Tag: role of government

Question 1:  While there is considerable agreement between our views a major difference between us, and I believe between liberals can conservatives in general, is over the competing goals of liberty and equality.  You see equality or as you put it, “leveling the playing field” as one of the driving principles of government.  Where does liberty fit into your view of Government?   
Liberty is a manifold thing. We may find that liberty is that which allows us to govern ourselves, with the idea that if we are subject to someone or something else, we are not free. Yet, we are always subject to one thing or another. No, this is not liberty.
I would propose first a definition of liberty. True liberty is that which prevents another from controlling us. Therefore, we are truly never free given that even free will is a myth. Instead, liberty under a government must be achieved as an ideal. What is this governed liberty? Governed liberty is the ability to flourish dually as a citizen and an individual. To that end, we must respect the notion that liberty means different things in different situations.
For instance, political liberty is not anarchy, an enslaving process if there was ever one, but that which allows an individual who has achieved some form of citizenship to actively participate or not participate in the political life of the country. A Government, properly, must not interfere in the political liberty of the governed, else it separates itself from the governed.
Economic Liberty is a wild animal to tame, but it must include the notion not of unlimited enterprise or unlimited gain, else by such measures we limit others, but the liberty to pursue or not pursue individual wealth so as to not harm the social compact.
Briefly, liberty is not absolute freedom, but a part of the social compact allowing the governed to both control the government and to limit untamed power absorption — to limit the ability of the governed to divest themselves of the government.
Question 2: You say that “Government has no unnatural proper bounds. It has no unnatural limitations” but then in the next paragraph write how “role of Government is not theocratic, nor moral” Is not the latter a bound or limitation? If not what did you mean by the first statement?
Government cannot replace God, nor the individual conscience. Whereas the economic, civil, and political realms are the Government’s role, the unnatural, that which is above natural control, does not have a place in the control of government. If something deemed moral is better contrived as under natural control, or indeed of control, it must be decided if this is truly a moral issue or a natural issue.
Question 3:  You say that “a Government apart from the Governed is unnatural and must be restrained as a rabid dog”   but would this not argue for a focus more on local government, than on a large federal government separated from the people in both distance and influence?
What distance is the Federal Government away from us? In our system, we are intertwined. We have Federal highways and Federal laws alongside county, local, and such laws. There really is no distance between the Federal Government and the local person. Further, we vote for Federal office holders, even the Senators.
Links:
Question 3
Watts – Question 3 Reply
Hushbeck – Question 3 Reply
Hushbeck – Question 3 Response 1
 

1. Elgin, I contend that the idea of a Judeo-Christian anything is a myth beginning in the last century with Darby (England) and expanded by Scofield in the United States. It is a myth, and not the good kind like Genesis 1. In my opinion, this idea of a Judeo-Christian foundation presents an unreal expectation and authority for the Constitution and the Government. I will allow, for the moment, “Christian” entails Christian Tradition rather than the New Testament (so that we have Thomas Aquinas rather than, say, Paul). Here is the question. Given the mythical foundations promoted in the last century, such as Judeo-Christian, how do we might place the philosophy of Government back into Enlightenment-era deism from which it sprang and forgo the revisionist history, such as the values you list on the currency?
There are so many false assumptions in your question it is hard to know where to begin.  First, I am not sure what you think the Judeo-Christian heritage is, but for me it is simply an easy way to reference how Western Civilization was shaped and influenced by Christianity and Judaism.  That it was shaped is simply a fact.  Medieval Europe was an amalgamation of three main influences:  The declining Roman Empire, the invading barbarians, and Christianity.  Even today, though its influence has waned some, Christianity remains a considerable influence shaping how Western Civilization viewed the world.
Even given that, I do not see any authority in the Constitution stemming from the Judeo-Christian heritage.   As for the values on the currency, these do not provide any authority. As I layout in my book Preserving Democracy, they simply are the values that have defined the country from its founding until fairly recently.  Though as I lay out in the book, I think these are good values to build a country on and much better than the alternative values seeking to replace them.
Thus since your question is based on a false premise, there really is no answer to it.
As for the authority of the Constitution, itrests on the value of its answers to the problems of a democratic government.  It provides for a limited government of enumerated powers.
So how do you view the Constitution?
2. You say the people “should be free.” Where is the argument for this and further, what is “free?”
There are several ways I could answer this.  In terms of this country it was one of the driving principles behind the revolution and a founding principle of the country set forth in the Declaration of Independence when it says “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It remained a central value up through the 1960’s when Martin Luther King so movingly proclaimed in his speech on the mall,
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Ultimately I believe we should be free because God created us as moral agents with the ability to choose.  My argument is the fundamental argument for human rights, what God has given, no one, not even the king, should take away.
As for what is free, while I believe that freedom is important, I do not believe that it is absolute. I believe that individuals should be free to act, but as I wrote in my answer that this includes a say in the community in which they live.  I do not believe that the freedom of the one automatically trumps the freedom of the community.  
To use an analogy from the movie Back to the Future, Biff’s ability to set up a casino in the second movie should not automatically override the citizens of Hillsdale’s say in the type of community in which they wish to live.  
This is why I believe that levels of government are so important, and why I would give local governments much more latitude to act then the Federal Government, for such a system strikes a balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community.
What role does Freedom play in your view of Government?
3. Individualism is in direct opposition to Jewish Tradition, Christian Tradition, and the Declaration of Independence. Why is it, then, your bedrock ideal?
Individualism is a very broad term encompassing a lot of views some of which I agree with while others I would soundly reject.  After all I am a conservative, and not a libertarian who have a much stronger view of the individual’s freedom. Thus, before I could answer this question, I would have to know how you understand Individualism.  Somehow I suspect that your view of Individualism does not conform very well to what I actually believe.
So how would you define Individualism?
Links:
Question 3
Watts – Question 3 Reply
Hushbeck – Question 3 Reply
Watts – Question 3 Response 1