A lot of American Conservatives like to make the same complaints about liberalism. They seem themselves as the true realists while liberals are naive and childlike for wanting to improve things.
Of course as a liberal, I don't see any problem with wanting to improve things. Conservatism looks like nothing more to me than a defense of the status quo and of pain and misery and oppression by people who are in control. The why bother to try and change things attitude bugs me. Liberals reforms will not produce 100 percent results but they can be positive. I don't see why failure to achieve perfection is seen as a good argument about trying to solve inequity.
• Who is/are the constitutive, exemplary American(s)?
Answer: That NewDealer guy is pretty swell and easy on the eyes.
Serious Answer: I think everyone who wants to be American is an exemplary American
• Is the American tradition univocal? Plural?
Answer: Plural but we tend to see the other side as the uncle or aunt who never married and has given into their eccentricties because they don't have an anchor. There is also a long trend of groups working themselves into being seen as American. Some groups had easier journeys than others.
• What does the Civil War have to do with the American tradition?
Answer: It is the only conflict where the loser's wrote the history books and we will forever argue about the cause. I see it as the Slaver's Rebellion. Many Southerners would disagree. Who you sympathize with in the Civil War says a lot about a person's politics.
• How secular/religious is the American ideal?
Answer: I think of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as being documents of the Enlightenment and very secular ideals but there was a Founder split. Madison and Jefferson were proponents of religious liberty and no Church interference. Adams disliked Jews and Massachusetts did not allow Jews to be full citizens until the 1850s. President Tyler:
" …The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent – that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he were to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political institutions. The fruits are visible in the universal contentment which everywhere prevails. Christians are broken up into various sects…but each and all move on in their selected sphere, and worship the Great Creator according to their own forms and ceremonies. The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid…and the Aegis of the Government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it."
This goes back to the dual nature of our founding though. Some colonies were founded on religious principals like Masachusetts and Maryland. Others were founded on principals of commercial adventure or religious liberty like New Amsterdam/New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. This gives the U.S. both religious and secular overtones. We have descendents of both. There are still plenty of people who want the US to be a "city on a hill"
• When cultural, religious, or political pluralism challenges the unity of the American tradition, what is the appropriate response?
Answer: Unlike European nations, I always thought that America was brilliant at Assimilation and making various groups keep their distinctions but still be part of civic life. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Shiks, Hindus, etc can be just as American in their pastimes and interests as Episcopalians, Methodists, and Southern Baptists. Keep in mind that Catholicism is the biggest bloc of Christian identity in the United States and the founding fathers would be shocked by this.
• How do American views of the American tradition compare with the ways that other political traditions see themselves?
Answer: I have no idea
• What ideas are toxic to sustaining American ideals?
The idea that All Men are Created Equal is not mere rhetoric. It is our mission statement. We were far from perfect at it in 1776 and still have a way to go but I see the march of American history as always going towards achieving that goal. Maybe we will never reach that day but I would like to think that one day we can have a nation that truly holds it as a self-evident truth that all men (as in people) are created equal and endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights....
So you are demanding a purity of progressive politics and not of any other political ideology?
I don't see why there is any contradiction between supporting decent workplaces in terms of health, safety, wage, and reasonable hours and supporting unions. Many unions formed as a way of getting those.
Unions are a way for employees to bargain with more equity from an employeer especially those with low or moderate skills. Sometimes those with highly specialized skills. No business can exist without its employees or consumers. I see no reason why employers should be given all the leverage.
I suppose this is why I never get invited to parties and no one has taught me the secret handshake yet. Plus I am still collecting box tops for the secret decoder ring.
Of course this raises the question of What does it mean to be a man*?
I consider myself masculine and like it but I probably fail at most traditional guy rubics. I don't really know anything about cars**, I know more about theatre (and all art forms) over any sport. The phrase man cave is loathsome to me, video games have bored me for the past few years and I don't own a console system, I don't hunt, etc.
*There are all sorts of cultural signifiers when people talk about masculinity. Some of which seem to go back to the Stone Age.
