Eighteenth Ten Postings of Gravitas

The following list of titles and accompanying dates refers to past postings on the blog, Gravitas: A Voice for Civics Education, that have been deleted.  After each title and date, the entries below include the first paragraph of each respective posting.  If you care to receive a copy of a particular posting, send your request via email to gravitascivics@gmail.com .  One posting per request.

171 COMMUNAL, NOT SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

(April 27, 2012)

I am, in this blog, describing and explaining the elements of federation theory. Currently, I am reviewing the element, communal democracy. Specifically, I am using the principles identified by Phillip Selznick and to date I have reviewed the principle, protection and integration of minorities and am now describing the principle, moral primacy of the community over the state.

172 COVENANT OF REASON

(April 30, 2012)

This posting marks the last theoretical posting I will submit for this blog. Oh, I will share more theory, but the main topic of subsequent postings will not be theory. The history of this blog has been to first present the problems I see with civics education; second, describe and explain the prevalent view of civics in our schools, the natural rights construct, which I argued has at a minimum enabled a lot of the problems this field of study faces and the consequences those problems have on society; third, describe and explain the main challenge to that prevalent view, critical theory, that many academics in the field offer but which I find wanting in very significant ways; and fourth, describe and explain my favored view of civics by reviewing this view's role in American history, its foundational moral perspective, and the main elements making up its theoretical base. This view I call federation theory. It is the last element that I will review in this posting. There is a lot more to say about federation theory, but I will incorporate these other messages as I comment on the topical issues of the day which are relevant to civics education.

173 AN APPLE IN OUR EYES?

(May 4, 2012)

Here's a business idea. Go to some off-shore island. Buy an apartment building. Then set up the apartments so that they can be rented for a week or so. You don't have to fix them up or anything. People will not be staying there. Oh, they might show up for a day or two out of the year, but the goal will be that a person rents it so he or she can claim it as his or her permanent address. They can then claim that since this is their domicile, they can avoid paying US taxes such as their income taxes. So for the modest price of a rental fee for a few days, a person can skip paying up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in income tax as would be the case for the super rich. Great! Oh, yes, that's illegal. How about that?

174 AN APPLE FROM THE TEACHER

(May 7, 2012)

In my last posting, I introduced a potential topic of study that could be utilized in a civics course – one guided by federation theory. I suggested that the fact some corporations exploit tax laws so they can set up “offices” across state lines or offshore to avoid paying their fair amount of taxes would be seen through federalist eyes as something lacking in good morals. My attention was drawn to this topic by a recent article in the New York Times [Duhigg, C. and Kocieniewski, D. (2012). How Apple sidesteps billions in taxes. The New York Times, vol. 161 (April, 29), pp. 1 & 20-21.]. In short, the article focused on the activities of Apple corporation in which, through placement of certain offices in diverse sites around the world, they in effect take advantage of lower or non existent tax rates to the degree that on a worldwide income in 2011 of $34.2 billion, they paid a worldwide tax rate of 9.8%. On the surface, I believe one can determine that such a corporation as Apple, by behaving in this way, is avoiding its proper role in meeting the financial needs of the states in which it actually conducts its business. One can say it is not meeting its responsibilities as a member of a commonwealth. After all, such a corporation depends on extraordinary levels of government services, not the least of which is education, to prepare its workforce.

175 AN ARTFUL CANARD?

(May 11, 2012)

Even devotees to the natural rights construct must justify their mostly self serving ideas in the context of national well being. My latest encounter with such an argument was an article that reported on a series of interviews. The interviews were conducted with of one of Mitt Romney's former business associates at Bain Capital, a member not only of the 1%, but of the .1% [Davidson, A. (2012). Are the rich worth a damn? The New York Times Magazine, May 6, pp. 34-40. In this posting the points of Conard's argument were taken from this article.]. He's coming out with a book, Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong. The article reminds me of the kings of old arguing that their power was the will of God, the divine rights of kings theory and, by following God's will, we will all be better off.

