – with the basic structure of the New Deal arrangement surviving quite well. Yes, there was to be the Gingrich Revolution of 1994 that was to preserve and advance the Reagan agenda. But ultimately, that was stymied by the closing down of the government and, in the end, the “revolution” made little difference. It gave the Democrats the talking point about how they administered the last balanced budget. But I digress.

My point here is that our politics cannot stray too far from a finely limited range between being overly individualistic to being overly collective. Our individualism is baked into our cultural makeup (of course, an individualism that was defined within a federalist philosophic context) and the realities of modern life – its industrial, post industrial, and corporatism – that espouses the notion that individuals can make it on their own ludicrous. This tension makes up, at least, ninety percent of our politics and it is unavoidable. Hence, this condition makes the question of whether Clinton is moving to the left somewhat marginal. Yes, it might help determine who gets elected and, consequently, it will make a difference in what specific policies are advanced, but the overall makeup of our politics, our political parties, and the like will remain pretty much the same.

Why? Because in the philosophic battle between natural rights advocates – read conservatives – and those who favor a marginally more proactive collective approach to governing – read, in common parlance, liberals – disagree on a very limited notion. That is, to what extent should government operate within the following concern: should government take on a set of values, a claim for the good, or should government take a neutral position on values and instead make a claim for the right (as in the rights of people)? Those who favor the latter believe that each of us should be left to our own devices to determine what should be the good. This is the basis of individualism in our politics. Society is too diverse, according to this position, for any one source of values. Therefore, government is best established and run if it stays out of the business of determining and promoting a “good” life. Whereas our “leftist” political language states that that position is all right for the most part, but there are limited areas in which the issues are too important, too central to survival, to simply let independent forces determine what transpires. These limited areas can be summed up as issues of security, safety, health, and education. Especially important are those situations in which the private sector – here the reference is the markets – fall short in providing essential goods and services. Of course, the shortfall in health services is the fundamental justification for the Affordable Care Act. In those areas, not only does the government have the authority to address the good, but an obligation. The same goes for nutrition, housing, defense of the nation, police and fire protection, and education. Most of these, under our federalist make up, have been the obligation of local governmental entities, but when the local government either won't or can't meet the needs, then we have the central government meeting or helping to meet these needs.

A true believer on either side of this divide will not be convinced by whatever I write here. But for those who question why we fight over what oftentimes seems so obvious and so practical to fix or even address, here is something about which to think. While one side says it is for individual decisions concerning the good, that in itself is a statement about the good. That side is saying: it is good to have people decide what they believe the good to be. And they admit that this is the one domain in which they concede that the collective is taking a value position. But what happens when we commit ourselves to just that value and reject any other collective claim for the good? We did that during the Industrial Revolution – big time – and we did it during the Reagan era – not so big time. Results: we have upsurges in poverty, the skewing of income and wealth to the upper class; some claim we have exploitation of the working segments of the population, vast deficiencies in education among the poor, increased incidents of discrimination, and the general decline of large segments of the population. De Blasio claimed that the current mal-distribution of income in New York City is threatening to unravel the whole social fabric of the city (probably a bit of hyperbole, but reflecting some elements of truth). We are still feeling the effects of the Reagan era and those are the consequences of policies that advanced the politics of extreme individualism.

The new mayor has a lot to do, but the one area I hope he does succeed in is running the city in a practical manner, because all of his efforts to promote equality will be for naught if the basic city services are not provided for in a reasonably efficient matter. For the sake of shifting the politics of New York and of the nation to a more, but not extreme, collective direction, here's wishing the new mayor all the luck in the world.

1Here I am using the term, liberal politics, as it is used in the media, not in its philosophic sense.

WE ARE ALL TARGETS

For some time now, I have been planning to post some ideas concerning cybersecurity. Specifically, I am interested in the security of private computer systems, especially those of large corporations. Of course, the related situation initiated by Joseph Snowden, formerly of the NSA, attracted much concern as it became known that his former employer, a public intelligence agency, has been gathering information about our private communications. This incident caused an uproar as many were accusing the federal government of going overboard in its attempts to tap into any communication by Americans with foreign terrorist groups. I was not going to write about public agencies and their security concerns, but about private firms and their computer operations: how secure are they? This is important to all of us since much of our private information is recorded by these businesses especially in relation to our attaining credit and other financial matters.

My plans were disrupted by the recent breach of security that affected Target's system – that's Target as in the chain of merchandising stores. This breach jeopardized the credit and debit accounts of millions of consumers who used one of these payment options at the chain of over 1,700 outlets across the nation. If you used a credit or debit card at a Target store from November 27 to December 15, there is a possibility that unauthorized use of your account could have been used to acquire merchandise from Target outlets. The news reports covering the breach have pointed out that the problem could have been avoided if Target, in this case, and American corporations, in general, would have put in place security measures that have long been used in Europe. Mainly, the use of security chips which are imbedded into the cards would increase the security of this mode of payment many times over. Yet US corporations have shied away from implementing this and other measures due to the costs of initiating their use.