**I would argue that being able to get under a hood of a car and fix things is rapidly becoming an obsolete and unnecessary skill. My car is pretty much a computer and getting under the hood and tinkering would void my warranty. It makes sense to have others service it. Yet I still here a reasonable amount of people argue that being able to fix a car is necessary to being a real man.
I agree that certain parts of the Democratic Party are too scared to argue for the rights of Criminal Defendants. Other parts of the Democratic Party and Left have a more schizophrenic and confused approach to the rights of criminal defendants. However, I think this is a general problem of crime and criminal law. It takes a lot of patience and willpower to create a Justice system that is fair to both the victim and the defendant. And out of all civil liberties, criminal defense oriented ones are the easiest to describe in the abstract but hardest when connected to facts. There is truth in the saying of "Bad facts equal Bad Law"
When it comes to military spending, I think there is a huge disconnect between the elites in both parties and the American public. IIRC polls show that a majority of Americans support significant cuts to the Defense budget whether they are Democratic, Republican, or Independent. Sadly the elites of both parties benefit more from military spending than not.
Perhaps super-urban districts are the only ones that benefit from military budget cuts or are at least neutral.
I also the Democratic Party would love to enact universal healthcare if they could. To me, Obamacare is merely a stop-gap until we can achieve true single-payer.
I generally refer to myself as a liberal over being a progressive. I think there was a time (that still sort of goes on) when many liberals called themselves progressive because the GOP turned liberal into a dirty word.
There seems to be a shift back to taking pride in being liberal. This is all done through a very anecdotal study of my facebook page and the existence of groups like "Being Liberal" on facebook. The icon for the Being Liberal group is FDR. There does seem to be attempt to revive the mantle of Roosevelt and make him a Reagan type figure for the Democratic Party.
America was founded on multiple ideals and the Constitution is a document born of compromise between those ideals. Not a unification of a singular ideal.
Yes there were Founding Fathers who had the ideals that are supported by today's conservatives probably. But those Founding Fathers had dissenters then just like conservatives have dissenters now. Some of those dissenters were equally important to the founding of the United States. For every Jefferson there is a Hamilton and vice-versa. For every Cotton Mather or John "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Edwards, there is a William Penn, Anne Hathaway, or Roger Williams.
Before Lincoln was a Republican, he was a Whig and the Whigs were firm proponents in spending money on "internal improvements" even though it is not mentioned in the Constitution.
Conservatives do not get to claim Monopoly on the Founding Fathers or being the real Americans or the Constitution.
Yeah, I agree. See with my comments above and how I am mystified that many on the right or libertarians still seem to put Freedom of Contract above all despite the evils and wrongs of the Freedom of Contract era.
I know a lot of economic types who like to make the counterintuitive argument that sweatshops are good because it means lower prices in the West and even though there are long hours under brutal conditions, the pay is still good for the area where the factory is like rural China or the Philippines. This seems to completely ignore the Ghandian creed of "No economy without morality." I think we can design and have a system that encourages dignity and decency for people all over the world and you can have competitive factories in the developing world without brutal hours or working conditions.
There are concerns beyond Freedom of Contract and Macroeconomics.
I agree that Wilson was a horrible racist against Black-Americans. Though he did appoint Brandeis as the first Jewish person for the Supreme Court.
Though he did also appoint McReynolds who was so anti-Semitic that he refused to sit next to Brandeis or eventually Cardozo. It is also interesting to note that William Howard Taft was opposed to putting Brandeis on the Supreme Court and part of his reasoning was anti-Semitic. Despite the fact that Taft's father represented Jews in a famous case arguing that Cincinnati Public Schools should not teach the Bible or have prayer.
It is very problematic talking about past Presidents because they always get tagged with the prejudices of their era despite the good they did. Usually by the other side. Conservatives seem especially gleeful in saying "Wilson was a Progressive. Wilson was a Racist. Hence, all Progressives/Liberals are really racist."
Yes, I find it interesting and you are right that this kind of triablism (while possibly being part of human nature) is a cancer to political union. However, I think that the Bi-Partisan moderate-liberal majority of the post-WWII era was kind of a freak event. Historically, politics has always been extremely partisan. In some ways we are better, there aren't duels or beating in Congress anymore.
