Twentieth 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.

191 A TAXING QUESTION

(July 6, 2012)

Is it a tax or isn't it? To tax or not to tax; is that the question? If you have been following the punditry on TV or in the newspaper at all, I'm sure you have seen and heard the incomparable concern over whether the national reform of healthcare and its financing is a tax or not. Really, is that what's important? So much has been written over so little. Don't get me wrong; whether the Supreme Court found the Affordable Healthcare Act constitutional or not is important. Healthcare accounts for 17% of our economy and the fate of millions, in some cases in terms of life and death, was in the balance. I dedicated my last posting to the idea that mandating a tax to pay for comprehensive healthcare seemed justified under federalist thinking. But to go on asking whether the act calls for a tax or not is the height of semantics and does not deserve all this “ink.”

192 A VISIT

(July 9, 2012)

My recent drive through the Midwest convinces me that it's just too hot to be serious. No one is in the mood to be over contemplative about some burning issue. So, let me share a more lighthearted experience I had a few weeks ago, but that I feel has a more serious side to it. It starts with announcing that a friend of mine just got married – a rare kind of thing for people of my age. Being north of sixty – both he and I – we don't expect to attend marriages of our cohorts. But it does happen and it happened to him, a lucky guy given that he got hitched up with a great gal.

193 THE POWER OF LIBERATED FEDERALISM

(July 13, 2012)

A few postings ago, I began evaluating the liberated federalism construct. From Eugene Meehan's¹ criteria, the first question is whether the construct has sufficient scope. I argued that the liberated federalism construct or federation theory does cover the field sufficiently for the purposes of guiding educators in developing a civics curriculum. That is, the construct contains a broad enough range of concepts and ideals so that curricular workers can design a course in American governance and politics to promote good citizenship among American students. In this posting, I want to answer Meehan's second question: does this construct control the explanation it is presenting by being valid and complete in its component parts and within the relation between those parts? That is, does it have power?

194 ABDICATION POLITICS

(July 16, 2012)

Few lines can get as much response in a political speech as when the speaker accuses his or her opponent as catering to vested or special interests. The thing is that both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans use the line. So who's right? Both are and I would submit that accommodating special interests is an integral part of not only democratic politics, but politics period.

195 WHOSE MEANING?

(July 20, 2012)

High on the priority list of civics educators who adopt federation theory as a foundational construct, is to have students study the Constitution. After all, the Constitution is our binding compact that federates us as fellow citizens. It gives us the basic agreement of our grand partnership – at least, that's how federalists see it. Along with such a commitment would be to instruct students as to the meaning of that document's language. This latter responsibility is further given importance as the Supreme Court, especially influenced by one of its most prominent members, Antonin Scalia, holds that court decisions should, to the best means possible, be based on the original meanings of the basic law's provisions. He offers a compelling argument as justification for his judicial approach.

196 FROM UNDETTERED TO UNBROKEN

(July 23, 2012)

To offset the length of my last posting – it was a bit long – this one will be quite short. Sorrowfully, the topic of this posting is motivated by the tragic event that occurred in Colorado last week. The news networks have been constantly reporting on this event. The senseless shooting and needless death and injury leave us all quite dumbfounded. Our collective hearts go out to the victims and their families.

197 PENNed UP DENIAL

(July 27, 2012)

This posting deals with allegations. So let me be clear; I'm writing it to make certain points about the challenges federal collectives face in a nation that believes, promotes, and holds as prevalent the values associated with a natural rights perspective. To remind you a bit, by a natural rights perspective I mean the significantly individualistic view that each person has the right to determine which goals, aims, and behaviors one wants to pursue or engage in as long as he or she does not interfere with the rights of others to do the same. Let me emphasize, there is nothing wrong with having these rights, but when one believes in them as trump values or as exclusionary commitments, then one is turning away from more communal values or values that encourage one to place individual goals and aims within the context of social obligations and duties. In other words, the problem is in taking this view to the extreme. Philosophers might call this construct a classical liberal view. I shy away from this term because I don't want the reader to confuse the view with what we popularly call liberals today – those who hold a left of center set of political beliefs we generally associate with the Democratic Party. As a matter of fact, the classical liberal perspective or what I call the natural rights view is generally associated more strongly with the Republican Party. But to get back to the issue at hand, I want to comment on an educational program at one of our major universities which was devastated lately for infringements of ethical standards by an overseer.