I became aware of this lack of action on the part of US businesses by reading an article by Amitai Etzioni.¹ In this article, the sociologist points out several deficiencies associated with cybersecurity. His goal was to highlight how private and public entities are intertwined and that a pattern of speech that treats these domains as separate and distinct, as much of the propaganda from the Tea Party and other conservative voices assumes, is really passe and counter to what is real. A more accurate understanding includes many points of intersection in terms of interests, structures, processes, and uses of products that bind more closely the activities of government and business operations. The Target incident just illustrates how acting as if there exists clear lines of demarcation opened the retailer to this monumental vulnerability to undetermined costs in terms of loss and potential lawsuits.

A look at Etzioni's argument is still useful. For example, one area in which the two realms, the public and the private, interact extensively concerns the military. There, both private and military entities share the cybersecurity technology. This includes software and hardware. The security products are produced by private companies and much of it in overseas production facilities such as in China. The security of these components is highly reliant on the efforts of private corporations. And this includes the components in those systems used by our military.

Security is not limited to the concerns of the military or other government departments and agencies (think Social Security, publicly run or supported health facilities, education records, and the like), but also private business concerns as well. Etzioni reports, for example, that the level of crime in areas of finance via the use of computers has grown significantly. One would think that private concerns would be highly worried over such crime and be highly motivated to address it in order to at least ameliorate its effects if not eliminate it altogether. Despite the crime, the fact is that computer systems are not so structured as to lend themselves to security enhancing options. That is, fixing the problem or even lessening it would be very costly. To date, the costs due to crimes such as bank thefts and spying between businesses are not high enough to match the costs involved in installing appropriate security technologies and protocols. Also, incidences of thefts or other fraudulent behaviors often do not come to light so quickly. It usually takes years before knowledge of such crimes becomes evident. This lag delays any acknowledgment that security investments are paying off. And any time payoffs are not recognized in the short term, they are not registered as gains on the quarterly bottom line report, whereas the costs associated with security investments are reported. All this negatively affects stock prices. In other words, taking on costs to meet problems that are hidden is not a recipe for a CEO's job security.

But doesn't all this mean that costs, be they recognized or not, go up and, therefore, in concentrated markets – ones in which there is little competition – are simply added to the prices of whatever products are affected? Or, put another way, doesn't this mean the consumers of any affected product have to pay more for those related goods and services? Yes, it does and that further means consumers have an interest in seeing that affected businesses become more efficient and less wasteful of funds that are going to crooks. If private entities can't or won't do what's necessary, then government has a role in addressing the concern – and adding to the existing interaction between both realms.

I don't need to reproduce Etzioni's report. You get the gist of his concern. The point here is that we are talking about national and even global entities. A lot of our present debate is how big a government we need, how big it can be and still be constitutional, and how big it can be without undermining the democratic quality of our governance. These are legitimate questions posed by conservatives. Traditional federalists have all along been sounding the alarm about the centralization of power due to the growth of our central government. Yet one needs to be realistic about the actual conditions that are out there. Bigness in the private sector is not imaginary. We no longer just have national businesses; we have transnational corporations. By necessity, our national government has to come to terms with that bigness. It has to regulate those entities to fulfill our need for safety and security. These technological advances that have opened us up to these security problems are just one of many areas in which our interests as private citizens are exposed to the potential threats represented by what happened to Target. I am sure that retailers and other types of businesses are reviewing their security policies and rethinking their opposition to regulation by government over these matters. Liberated federalism, if it is to be viable, has to amend its insistence on small government; yes, be reluctant to handing over more power to Washington and be protective of local governmental prerogatives, but be sensible when the issues become national and even global, and understand the potential dangers to our safety, security, health, education, and morals by large scale predators. Bad guys no longer need to wear hoods and brandish guns to do their harm. Their damage can be quite effectively accomplished by clicking on a machine.

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

GULPING POWER

In this holiday season – I've always been partial to this week between Christmas and New Year's – let me offer a short posting. I want to address a controversy that The New York Times refers to as Bloomberg's nanny state. That venerable paper asks whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg's efforts to dictate a healthier life style among New Yorkers was ultimately good for them or just overly intrusive. What I find interesting is the question: upon what authority did the mayor and his Board of Health act? Were his policies, in this area, constitutional? Can government, at any level, tell us how big a soda I can buy? Can hizzoner really tell us we can't have a big gulp?