However, I am not sure that I fully agree with you on the second paragraph. What practical outcomes do you think both liberals and conservatives are aiming for that are identical?
I'm not sure that we have the same heritage. I look at the Republican Party and Conservatives and see them as being extremely Calvinist in their heritage and outlook. A belief in the elect and that worldly riches are a sign of God's good favor and being a member of the elect. This is the opposite of my Jewish heritage. I am not a Calvinist and do not believe in the myth of rugged individualism and the Jeffersonian fantasy of everyone being a self-sufficient yeoman. Large parts of the right-wing movement still seem stuck in the idea that we can all be little farmers in an agarian utopia and work for ourselves.
I also don't see our goals as being similar or identical in the long or short term. When I hear conservatives talk about "liberty" and "freedom" it sounds to be like it is almost exclusively about the rights of business to conduct business as they please. They don't talk about the liberty or freedom of being free from discrimination and bigotry, the right of non-conformity, the freedom from fear and economic insecurity, the liberty of a life of dignity and decency. I think a robust and governnment backed welfare state and social safety net can encourage more economic freedom and innovation because people would not be dependent on their employers for health care and pension. Maybe more people would feel free to go on their own if they had single-payer health care.
When a conservative says freedom, they mean Lochner. They mean 16 hours in a bakery and not recognizing disparate bargaining power. They mean contracts of adhesion and binding arbitration between unequal parties. A conservative has no problem with the steamroller of authority.
1. I think you will find that Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan have better track records on the 4th Amendment than the "originalists" and Federalist Society of Roberts, Scalia, and company. Most 4th Amendment cases seem to be a 5-4 and the four dissenters who usually side with the defendant tend to be the Democratic-appointed Supreme Court Justices.
2. That regulation of interstate commerce is not BS. It is only BS if you have a fetish for the Articles of Confederation and the strange Federalism which seems to infect certain parts of US politics and nowhere else in the developed world. Or the developed world. I find it absolutely shocking that the idea of decent or at least a reasonable minimum wage is still controversial in the United States. I find it shocking that so many people still worship the majority decision in Lochner and appalling work conditions under some false fantasy of Freedom of Contact. I find it revealing that many of the people who worship Freedom of Contract are absolutely silent when the contract is broken by CEOs when it comes to pension benefits or other employee rights.
There is no way to determine how the Founders would have applied the Constitution to cars or the Internet. There is no way they would have predicted what the Internet is or a post-Industrial society with an Information economy.
People are very bad at predicting how technology will change. Yes it is a cartoon but it is kind of interesting that the Jetsons had a robot maid but could not predict e-mail or a cellphone.
I think there are several things going on here. All sides (or almost all sides) of American (and possibly International) political debate use the language of defending freedom and liberty. The problem is that all sides have radically different notions of what liberty and freedom means and what it entails. Also what freedom and liberty allow the Government to do and not do.
Certain parts of the right are basically hardcore believers in negative rights. They practice a kind of "Don't tread on me" kind of liberty that is deeply rooted in a Jeffersonian agrarian utopia filled with self-sufficient yeoman farmers. Their version of liberty is largely or absolutely unworkable when combined with Industrial or post-Industrial nations where most people live in urban and suburban areas and are interdependent.
This form of right-wing liberty also seems to think that any attempt at government to make better citizens (or make things better for citizens) is a deeply evil social engineering. This includes public health, education, environmental and labor regulations to make sure that the backs and souls of people are not broken, etc. The government is seen as an evil Leviathan that will just not let the people be.
1. What is this "mode of thinking" that leads to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia?
2. What is morally objectionable or wrong about eliminating racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc?
Yes we liberals want to mitigate the effects of racism but there is nothing morally wrong with going for the root of the cause and eliminating the beast itself. Just like the best way to fight crime is to attack the causes of crime (like poverty and lack of opportunity) instead of just locking people up.