176 LACKING “A PEOPLE AS A WHOLE” QUALITY

(May 14, 2012)

The last posting of this blog brought up a very contemporary area of concern, at least for those who think in federalist terms. By federalist terms, I do not mean the more simplistic notion of downgrading the power of the central government of Washington, but the more core notion that federalism is about getting all stakeholders affected by some concern to have an active role in its resolution; that is, have a say in any decision-making process that addresses the concern. It is a notion that as citizens we are true confederates. Therefore, true federalists want all legitimate interests to have a viable voice in decision-making processes that affect our commonweal. How common is this more inclusive approach? Read what a recent Atlantic Monthly article had to say about our contemporary times:

In fact, [Citigroup analysts] said, America was composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn't matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent; and with each passing year, a greater share of the nation's treasure was flowing through their hands and into their pockets. It was this segment of the population, almost exclusively, that held the key to future growth and future returns. The analysts … had coined a term for this state of affairs: plutonomy. [Peck, D. (2011). Can the middle class be saved? In the Atlantic Monthly, September. Retrieved from the Internet: www.theatlanticmonthly/magazine/archive/2011/09/can-the-middle-class-be-saved/8600/4 . Emphasis in the original.]

177 A FEDERALIST SOLUTION FOR THE UNEMPLOYED

(May 18, 2012)

An overall social order that supports federalist values in our current day, as I pointed out in the last posting, includes the ideal of “a people as a whole.” I illustrated this condition by relating it to the challenge of dealing with minority status. I specifically wrote about a moneyed minority, but the same points can be made for demographic minorities such as ethnicity, race, gender, age, sexual preference, and the like. Namely, that while an ideal federalist union strives for a congruence of values and goals, particularly regarding those very federalist values themselves, such a union specifically values and supports mutual respect among its members regardless of whether or not any particular member is part of a majority or a minority. Federalists insist that all stakeholders have a seat at the table of decision-making on all important matters affecting the society. In short, federation theory calls for a functioning community.

178 IS EXXONMOBIL A FOREIGN AGENT?

(May 21, 2012)

I would like to begin this posting with a helpful reminder. This blog is dedicated to the study of civics. I have, through all of the previous postings, built an argument for the implementation of a construct to guide our efforts in the secondary civics classrooms of this nation. I have asserted that the current construct in place is the natural rights construct. I have described and explained this construct as well as critiqued it. In short, while I see this construct as a responsible approach to civics, I do feel, given its emphasis on the individual, it enabled many of the shortcomings we are experiencing in regards to the collective quality of our citizenship. This also has been explained. I have also explained the prominent other construct which the academic field has proposed. This construct, the critical theory construct, aims its criticisms at the capitalist foundation of the natural rights construct by highlighting many of the social ailments that beset our social relations including our politics. These include class exploitation, racism, anti-feminism, and intolerance of other than heterosexual preferences. I, against the dominant established construct and its chief challenging view, offer a third construct, federation theory. I have over the months described and explained what I mean by federation theory from a moralistic, historic, and theoretical perspective. I am currently reviewing the elements or conditions of a liberated federalist model and have, to date, conveyed two of the conditions of this model by relating them to current issues. The two are “a people as a whole” and a cultural commitment to federalist values.

179 PROMOTING A MORAL ENVIRONMENT

(May 25, 2012)

I believe that one of the roles of civics education has is to encourage a certain type of political environment. Hopefully, part of that environment would be an electorate that is knowledgeable about the political structure and process of the nation. This includes citizens knowing about the vying political ideologies of their time. Federation theory, the mental construct I am promoting in this blog, also contains within its view a particular ideal environment. A civics curriculum, based on its view of politics and governance, would promote that ideal. So far, I have shared three conditions or elements of an ideal federation environment: “a people as a whole,” cultural commitment to federalist values, and a set of functioning and interacting institutions. You are invited to look up the last three postings to see my description and explanation of each of these conditions.

180 WHEN WE HAVE AN ARENA INSTEAD OF A SQUARE

(May 28, 2012)

The last four postings of this blog have been dedicated to describing and explaining four elements or conditions of an ideal federalist environment. That is, in terms of what liberated federalism is trying to create, there is an interest in developing a backdrop in which politics and governance should take place. The four elements are “the people as a whole,” cultural commitment to federalist values, a set of functioning and interacting institutions, and community with a moral primacy. I suppose this is a good time to remind you what the purpose of all this idealistic thinking is. It is to present an ideal so as to be able to guide civics instruction not in the sense that such an ideal exists or that it is reasonable to expect its eventuality. Just as with the natural rights construct and the critical theory construct, an ideal is presented to give civics a sense of direction, a sense of what a polity should seek. It also provides a basis by which to identify those conditions that are worth the attention of students in the classroom. If an ideal is presented and reality does not meet that ideal, then you have an issue to address. The overall question becomes what do we need to do in order to approach or accomplish the ideal.