198 THE PRECISION OF LIBERATED FEDERALISM

(July 30, 2012)

In previous postings, I have initiated an evaluation of the construct this blog is committed to present and promote. Keep in mind that I have an interest in finding this construct to be useful to civics educators. After all, a fundamental aim of this blog has been to describe and explain this view particularly as it relates to the role of teaching civics in our secondary classrooms. With that in mind, I will point out that I have approached the job of evaluation in what I would hope you find as reasonable. I have used questions derived from Eugene J. Meehan's criteria for evaluating social science theories and models¹ to guide my review of federation theory and, in addition to Meehan's criteria, I will add the criteria, abstraction level and motivation, in future postings. To date, I have looked at two of Meehan's criteria: Does the construct have a comprehensive review of the phenomena under study and does the construct have power? I invite you to look up the two postings that answer these questions: “The Scope of Librated Federalism” posted on June 29, 2012, and “The Power of Liberated Federalism” posted on July 13, 2012. Overall, my evaluation has been quite positive, surprise, but I did point out some shortcomings that call for further development of the construct.

199 A PRIORI: THE GOOD OR THE RIGHT?

(August 3, 2012)

What kind of society do we want to live in? The traditional answer is the one that allows or promotes its citizens to be happy. But, of course, what is happiness? Is it pleasure, emotional stability, long term contentment, a weekend when all of your sports teams win, or when your child accomplishes something he or she has been trying to accomplish for a long time? Happiness has many faces and lasts to varying degrees. If someone asks you if you are happy, chances are, I believe, you will interpret the question as relating to a general state of contentment in which you don't want for anything that's important – food, housing, health, being loved, and being in love with significant others – and a foreseeable future in which none of these essentials are threatened. We more or less, on a cultural level, associate certain societal conditions with such attainment. The economy has to be prosperous enough, the political environment has to be secure and stable enough, and our social interactions are conducted within functional enough institutional settings; for example, your family, educational facilities, and health care providers must be sufficiently operational and providing expected levels of utility.

200 “BEES DO IT”

(August 6, 2012)

With this posting, I want to introduce a fairly important issue regarding federalist thinking. The most central notion we can derive from federalism, as I have pointed out before, is not the structural element of different levels of government – such as the state and central governments here in the US. The most central notion is the idea that individuals or groups come together and federate with each other under a solemn agreement of a covenant or a compact. This level of joining is more binding than a union or arrangement set up by a contract. In a contract, the agreement takes on the form of one party agreeing to do something in exchange for something else. When I travel, for example, and stop in a motel, the motel and I form an agreement that it will provide me with a room with certain amenities in exchange for payment of a rental fee. If my room is not provided or it lacks the amenities we agreed upon – like a working bathroom – I don't need to pay. But if the room is furnished with the amenities, then I must pay or suffer some penalty under law.

1Meehan, E. J. (1969). Explanations in social science: A system paradigm. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.

1Meehan, E. J. (1969). Explanations in social science: A system paradigm. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.

Nineteenth 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.

181 CHEESY

(June 1, 2012)

Have you been aware of what is happening in Wisconsin lately? Coming soon, they are going to have a recall election in which the governor and certain members of their legislature might lose their positions of authority. This is very unusual. The last recall election I remember was the one in California when the incumbent governor, Grey Davis, was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. Rare? There have been only two governors removed from office in this way. All this Wisconsin hullabaloo seems to have been initially started over current governor Scott Walker's plan to strip public employee unions (PEUs) of their collective bargaining rights. This has situated Wisconsin politics in the metaphoric arena category which I wrote about in my last posting of this blog. That is, the politics over deciding the status and level of constitutional integrity PEUs will enjoy has pitted powerful interests in that state in a non-compromising mode.

182 “CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?”

(June 4, 2012)

Imagine walking down a busy sidewalk in Manhattan. If you have never experienced such a stroll first hand, you surely have seen it depicted in a movie or two – the popular movie Tootsie has such a scene. To a visitor, the mass of strangers one encounters can seem to be a formidable obstacle course. How should a good citizen view these people? Do they represent potential threats or opportunities? Or are they the source of indifference? While these might seem to be important questions – or should be – to a civics educator, there seems to be little if any attention paid to this aspect of citizenship. That is, to my knowledge, the concern over how Americans should view their fellow citizens has not gotten much academic or popular interest. I think the question – what would be the most beneficial or most moral view of other citizens? – should garner a very practical priority as we consider the content of a civics curriculum.

183 MINI STIMULI EFFORTS

(June 8, 2012)

Since I commented on the recall election in Wisconsin two postings ago and since the results are in, I thought I would share my thoughts on the strategy employed by Governor Walker's campaign.