It might work better for a liberal or Democratic President (FDR strikes me as a prime example) but I wonder why few politicians say something like: "Yes I grew up with a lot of advantages that many people do not have. I am very grateful for these advantages but realize that many were an accident of birth. I would like to help even the playing field or make sure that people do not struggle with basic necessities."
"Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama inbetween"-James Carville.
I have friends from both the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia-metro areas, the nickname that they give their homestate is "Pennsyltucky"
That being said, the Amish make some of the best ice cream I have ever eaten in my life, the Barnes Foundation is an A plus collection of art, and Bucks County is quite lovely in the Autumn. I really like the Philadelphia area.
I am a Vassar alum. Of course we are the Seven Sister that went co-ed. I still get surprised looks when I tell people I went to Vassar though.
But overall, your post is spot on. Montgomery and Bucks County are the type of formally Rockefeller Republican suburbs that the GOP is losing because of archly right-wing social policies.
Of course the best thing about the Mainline is still Uncle Willy doing weird and wonderful things in the pantry.
I would probably make Latin mandatory for at least a year or two if I were in charge of the setting the standards. Modern language is very important but so is Latin.
Erwin Cheminrinsky is one of the reigning deans of Constitutional Law. He also does the lectures of Bar Review.
He told a cute story about how he once told his sons to be quiet because they were bickering over toys or baseball cards and his son said he had a free speech right. Dean Chemerinsky told his son"The Constitution only applies to the Government." His son retorted "You are like the government to me"
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A Proposal, and a Second Take On Progressivism, American-ness, and Conservative Rhetoric”
A lot of American Conservatives like to make the same complaints about liberalism. They seem themselves as the true realists while liberals are naive and childlike for wanting to improve things.
Of course as a liberal, I don't see any problem with wanting to improve things. Conservatism looks like nothing more to me than a defense of the status quo and of pain and misery and oppression by people who are in control. The why bother to try and change things attitude bugs me. Liberals reforms will not produce 100 percent results but they can be positive. I don't see why failure to achieve perfection is seen as a good argument about trying to solve inequity.
"
• Who is/are the constitutive, exemplary American(s)?
Answer: That NewDealer guy is pretty swell and easy on the eyes.
Serious Answer: I think everyone who wants to be American is an exemplary American
• Is the American tradition univocal? Plural?
Answer: Plural but we tend to see the other side as the uncle or aunt who never married and has given into their eccentricties because they don't have an anchor. There is also a long trend of groups working themselves into being seen as American. Some groups had easier journeys than others.
• What does the Civil War have to do with the American tradition?
Answer: It is the only conflict where the loser's wrote the history books and we will forever argue about the cause. I see it as the Slaver's Rebellion. Many Southerners would disagree. Who you sympathize with in the Civil War says a lot about a person's politics.
• How secular/religious is the American ideal?
Answer: I think of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as being documents of the Enlightenment and very secular ideals but there was a Founder split. Madison and Jefferson were proponents of religious liberty and no Church interference. Adams disliked Jews and Massachusetts did not allow Jews to be full citizens until the 1850s. President Tyler:
" …The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent – that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he were to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political institutions. The fruits are visible in the universal contentment which everywhere prevails. Christians are broken up into various sects…but each and all move on in their selected sphere, and worship the Great Creator according to their own forms and ceremonies. The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid…and the Aegis of the Government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it."
This goes back to the dual nature of our founding though. Some colonies were founded on religious principals like Masachusetts and Maryland. Others were founded on principals of commercial adventure or religious liberty like New Amsterdam/New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. This gives the U.S. both religious and secular overtones. We have descendents of both. There are still plenty of people who want the US to be a "city on a hill"
• When cultural, religious, or political pluralism challenges the unity of the American tradition, what is the appropriate response?
Answer: Unlike European nations, I always thought that America was brilliant at Assimilation and making various groups keep their distinctions but still be part of civic life. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Shiks, Hindus, etc can be just as American in their pastimes and interests as Episcopalians, Methodists, and Southern Baptists. Keep in mind that Catholicism is the biggest bloc of Christian identity in the United States and the founding fathers would be shocked by this.