Okay, I know, the ban is not presently being enforced since the New York Supreme Court ruled the city did not have the legal authority to impose the restriction. But the City is appealing that decision. And yes, with the new administration coming into power, who knows what the future of the policy will be? But that still makes me wonder what in the law led Bloomberg to think he and his Board of Health had the authority in the first place? After all, the court's decision against the ban was based on a determination that the legal restriction per se was not beyond the limits of government, but that the particular ban was determined by a body of the executive department of government, not its legislative department. The policy was initially passed by the City's Board of Health, not the State Legislature or even its city council. As such, the policy violates the “separation of power” principle. The court did not question the City's power to issue such a regulation. Therefore, the question remains: on what basis does New York have this authority?

During the holiday season, students are particularly aware of consuming festive foods and drinks. Perhaps it is even a more appropriate time to teach about a state's police powers, and this case in New York seems particularly well-suited to bring the lesson home. Let me quote from the court's decision on the matter:

There is no reasonable opposition to the long established proposition that a legislative body may vest in an administrative body certain authority. However, as stated in [the former case,] Boreali:

“A legislative grant of authority must be construed, whenever possible, so that it is no broader than that which the separation of power doctrine permits … Even under the broadest and most open ended of statutory mandates, an administrative agency may not use its authority as a license to correct whatever social evils it perceives” And “While the separation of powers doctrine give the Legislative considerable leeway in delegating its regulatory powers, enactments conferring authority on administrative agencies In broad or general terms must be interpreted in light of the limitations that the constitution imposes [NY const. Art 111 …]

In this quote we have a clear acknowledgment that the state does have the power, the police power, to pass legislation to promote health – as it does to also promote safety, education, and morals – of the state. The state's foundational compact, its constitution, spells out the limits of such powers. This is within our constitutional conception and when such public figures, who claim to be devotees of our constitutional system, then mock a state's prerogative to exercise that power, one questions either the sincerity of the devotion or the level of understanding that figure possesses about how our system works. Who might that be? Sarah Palin comes to mind.

My point is that our constitutional foundation is not a marker for libertarian ideals. Our history of individuality vs. collectivity, in terms of our public policy, has been an active and vibrant tension in which, until relatively recently, has sided in favor of collectivity. This case of New York City trying to ban soft drink size is an interesting and relevant case by which to demonstrate this tension. I recommend that teachers get the New York Supreme Court decision¹ so that students can see what all is at stake and of concern not only to the courts, but to bureaucratic officials who deal with these types of issues.

1See http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/sodaruling0311.pdf .

WHICH CONTROVERSIES?

A question every teacher should ask, on a recurring basis, is: what is worth teaching? Unfortunately, in my experience most teachers don't ask this question at all. What is chosen is just what is next in the course's textbook. As I was training to become a teacher, my teacher preparation instruction encouraged me to think about introducing controversial issues into my social studies teaching strategy. The use of controversial issues or problems makes most sense under the general rubric of inquiry teaching. I was taught that inquiry was central to good teaching. It would engage students in the content I would be presenting. The use of controversial issues was but one way to introduce that content; its use would have the backdrop of a problem area people were concerned with and in which students could find contemporary materials. Such issues as civil rights, the Vietnam War, poverty, labor relations, the economy, and the like, would enhance the interest of students. I'm not arguing with this contention; success, though, depends on many factors and introducing a controversial issue or problem will not guarantee it. But issues should be considered for their intrinsic value and not merely as a way to garner student interest. I will agree that their use is better than just presenting what happens to be next in the textbook.

I will go even further: the use of controversial issues and problems needs to be part of any responsible approach to social studies. This includes civics and government. But how should controversial issues be chosen? In the political environment of today, for example, should the issue of gun control be included; should the issue of pornography be chosen; should abortion be chosen? Should the fact that wealth and income, which is heavily skewed to the upper classes, be chosen? What criterion(a) should be applied when trying to choose the issues? I think these are very important questions. I believe this to be true because how one answers them will give whatever is taught a particular bias. That is, by asking one set of questions, what students will delve into will be quite different from what other students will address if given a different set of questions.

During the history of this blog, I have introduced three different mental constructs that have been used in guiding educators as to what content will be studied in social studies courses. These constructs are the natural rights construct, the critical theory construct, and the liberated federalist construct. From the explanations I have shared, one can deduce a particular criterion for each construct – a criterion that can be used in choosing controversial issues. Before I identify each respective criterion, though, let me be a bit more clear as to what constitutes a controversial issue or problem. A controversial issue or problem is a situation or condition in which two or more parties are vying for, to some degree, mutually exclusive aims or goals. The competition for those aims or goals has the added attribute that at least one of the parties, if not all, is vying for some end or for putting into operation a strategy that is considered illegitimate by some party(ies) or faction(s). That is, the competition has an aspect to it that is considered unsavory by some portion of the population. For example, one such issue is whether workers should be able to establish a labor union while the owners of the affected businesses engage in actions to deny the workers their goal. Perhaps in the studied situation, the business owners or the labor leaders rely on strong-arm techniques or intimidation to advance their respective goal. The class can ask: in this conflict, what can the portrayed characters do? What should they do? But before any of this inquiry can take place, the initial issue has to be chosen and presented.