184 AGREEING TO ASSOCIATE

(June 11, 2012)

For those of you who follow this blog, you may have detected a liberal bias. Or you may have determined that I am a Democrat who wants to push a Democratic agenda. That has not been my purpose. What I have been writing about are issues, such as the recent recall vote in Wisconsin, where I see certain political activities that challenge or otherwise threaten our federalist character. As I have tried to trace the political development of this nation, I have made the argument that we as a polity started and maintained a federal perspective in order to justify and make sense of our collective experience as a governed and governing people. That perspective dominated until the 1950s. Since then, a natural rights perspective has taken dominance, but that does not mean we have relinquished all allegiance to the prior guiding construct. I have argued that we should return, albeit under a revised form, to our earlier allegiance to federalism. Therefore, if that be the overall goal, a renewed introduction to federalism is in order.

185 E. U. ARE, NOT IS

(June 15, 2012)

For those of you who follow this blog, you know that I have been describing and explaining federation theory. I am doing this in order to make the claim that this theory should become the dominant mental construct guiding our efforts in the subject fields of civics and government. Within this effort, I have progressed to outlining a federalist model by which one can holistically look at the construct and to give it a sort of “picture” quality – a picture that is sufficiently concise and easy to remember. To date, I have presented several elements of the model: the environment, the entity, the relationship between entities, and the relationship between the entity and the association. Each of these terms has been defined. The last element is the association. I began to describe the association in the last posting. I shared a main aspect of the association – its sense of partnership or fraternal ethos.

186 CHALLENGES OF BEING ASSOCIATED

(June 18, 2012)

I have made the point in this blog that not all organized groups are associations. As I am using the term, a group needs to exhibit certain attributes in order to be considered an association. I have used the term, arrangements, to signify all groups. Only some are associations and while I am not aware of any study indicating what percentage of arrangements are associations (and adopting the word in an arrangement's name does not suffice in making it an association), my personal experience indicates that the percentage is not high.

187 THE FREE RIDER PROBLEM

(June 22, 2012)

In the last series of postings, I have described and explained an ideal model for federalist governance and politics. The main elements of the model are related to a federalist union which I call an association and the model consists of the environment, the entity, the relationships between entities, and the association itself. I chose an ideal perspective in order to establish a standard by which to judge real groups or arrangements of people. Surely, by focusing on associations or arrangements, I am emphasizing collectives as opposed to individuals. Why? Because governing and politicking are collective activities; they are the exercise of power relations between and among people. While the ideal should not relegate the profound importance of the individual to these mechanization of influence and distributions of values to insignificance, the process in question is one of collectives.

188 HATE SPEECH CHALLENGE TO FEDERALISTS

(June 25, 2012)

One of the concerns by people who advocate for a more communal approach to governance and politics or for a more moral perspective is that such a view will be deemed as naive or over idealistic. After all, it was Machiavelli, the father of modern political thought, who proclaimed politics as amoral. In my last posting, I wrote that most of the concerns and arguments that take such a “realistic” view seem to boil down to stating that there is a communitarian underestimation for the free rider problem – people with the freedom to act will rationally choose to take benefits out of a system for which they do not pay, wholly or in part. In reality, such “short changing” opportunities arise all the time and citizens, either knowingly or not, take advantage. Hence, critics argue, the best we can do is to set up a market system and allow that system to operate mostly unhindered. The market will objectively reward those who produce and punish those who don't. Okay, not always, but most of the time and more so than any other approach. The problem with relying solely on the market is that it depends on individual motivation and denies that there is a reliability with or even the existence of group motivations. And yet, “[h]appiness comes from between. It comes from getting the right relationships between yourself and others, yourself and your work, and yourself and something larger than yourself.” [Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Citation on p. 244.] I have also argued that governance and politics are collective activities amenable to this “larger than yourself” orientation.

189 THE SCOPE OF LIBERATED FEDERALISM

(June 29, 2012)

As I have presented and evaluated the two competing constructs which are vying for the allegiance of civics educators, the natural rights construct and the critical theory construct, I have used the ideas of Eugene Meehan. He developed criteria by which to judge the worth of social science models and theories. [Meehan, E. J. (1969). Explanations in social science: A system paradigm. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.] Using this very criteria, how well does the liberated federalism construct fare? As a reminder, this blog has been dedicated, in part, to describing, explaining, and promoting the liberated federalism construct. In terms of describing and explaining, that effort has been basically done; I want to now begin evaluating it, particularly in terms of how useful it is as a guide for our civics curriculum in secondary classrooms.

190 A BURNING ISSUE

(July 2, 2012)

A blog dedicated to civics education needs to express a reaction to the Supreme Court decision regarding the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare). The instructional benefit of all this news reporting on a Supreme Court decision has, I believe, an enormous educational value. We see with ample coverage the role of the Supreme Court in our governmental system. But before commenting directly on the decision, I will couch my comments on the other big news of the week – the Colorado fires.