• How do American views of the American tradition compare with the ways that other political traditions see themselves?
Answer: I have no idea
• What ideas are toxic to sustaining American ideals?
Answer: Bigotry, Nazism, Fascism, Forced Conformity.
The idea that All Men are Created Equal is not mere rhetoric. It is our mission statement. We were far from perfect at it in 1776 and still have a way to go but I see the march of American history as always going towards achieving that goal. Maybe we will never reach that day but I would like to think that one day we can have a nation that truly holds it as a self-evident truth that all men (as in people) are created equal and endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights....
See you brought out the corndog in me....
On “Truth in Advertising”
Considering I am not married, that is not very hard.
On “What Progressivism Is (Updated)”
So you are demanding a purity of progressive politics and not of any other political ideology?
I don't see why there is any contradiction between supporting decent workplaces in terms of health, safety, wage, and reasonable hours and supporting unions. Many unions formed as a way of getting those.
Unions are a way for employees to bargain with more equity from an employeer especially those with low or moderate skills. Sometimes those with highly specialized skills. No business can exist without its employees or consumers. I see no reason why employers should be given all the leverage.
"
Liberty60,
Was it supposed to be a secret?
Damn! Sorry. I never got the memo.
I suppose this is why I never get invited to parties and no one has taught me the secret handshake yet. Plus I am still collecting box tops for the secret decoder ring.
On “Truth in Advertising”
Of course this raises the question of What does it mean to be a man*?
I consider myself masculine and like it but I probably fail at most traditional guy rubics. I don't really know anything about cars**, I know more about theatre (and all art forms) over any sport. The phrase man cave is loathsome to me, video games have bored me for the past few years and I don't own a console system, I don't hunt, etc.
*There are all sorts of cultural signifiers when people talk about masculinity. Some of which seem to go back to the Stone Age.
**I would argue that being able to get under a hood of a car and fix things is rapidly becoming an obsolete and unnecessary skill. My car is pretty much a computer and getting under the hood and tinkering would void my warranty. It makes sense to have others service it. Yet I still here a reasonable amount of people argue that being able to fix a car is necessary to being a real man.
On “What Progressivism Is (Updated)”
I agree that certain parts of the Democratic Party are too scared to argue for the rights of Criminal Defendants. Other parts of the Democratic Party and Left have a more schizophrenic and confused approach to the rights of criminal defendants. However, I think this is a general problem of crime and criminal law. It takes a lot of patience and willpower to create a Justice system that is fair to both the victim and the defendant. And out of all civil liberties, criminal defense oriented ones are the easiest to describe in the abstract but hardest when connected to facts. There is truth in the saying of "Bad facts equal Bad Law"
When it comes to military spending, I think there is a huge disconnect between the elites in both parties and the American public. IIRC polls show that a majority of Americans support significant cuts to the Defense budget whether they are Democratic, Republican, or Independent. Sadly the elites of both parties benefit more from military spending than not.
Perhaps super-urban districts are the only ones that benefit from military budget cuts or are at least neutral.
I also the Democratic Party would love to enact universal healthcare if they could. To me, Obamacare is merely a stop-gap until we can achieve true single-payer.
"
I generally refer to myself as a liberal over being a progressive. I think there was a time (that still sort of goes on) when many liberals called themselves progressive because the GOP turned liberal into a dirty word.
There seems to be a shift back to taking pride in being liberal. This is all done through a very anecdotal study of my facebook page and the existence of groups like "Being Liberal" on facebook. The icon for the Being Liberal group is FDR. There does seem to be attempt to revive the mantle of Roosevelt and make him a Reagan type figure for the Democratic Party.
"
America was founded on multiple ideals and the Constitution is a document born of compromise between those ideals. Not a unification of a singular ideal.
Yes there were Founding Fathers who had the ideals that are supported by today's conservatives probably. But those Founding Fathers had dissenters then just like conservatives have dissenters now. Some of those dissenters were equally important to the founding of the United States. For every Jefferson there is a Hamilton and vice-versa. For every Cotton Mather or John "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Edwards, there is a William Penn, Anne Hathaway, or Roger Williams.