Let me state that the above labor question might be the focus of an inquiry under any of the three constructs I listed above. But the angle taken will vary according to the construct the educator is utilizing in making his/her choice. Perhaps after reviewing the following criteria, this variance will become self-evident.

In terms of an overall goal, the natural rights construct guides social studies instruction in leading the individual student to determine what his or her values are in relation to a particular content. This is true even when that content introduces a controversial issue. This does not, in itself, help in determining the issues to be included in instruction. But if the goal is to have students identify their own position, there needs to be some conscious relevance for the the students being taught. This consideration has a built in bias: problems or issues should be those that demonstrably affect a significant number of people or one in which a significant number of people are expressing a concern over the issue or problem. This type of selection leads to a sort of “popularity” list of problems. It limits a class's attention to conditions of which they are already aware. Usually, in order to get this attention, problem areas are probably identifiable to or affect at least ten percent of the population. Lesser known problems or problems that affect fewer numbers are ignored no matter how important they are. Importance of an issue can be one of growing intensity or one that is uncomfortable to address at a given time. Ten years ago, the prohibition of gay marriage fell into such a category. Therefore, the use of the natural rights construct introduces two detrimental qualities: the issues are “popular” or “hot” and the resulting curriculum develops a non-cohesive quality as attention jumps from one issue to another with no unifying, theoretical perspective. As such, students are left with a hodgepodge of images with little take away as to what constitutes a moral perspective on social issues.

Advancing to the next construct, the critical theory construct focuses on issues in which a perceived exploitation is occurring. In this case, a working understanding of what constitutes exploitation is essential in deciding the conditions that warrant study in a classroom. While a particular teacher might search or devise a suitable definition, at least by that teacher's, school administration's, or school district's acceptable standard, a standard needs to be adopted. For the sake of discussion, let me suggest the definition by Johan Galtung: exploitation exists when the income and wealth levels of an advantaged group(s) are growing at a faster rate or decreasing at a slower rate than that of other groups. In that case, the other groups are being exploited.¹ With this perspective, classroom materials will be channeled toward looking at cases or conditions – or imputed cases – in which there is “exploitation” among members of different classes. While many of the issues that face a society in a given time can be analyzed using this perspective, not all of them can. For example, one would be hard pressed to see whether a nativity scene should be displayed in front of a city hall as illustrative of the exploitation of the lower classes, between the haves vs. have nots. Yet this issue involving the freedom of religion is important and should be able to be studied without getting into the idea whether religion is or is not merely an opiate for the exploited classes.

The last construct is the federalist one. Here, controversial issues are defined as conditions that in one way or another offend federalist values. Let me quote from a previous posting:

The proposed code [of liberated federalism] not only holds a particular value as a trump value, but also presents a hierarchy of values. There are three levels of values: trump value, key instrumental values, and operational values. Here is a list of these values:

• Trump Value: Societal welfare (as experienced through societal survival and/or advancement)
• Key Instrumental Values: constitutional integrity (liberty), equality, communal democracy, democratic pluralism and diversity, compacted arrangements, critical and transparent deliberation, collective problem-solving, earned trust, loyalty, patriotism, expertise
• Operational Values (partial listing): political engagement, due process, legitimate authority, privacy, universality of human rights, tolerance, non-violence, teamwork, consideration of others, economic sufficiency, security, localism

As can be noted, lower level values are logically derived from higher level values. These values, other than the trump value, are not presented as a definitive set of values, but the code is fairly tied into the trump and instrumental values as central to its theoretical base – federalist theory.

Simply stated, a controversial issue, under this construct, is one in which the necessary illegitimacy involves action in opposition to one or more of these values. For example, in my last posting, I wrote about the practice of gerrymandering and how that practice, in effect, made the votes cast by millions not count. Here, the values include the constitutional integrity of those voters, a key value identified by the construct.

In all, I consider the federalist view or set of values the most productive basis by which controversial issues or problems should be chosen. Once the construct functions in this way, the instruction that is to follow does not dictate to students how they should arrange their values. It does not demand a verbal commitment by students to support a federalist value(s). Instead, the values function to guide a teacher in the choice of questions he or she should ask of students as they study and inquire into the chosen condition or situation.

