« on: January 27, 2017, 04:59:40 pm »
4 Core American Principles That Can Rejuvenate Our CountryIt will take more than walls and jobs to 'make America great again.' We need to return to the philosophies that undergirded the American founding.By Paul Rowan Brian
January 27, 2017 What is the best way to “make America great again?” By bringing Ford’s manufacturing jobs back from Mexico? Draining the swamp? Building a great wall?
The ascendance of the strong man presidency under Obama and Trump promises a grandiose renewal of American power and unity. But these promises have largely fallen flat: either becoming victims of Washington gridlock and compromise, or more often, collapsing under the weight of their own unrealistic expectations.
At a time when American voters expect the presidency to fix all societal and political ills, the best way to revive American greatness is by returning to our first principles. Four main ideas of the American founding merit revival: a proper understanding of human nature, a distrust of energetic government, the necessity of a virtuous citizenry for self-government, and the principles of federalism and subsidiarity.
1. Good Government Requires Understanding Human Nature
Our nation’s founders knew that political systems and institutions depend on understanding human nature. Since politics is the organization of persons into political entities, the machinery of government can never be fully separated from the desires and limits of human behavior. Is human nature totally depraved, perfectible, or somewhere in between?
Typically, human nature affects political institutions on a spectrum between two extremes: despotism and democracy. If human nature is essentially bad or evil, we drift towards Hobbes’ Leviathan, where a strong central government is required to impose order and restrain the destructive impulses of humanity. But if human nature is inherently good, perfectible, or positive, faith in the people results in democracy.
The American founders accepted the traditional view that human nature is fallen. But they did not let this stifle their hopes for self-government. They knew that human nature corrupts all political institutions. Though there are virtues in a strong government, it tends toward despotism. Democracy, though admirably fostering popular participation, tends toward anarchy and oppressive majorities. The founders instead took a balanced view of human nature.
“Federalist 10” and “Federalist 55” are illustrative examples. In “Federalist 10,” Madison wrote that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” thus acknowledging that human nature is in essence corruptible. However, in “Federalist 55,” Madison responded to Antifederalists who argued that the federal government under the Constitution would collapse due to human frailty. Madison wrote that according to their view, “the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.”
Madison believed that a negative view of human nature and republican self-government could coexist through a constitutional balancing act. Instead of representing the social orders (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) per the example of antiquity, the new republic would balance the functions of government (executive, judicial, legislative). In this way, Madison and the Federalists sought to conform political institutions to a realistic view of human nature.
2. Distrusted in An Energetic Federal Government
The second neglected principle of the American founding is a distrust of energetic government. The founders were heavily influenced by the imperial crisis with Britain, and concluded that energetic government usually results in tyranny. Power is dangerous because it is wielded by man, and man is corruptible.
These views were widely held by the founders and derived from the Whig tradition of dissenters in England. For instance, Jefferson wrote to James Madison, “I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.” He wrote a second letter to Edward Carrington in which he stated “The natural progress of things is for the government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”
At the time Jefferson penned these letters, the ratification debates over the Constitution were raging, and the Federalists sought to enhance the power of the central government to correct the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Though the founders did not like certain state laws—such as debtor relief, trade wars, and independent alliances with European nations—they were steeped in a tradition that feared central authority. After all, they had recently fought a lengthy and costly war to overthrow tyranny. Resistance to extensive governmental powers was deeply imprinted into American politics.
3. Citizens’ Virtue Is Crucial For Survival
The third principle of the founding that we have neglected—if not outright repudiated—is the belief that a virtuous, religious citizenry is essential for republican self-government. The emphasis on virtue harkened back to the Roman Republic and to Cicero, who argued that the fall of Rome was due to the loss of virtue. The founders turned to ancient Rome as the premier example of government without a monarch and drew heavily on its experience as they sought to create a new government.
Virtue was crucial if liberty were to endure. Most of the founders believed that religion, and Christianity in particular, was necessary to support a virtuous citizenry. In a society governed without coercion from a monarch, religion was the only way to restrain behavior and prevent mere majority rule. In short, religion placed limits on acceptable social and political behavior.
The early statesmen were obsessed with the maintenance of virtue in their republican experiment. In his 1796 Farewell Address, Washington stated that “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” He also concluded that:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens … reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”
Benjamin Franklin wrote that “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” James Madison, in a speech at the Virginia Ratification Convention, asserted that “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.” Jefferson wrote to John Adams that the public should be “informed, by education, what is right & what wrong, to be encouraged in habits of virtue, and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments … these are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order & good government.”
4. The Importance Of Federalism
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http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/27/4-core-american-principles-can-rejuvenate-country/
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No government in the 12,000 years of modern mankind history has led its people into anything but the history books with a simple lesson, don't let this happen to you.