Before Lincoln was a Republican, he was a Whig and the Whigs were firm proponents in spending money on "internal improvements" even though it is not mentioned in the Constitution.
Conservatives do not get to claim Monopoly on the Founding Fathers or being the real Americans or the Constitution.
"
Yeah, I agree. See with my comments above and how I am mystified that many on the right or libertarians still seem to put Freedom of Contract above all despite the evils and wrongs of the Freedom of Contract era.
I know a lot of economic types who like to make the counterintuitive argument that sweatshops are good because it means lower prices in the West and even though there are long hours under brutal conditions, the pay is still good for the area where the factory is like rural China or the Philippines. This seems to completely ignore the Ghandian creed of "No economy without morality." I think we can design and have a system that encourages dignity and decency for people all over the world and you can have competitive factories in the developing world without brutal hours or working conditions.
There are concerns beyond Freedom of Contract and Macroeconomics.
"
I agree that Wilson was a horrible racist against Black-Americans. Though he did appoint Brandeis as the first Jewish person for the Supreme Court.
Though he did also appoint McReynolds who was so anti-Semitic that he refused to sit next to Brandeis or eventually Cardozo. It is also interesting to note that William Howard Taft was opposed to putting Brandeis on the Supreme Court and part of his reasoning was anti-Semitic. Despite the fact that Taft's father represented Jews in a famous case arguing that Cincinnati Public Schools should not teach the Bible or have prayer.
It is very problematic talking about past Presidents because they always get tagged with the prejudices of their era despite the good they did. Usually by the other side. Conservatives seem especially gleeful in saying "Wilson was a Progressive. Wilson was a Racist. Hence, all Progressives/Liberals are really racist."
"
Yes, I find it interesting and you are right that this kind of triablism (while possibly being part of human nature) is a cancer to political union. However, I think that the Bi-Partisan moderate-liberal majority of the post-WWII era was kind of a freak event. Historically, politics has always been extremely partisan. In some ways we are better, there aren't duels or beating in Congress anymore.
However, I am not sure that I fully agree with you on the second paragraph. What practical outcomes do you think both liberals and conservatives are aiming for that are identical?
I'm not sure that we have the same heritage. I look at the Republican Party and Conservatives and see them as being extremely Calvinist in their heritage and outlook. A belief in the elect and that worldly riches are a sign of God's good favor and being a member of the elect. This is the opposite of my Jewish heritage. I am not a Calvinist and do not believe in the myth of rugged individualism and the Jeffersonian fantasy of everyone being a self-sufficient yeoman. Large parts of the right-wing movement still seem stuck in the idea that we can all be little farmers in an agarian utopia and work for ourselves.
I also don't see our goals as being similar or identical in the long or short term. When I hear conservatives talk about "liberty" and "freedom" it sounds to be like it is almost exclusively about the rights of business to conduct business as they please. They don't talk about the liberty or freedom of being free from discrimination and bigotry, the right of non-conformity, the freedom from fear and economic insecurity, the liberty of a life of dignity and decency. I think a robust and governnment backed welfare state and social safety net can encourage more economic freedom and innovation because people would not be dependent on their employers for health care and pension. Maybe more people would feel free to go on their own if they had single-payer health care.
When a conservative says freedom, they mean Lochner. They mean 16 hours in a bakery and not recognizing disparate bargaining power. They mean contracts of adhesion and binding arbitration between unequal parties. A conservative has no problem with the steamroller of authority.
"
1. I think you will find that Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan have better track records on the 4th Amendment than the "originalists" and Federalist Society of Roberts, Scalia, and company. Most 4th Amendment cases seem to be a 5-4 and the four dissenters who usually side with the defendant tend to be the Democratic-appointed Supreme Court Justices.
2. That regulation of interstate commerce is not BS. It is only BS if you have a fetish for the Articles of Confederation and the strange Federalism which seems to infect certain parts of US politics and nowhere else in the developed world. Or the developed world. I find it absolutely shocking that the idea of decent or at least a reasonable minimum wage is still controversial in the United States. I find it shocking that so many people still worship the majority decision in Lochner and appalling work conditions under some false fantasy of Freedom of Contact. I find it revealing that many of the people who worship Freedom of Contract are absolutely silent when the contract is broken by CEOs when it comes to pension benefits or other employee rights.