1Galtung, J. (1971). A structural theory of imperialism. Journal of Peace Research, 8, pp. 81-117.

UNDEMOCRATIC MAP DRAWINGS

What is the purpose of Congress or, for that matter, of any legislative body such as a state legislature? The legislative body makes the laws. And what is a law in terms of this function? Law is the authoritative policy pronouncement of what the government will do. The legislature decides what the government will do. The executive – the President at the federal level – does what the legislature has decided. Are these legislatures legitimate in fulfilling this function? In our system, the legitimacy of the legislature, be it Congress, state legislature, county commission, or city council, is based on the fact that the members are voted to their positions by us, the citizens of the respective jurisdiction. The members represent us and, by and large, if they want to keep their jobs, they will roughly decide in such a way that reflects the wishes of most of the voters who sent them to their positions. I am probably not conveying anything that you don't already know, but I go over this elementary civics material to draw a context for what follows.

In the voting process, the assumption is that all citizens have equal voice in determining who will be chosen to represent a certain jurisdiction. Let me focus on the House of Representatives at the federal government level, although much of what follows also pertains to state legislatures. Each state is divided into Congressional districts and each district is represented by one representative. On average, there are about 700,000 citizens per district. So each representative represents about 700,000, although this number varies from district to district. The Constitution provides for each state to have at least one representative even if the population of the state is less than 700,000. And, of course, the actual numbers of each district will vary in order to accommodate the demographic realities of the state. Besides, the exact population of any state is not exactly divisible by 700,000, so the math of distributing population among the number of districts a state has will, by necessity, cause the 700K number to vary. Be that as it may, let us assume, for the point I am making in this posting, that each district has 700K. And with that ratio, 1 representative to 700,000 citizens, let us imagine a fictitious situation.

The situation has to do with a made up state that has exactly 2,100,000 people. Simple division tells us the state, therefore, has three Congressional districts with each district having within its boundaries 700,000 citizens. We will call the fictitious state South Huma. With only 2.1 million people, the state is considered small. The only urban center exists in Congressional District One. In the last Congressional election, 2012, District One voted 90% for the Democratic candidate and 10% for the Republican candidate. District Two voted 49% Democratic and 51% Republican. And District Three voted 49% Democratic and 51% Republican. Across the entire state, the Democrats won roughly 62.7% of the vote and the Republicans won 37.3% of the vote, yet the Republicans won 2 seats and the Democrats won only one seat. While my example exaggerates what actually took place, the idea is that if you draw Congressional districts just so – a process known as gerrymandering – a party can lose at the ballot box in terms of actual votes of citizens and win a majority of seats available. In principle, that is why in the last Congressional election, the Democrats received one million more votes nationwide than the Republicans and yet did not gain control (win a majority of the seats) in the House of Representatives.

How are the district lines drawn? Well that task – some might say, “opportunity” – falls to the respective state legislatures and they use primarily the national census figures that are reported every ten years. That is, every ten years, each state legislature goes about figuring out how the Congressional district boundaries should be designated. This is a highly politicized process since where those lines are drawn will determine the fate of individual politicians – will he or she have to run in a district that is favorable to his/her re-election chances? Also, the ability of a political party to advance its policy positions will be dependent on how many members of the respective legislative body belong within its ranks. So, the party in the majority of any given legislature will use its numbers to insure that the boundary lines will be drawn favorably. They will be lines that help insure that their members will be re-elected and, perhaps, be able to defeat members who belong to the opposition party. Both parties, when given the opportunity, have done this. Since the Republicans won big in the 2010 elections, they got to draw the lines that resulted from the 2010 census figures in twenty-seven of the states (a figure that jumped to twenty-eight in 2012 as the process concluded). That is the number of states in which the Republicans controlled both chambers of the legislature. Some argue that the practice has become too skewed in favor of the Republicans. They go on to say that districts are so biased, creating such secure Republican districts, that that party does not have to worry about losing control of the House of Representatives. But how does this practice affect the quality of our democracy?

The case of South Huma illustrates a fundamental problem, one that undermines the very democratic nature of the system. After all, when people vote, their votes should be equal and the result should reflect the will of the majority. And yet, the current composition of the House – “the people's House” – does not reflect the majority. A lot of the gridlock in Congress today can be attributed to that fact. Yet there are efforts in various states to address this undemocratic aspect of how we choose our representatives.

