The Constitution and the Magna Carta

[unixronin]

cipherpunk discusses the differences between the two, and how the government has turned a short and strictly enumerated list of only seventeen things it is allowed by the Constitution to do, all other things being forbidden to it, into "We can do whatever we want".

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

And what if you are color-blind? One can of course find a less slippery topic than color perception as a base for discussions of epistemology. One could discuss the spectra of radiation rather than color. But that is my point. Truths in politics are affected by perception.

With political arguments, one may reasonably ask whether or not the person cherry-picked their arguments and facts because they had an agenda. With the Federalist Papers, we need not ask--we know. They were part of a political debate. Does that mean the arguments were invalid? Perhaps not. But the assumptions of the arguments are questionable. They were deceptive even in their own time. It is hard for me, studying this with 200+ years of hindsight, to understand why so many concessions were made to the slave states. Was it necessary to have a union at all, if it was to include slavery? But of course Washington and Jefferson were both slave-holders, though Washington freed his slaves upon his death. (Jefferson died bankrupt and his heirs sold his slaves so that they could keep his estate.)

One may also ask if the theories passed the test of workability. Designs for political systems are like any other sort of designs: they can fail. In the long run, they always do, as changing times invalidate them. The co-existence of slave and free states in the Union was a failure. It failed for many reasons, but one I find most interesting is that the slave-holders kept wanting more and more power and more and more control over the Federal government. It wasn't enough that they had extra votes in the House, and the ability to block legislation in the Senate. They wanted more, wanted non-slave states to defend slavery. And, in the Dred Scott decision, they got that. Finally, they over-reached, and started the war that destroyed their system. So the theory of limited Federal government failed when faced with the realities of power and, especially, the overweening ambition of a ruling class. So I say that the false beliefs at the root of the system destroyed it. I don't think the situation is so very different today. It is not hard for me to see the concessions to the big financial firms made in the past 30 years as similar to the concessions to slaveholders. Modern medicine is a completely new problem. And, now as then, it seems to me that the theory of limited Federal government has failed, leading to horrors.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

ean–Luc Godard said the way to criticize a film was to make another film. If you want to criticize the arguments made by the Framers for limited government, then you need to put forward arguments of your own instead of casting vague aspersions about how they were not driven by angelic motives. (Of course they weren't. They were politicians.)

I have no patience for the modern idea of literary deconstruction, which is what it seems you're attempting to do here. So, sorry: no, I don't agree, and you're going to need to do better to have me take your thesis seriously.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

My word. I thought I was just criticizing political theory based on historical outcomes. I don't know enough modern literary criticism and philosophy to know if what I have written would qualify as "deconstruction." I thought that explaining that:
1. The "limited Federal government" model was adopted in part to protect the institution of slavery in slave states.
2. It did so successfully, but the slaveholders over-reached, which,
3. Led to a civil war.
is an argument against the "limited Federal government" model. As an added filip, it seems that in subsequent US history the pattern of a privileged elite over-reaching has been repeated, and "limited government" is one of the arguments such groups invariably make, both to allow their abuses and then to prevent their correction--most recently in the global financial disaster.

In any event, it's been an interesting discussion. Thanks!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You make it sound as though the enumerated-powers section caused the civil war. I find your apparent post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning indefensible.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Rather I'm arguing the the converse. I would say the political leadership of the slaveholders "caused" the war, as much as it is possible to speak of a single cause. The weak Federal government, heavily influenced by the slaveholders, could not control the slaveholder faction and the states they dominated. And some of the main reasons the Federal government was weak, and favorable to the slaveholders, were concessions made to the slaveholders. Viewed in that way, there is nothing post hoc--this is all plain in the history, unless I greatly misunderstand it.

The whole history seems to me a compelling argument for either no Union between North and South in the first place, or a stronger Union. Historically, of course, the conflict was violently resolved in favor of a stronger Union. The stronger Union does not seem to be more oppressive than its former weaker form, nor did it abandon the concept of human rights, the constitution, or the rule of law. I simply don't see the history that makes the argument for a weaker Federal government valid.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I simply don't see the history that makes the argument for a weaker Federal government valid.

And that's precisely the problem.

In the words of Gerald R. Ford (yes, that Gerald R. Ford; he was President at the time), "If government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have." What he didn't mention was that not only is a government that is big enough to take away everything you have not necessarily big enough to also give you everything you want, but it doesn't necessarily even have any pressing motivation to do so.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

"I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,/ And woke to find it true;/ I wasn't born for an age like this;/ Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?"--Orwell, "A Happy Vicar I Might Have Been"

Barry Goldwater, it's said, was fond of repeating that remark of Ford's, in the 1964 campaign during which, yes, he invented the Southern Strategy. At that time, the South was very much resentful of Johnson's laws which ended institutionalized racism. Open racism was no longer nationally acceptable, so they talked about small government and states rights. So the story of the slaveholders continued at that time, and continues to this day.

I would prefer much less large-scale power in our lives. Yet I don't see how we can hope to retain any personal freedoms without a powerful democratic government. Without that government, "we the people" stand no chance at all against the big corporations and the various foreign tyrannies. At least with the US Federal government I get a vote and the benefit of democratic traditions, even if those traditions could be stronger and my vote only makes much difference in one house of Congress.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

As a very late thought on this: it occurs to me it is the banks and financial firms, with the connivance of the government, that have "taken it all away" for many people. Strikingly, "minimal government" arguments were used to justify this.

The regulation of commerce is one of the oldest functions of government. It seems that abandoning it, or corrupting it, is one way the government can take it all away.