"
This is why I am not an originalist.
There is no way to determine how the Founders would have applied the Constitution to cars or the Internet. There is no way they would have predicted what the Internet is or a post-Industrial society with an Information economy.
People are very bad at predicting how technology will change. Yes it is a cartoon but it is kind of interesting that the Jetsons had a robot maid but could not predict e-mail or a cellphone.
"
I think there are several things going on here. All sides (or almost all sides) of American (and possibly International) political debate use the language of defending freedom and liberty. The problem is that all sides have radically different notions of what liberty and freedom means and what it entails. Also what freedom and liberty allow the Government to do and not do.
Certain parts of the right are basically hardcore believers in negative rights. They practice a kind of "Don't tread on me" kind of liberty that is deeply rooted in a Jeffersonian agrarian utopia filled with self-sufficient yeoman farmers. Their version of liberty is largely or absolutely unworkable when combined with Industrial or post-Industrial nations where most people live in urban and suburban areas and are interdependent.
This form of right-wing liberty also seems to think that any attempt at government to make better citizens (or make things better for citizens) is a deeply evil social engineering. This includes public health, education, environmental and labor regulations to make sure that the backs and souls of people are not broken, etc. The government is seen as an evil Leviathan that will just not let the people be.
On “SRSLY?”
Your question was meant to be tongue in cheek but it is seriously getting me to think about free speech and free exercise cases.
What if a kid's religious practices required him or her to wear something that the school considered to be (and is) a wholly unrelated gang sign?
"
A plus to your numerology.
On “On the First Lady’s Speech”
Some questions:
1. What is this "mode of thinking" that leads to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia?
2. What is morally objectionable or wrong about eliminating racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc?
Yes we liberals want to mitigate the effects of racism but there is nothing morally wrong with going for the root of the cause and eliminating the beast itself. Just like the best way to fight crime is to attack the causes of crime (like poverty and lack of opportunity) instead of just locking people up.
"
Agreed.
It might work better for a liberal or Democratic President (FDR strikes me as a prime example) but I wonder why few politicians say something like: "Yes I grew up with a lot of advantages that many people do not have. I am very grateful for these advantages but realize that many were an accident of birth. I would like to help even the playing field or make sure that people do not struggle with basic necessities."
On “What Not Getting It Looks Like”
"Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama inbetween"-James Carville.
I have friends from both the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia-metro areas, the nickname that they give their homestate is "Pennsyltucky"
That being said, the Amish make some of the best ice cream I have ever eaten in my life, the Barnes Foundation is an A plus collection of art, and Bucks County is quite lovely in the Autumn. I really like the Philadelphia area.
"
Hello fellow Seven Sister!
I am a Vassar alum. Of course we are the Seven Sister that went co-ed. I still get surprised looks when I tell people I went to Vassar though.
But overall, your post is spot on. Montgomery and Bucks County are the type of formally Rockefeller Republican suburbs that the GOP is losing because of archly right-wing social policies.
Of course the best thing about the Mainline is still Uncle Willy doing weird and wonderful things in the pantry.
On “Reading, Writing, and Ridiculous?”
IIRC (this was in the 1980s) we only had analog clocks. Plus all the nice watches are analog only.
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I would probably make Latin mandatory for at least a year or two if I were in charge of the setting the standards. Modern language is very important but so is Latin.
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If it is a public school, she is technically a government employee.
If I had a kid who said this, I would be rather impressed. You might still have to lecture them but I would be impressed and proud.
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Erwin Cheminrinsky is one of the reigning deans of Constitutional Law. He also does the lectures of Bar Review.
He told a cute story about how he once told his sons to be quiet because they were bickering over toys or baseball cards and his son said he had a free speech right. Dean Chemerinsky told his son"The Constitution only applies to the Government." His son retorted "You are like the government to me"
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