In Florida, for example, the state constitution has a provision that drawing of district lines will not reflect political aims and that, specifically, lines should not be drawn in order to insure or protect an individual or party winning a particular seat. The League of Women Voters brought suit against the Florida Legislature claiming that the Republicans violated that provision and they want to question members in court about their actions during the reapportionment process that ended in 2012. The Legislature countered that it is immune from such questioning. Such questioning would place a “chilling” effect on legislators in the performance of their duty and, as such, the courts ordering them to testify would amount to a violation of the separation of powers between the Legislature and the courts. In an opinion just issued, the state's supreme court decided in favor of the League. The Court agreed that forcing members to testify would have a chilling effect, but that that was the very idea of the constitutional provision. Therefore, the members will have to go before a court and, under oath, explain their motivations and actions in drawing the lines as they did.¹ Will this make the process more responsive to the democratic wishes of the people? We will see. As it is, the voice of many urban voters, as illustrated in my fictitious state, are being silenced and rendered as wasted.

When one's vote is rendered useless due to where one happens to live and it is done as a result of a systemic condition, the very constitutional integrity of those voters comes into question. For federalists, constitutional integrity is a central procedural value and, therefore, a civics class that uses the federalist construct to guide its content would be well within its purview to study this current anomaly.

1Farrington, B. (2013). Supreme Court: Lawmakers must testify on new maps. Tallahassee Democrat, December 14, p. 3A.

AN IMPORTANT MODERATION

In viewing the significant developments of American democracy, one development that receives limited interest and focus is the transfer of American federalist thought from one based on a religious foundation to one that became secular. Before expounding on this theme, let me share what caused me to think of it. On the 60 Minutes broadcast of December 15^th there was the story of the Copts of Egypt. This Eastern Orthodox religion has survived in a nation that is predominately inhabited by Muslims, for over 1,000 years and an overall history of about 2,000 years. The Coptic followers have been practicing their religion since the earliest days of Christianity. The name Copt originally meant people of the area that is now Egypt. They even claim to have initiated the ceremony that eventually became the mass, a central ritual of the Catholic Church and of other Christian denominations. Today they account for about 10 % of the Egyptian population and are the largest Christian sect in the Middle East. Recently, due to their backing of the Egyptian military's coup in overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood supported Morsi government, followers of the Brotherhood launched massive attacks on 40 Coptic places of worship causing extensive damage. This was an event that happened in the midst of other episodes in which the Copts have been the targets of abuse either from Muslim extremists (for example, the Nag Hammadi massacre in which eight Copts were killed on January 7, 2010) or another massacre that was instigated by the Egyptian military on Copt protesters in the city of Maspero on October 9, 2011. This last attack killed 27 Copts. As Americans view such reports, we might ask: why are we in the US not like that? What is it about American politics that allows a level of tolerance so that our cases of religious attacks have been held to a limited number? Of course, the Egyptian example might be extreme and there are other nations along with the US that enjoy religious harmony. Each nation has its story to tell in this area of concern, but what is our story?

These questions need to be asked while keeping a very important historical fact in mind; that is, the origins of the American society were highly influenced by religious beliefs. We should remember that early settlements were established by highly religious English men and women. The earliest settlements were small and were mostly inhabited by like-minded individuals. As the settlements grew, eventually folks who did not share in the predominant beliefs began to be part of these communities and this eventually led to conflicts including those motivated by religion. Early examples of religious strife took many forms. There were cases of discrimination against members of non-preferred religions, violent confrontations, lynchings, destruction of property, and the like. But these episodes did not characterize the typical relations between citizens of differing religions. They were more often the exceptions. There might be, in our early days, state sponsored religions but, by and large, as populations began to grow to substantial levels, there developed a general understood sense of “live and let live” among people of differing faiths.

I am sure there were many reasons for this general development. But I believe that one such reason is the historical development in which Americans began seeing our basic national agreements – our constitutions – as no longer being covenants, but instead being compacts. To remind you of the distinction: a covenant is a binding agreement among a people in which each member promises, in the most solemn fashion, to abide by spelled out provisions in the agreement. The promise is so binding that it is to be kept no matter what any one party does – at least that is how this type of commitment was defined. This could be a marriage vow, an agreement to engage in a collective activity such as the founding of a church, or the formulation of a government. The promise is further “sanctified” by calling on God as a witness to the promise. The origins of covenants, way before they made their way to American shores, date back to prehistoric times, but Western traditions surrounding this binding process are probably mostly influenced by the Judeo tradition (the Sinai or Mosaic Covenant, 11^th century BCE). A compact is the same as a covenant only without calling on God as a witness. This is a significant secular turn and one that reflects a basic evolution of the attitudes on the part of Americans, a turn that reflected attitudinal changes and then promoted them.

At the time of the American Revolution, there were two views concerning the adoption of binding agreements: one supportive of covenants and the other supportive of compacts. If we look at the language of the Declaration of Independence, 1776, that document is a covenant. If we then look at the language of the US Constitution, that document is a compact. I believe that this was an emblematic change of perspective; that is, that the years between the writing and adoption of these two documents coincided with a significant change in the opinions of Americans – change that, at least when it came to forming a government, covenants were no longer needed to bind parties. Instead, a preference for compacts took hold. One should remember that these years were focused on these types of issues since we were not only forming an national government, but also highly involved in forming state governmental structures as well.

One aspect of these types of agreements, that pertains to both, refers to how such an agreement is either changed or terminated. One might roughly measure how serious one views either type of agreement by how easily the agreement can be done away with or how easily it can be changed. For example, can a covenant or compact be dismissed or voided by the parties that agree to such a change? An answer to that question must include the notion that voiding or changing the agreement needs to be difficult – very difficult. Short of that, the commitment does not have the binding quality that is needed to allow the parties involved to become invested in either the process or the final product. Consider the process by which our constitution, a compact, is amended. Without going over all of the possible steps, the bottom line is that the change has to be overwhelmingly supported by the American people – at least that is what the process is supposed to guarantee. In short, both in the case of a covenant or a compact, the idea is that the agreement is supposed to be made in perpetuity or until the conditions that led to the agreement still exist. Some might consider that given the fact that it has become relatively easy to obtain a divorce, the marriage agreement has lost its status of being a covenant or a compact and, in fact, common parlance has started calling the agreement the “marriage contract.” Also, the argument has been made that state constitutions have become too easily amended by public initiatives and that the integrity of many of them has been compromised by the addition of non-constitutional provisions such as whether or not the state should support rapid transit.

According to the scholar, Daniel J. Elazar,¹ one of the contextual developments of forming our national union under the provisions of the 1787 constitution was the acceptance by the nation of the Federalist² view. That is, in terms of our sense of political morality and all that that entails, we needed to place in lesser priority local orthodoxy about such matters – and that included strong religious biases – and accept a notion of tolerance. If we were to consider ourselves a single people, then we needed to restrain ourselves from insisting that all see religion from the same “lenses” of our particular religious bent. We needed, instead, a more secular view of our political commitments and that began by defining our basic constitutional agreement in those secular terms, at least as that view pertained to the national arena of politics and governance. I don't know how conscious the average American was over such a shift in our perspective, but once it was, in effect, codified in our constitution, including the First Amendment, the process began to change our national sense of what was legitimate in these concerns. The formulation of a governing agreement changed from one of being “higher, higher” law to one being “middle higher” law. The view of governing was seen more as being a human endeavor than an expression of God's will on earth.³

On a more practical level, our governmental perspective became less a form of religious expression and more of one that described our overall civic relation as a partnership. And as such, politics in a federalist sense became an expression of sharing. Ironically, secular sharing placed the emphasis in traditional federalism back on the local level and shied away from central authority and power. This, then, is a compromise. On the one hand, the shift emphasizes the transcending values that made up the American ethos: liberty, equality, self-reliance, communal membership, and the like. On the other hand, social and political focus would remain with local conditions and institutions in which more parochial concerns could be more readily expressed, but in a moderate way. The newer outlook could be expressed as: “I can dislike you and avoid being social with you if you don't see the Almighty in the same way as I do, but you do have your right to be wrong.” This compromise gave the early Americans a way to find the mid-point between religious fervor and secular demands to accommodate the diversity that was becoming ever more a characterization of American life. It has been proven, through our development, that we have evolved from this initial reluctant form of tolerance to one in which many take on an embracing posture of those who believe differently. Our constitutional way of life, to this day, is replete with institutional structures and processes that reflect that compromise and has allowed us to avoid the ugly possibilities that exemplify the sectarian relations in many countries such as Egypt. Through the years, we have become more and more inclusive and even tend to define what it means to be American by incorporating a positive and accepting view of others' beliefs. That process is still taking place.

1As with the previous posting, the ideas expressed in this explanation of the distinction between covenants and compacts reflect the insights of Daniel J. Elazar (1934-1999).

2By Federalist, I am referring to the ideas advocated by those who supported the new national constitution.

3In terms of this debate, the work of Thomas Jefferson cannot be overstated. For example, his Bill for Religious Freedom in Virginia had enormous influence on the minds of Americans.

A DUALIST JEFFERSON

One of the anecdotes about Nelson Mandela that I found particularly telling was that he invited his jailer to a front row seat at his inauguration for the presidency of South Africa. I repeat it to point out how “federalist” President Mandela was. The reason I characterize this gesture with this moniker is because central to federalist thinking is the principle that good governance is advanced by bringing into political play as many parties or interests as possible.

In the first of the Federalist Papers,¹ Alexander Hamilton divides all polities into three types: those based on force, those based on accident, and those based on choice. We associate different institutional structures with each type. Those based on force are noted for concentrated power in the fashion of a king or dictator. Those based on accident are noted for power of the elites – an aristocracy or plutocracy. And those based on choice are noted for power of varied interests that make up the political landscape of a nation. The last sees no limitation on the number of interests that should participate in the formulation of public policy. The implementation of this principle has further structural and procedural implications.

First, a polity of choice holds as most important its foundational constitution – the covenant or compact – that spells out the agreement by which those who have chosen to formulate the polity do so. The constitution sets out to form a structural grid of offices, levels of authority, agencies, and even, in some cases, divided sovereignty designations. Yes, it's complex. It is a structure that can lend itself to suffering through politicians who continuously defray responsibility, but it is also a structure that opens opportunities for more to become involved and also opportunities for citizens to find those government officials who are apt to be favorable to any given demand. As a citizen, if you don't like the response in office A, then you can go to office B or office C and so on. In principle, this approach to governance tends to avoid extremely hierarchical tendencies. As with any form of polity, there is a significant danger associated with its approach. That is, polities based on force are in danger of becoming tyrannies; polities based on accident are in danger of becoming cabals of oligarchs, and polities based on choice are in danger of becoming chaotic or anarchistic. When analyzing each of these types, a student is wise to keep the respective dangers in mind and expect that its development, at a fundamental level, fuels many of its more significant political issues.²

Of course, the US exemplifies a polity based on choice. For one, it is a federation which is a subtype of “choice” polities. The US has its matrix structure with bifurcated sovereignty, sovereignty that resides both with the central government and with the state governments. And I see that through its history, to varying degrees, that there has been a particular view of politics which has provided a source of instability. I can trace the manifestation of this challenge from its very beginning as a national polity. That is, the natural rights construct, with its emphasis on the individual and, to some, unrestrained liberty, has been the source for chaotic, anarchistic developments. And no founding “father” was more responsible for this construct's initial influence than the prime author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. Yet, such a designation should not be made without some qualifying explanations. What makes his contribution along these lines so nebulous is that his association with natural rights thought was due more to isolated comments and written passages than to any well thought-out exposition of ideas. His natural rights assertions, I believe, were motivated by his admiration of John Locke. Locke wrote of individuals giving up a limited amount of liberty in order to form a polity. The British philosopher contextualized his comments with the devising of a fictional origin to societal arrangements – that they emerged from a state of nature. Humans formulated such arrangements by being willing to surrender only those liberties that made societal formation possible. This, to a generation of political thinkers who were fighting the overwhelming level of repression that was the product of a long history of elitist governance, sounded liberalizing. Between the king and the nobles, the history of British rule might have been leading the world into opening up political opportunities, but it still represented a stronghold as to what an individual could and could not do. To men like Jefferson, that history represented stifling horizons and they wanted to change this whole basic political arrangement. Natural rights ideas provided the theoretical arguments by which to attack this legacy. The Declaration is an excellent example of what this fight was all about. But how far down this theoretical path was Jefferson traveling?

To begin, Jefferson was not an abstract theoretician. His proclivities were more of a practical bent. According to Richard Hofstadter, Jefferson was more at home studying and sharing his wisdom about the practical concerns of agriculture. Yet, he was no slouch concerning political thought. And his thoughts did have their influence among Americans of the late 1700s and early 1800s, an influence that was substantial and long lasting. Yes, he did talk of how revolution was the useful “manure” for the tree of liberty, but these were populist assertions that were not backed by any mature thinking. Instead, he spoke more convincingly and importantly when he reacted to the work and efforts of his fellow founders. He supported the structural selection, by the founders, of a balanced constitution in which the several classes were represented. “It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.”³ That is why the Constitution creates the structural matrix our governmental system exemplifies. Structurally, according to federalist principles, government should not limit the number of interests that can participate. With these interests comes the diversity of opinions, principles, and passions that are present within the polity at any given time and that should be considered by policymakers. This holds a dual challenge: the inclusion of all interests and the safeguard of each (even of each individual) against the potential tyranny of the majority. Jefferson was sensitive to this danger: “One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one … As little will it avail us as that they are chosen by ourselves.”⁴ This is Jefferson's support, similar to that of James Madison, of an expanded republic. It is a view that expresses a version of federalist principles. So while one can trace an initial argument for natural rights from this founder, one would be wise to make this overall judgment with a healthy dose of restraint.

 

1One should remember this title in considering the content of that historically important collection of essays.

 

2Many of the ideas contained in this description are attributable to the insights of the late, eminent scholar, Daniel J. Elazar.

3Hofstadter, R. (1948). The American political tradition. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Quotation on p. 29.

4Ibid.