Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 20, 2013 at 11:18am

To question something you need to know what it is you are questioning. Do you have any idea what those motives are? Do you think you can learn what they are if you are in a questioning mood? Do you mean ask questions about those motives or say that they are questionable?

Permalink Reply by LShieldes on February 20, 2013 at 11:40am

Very valid point. Questions wihtout a base, without learning why you are asking, or trying to get further in depth easily ends up just being the 3 year old repeatedly asking "Why" to every answer.

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 20, 2013 at 11:50am

Indeed. All I can tell you is this. I think the Founders came up with a series of answers to serious political questions. When it comes to thinking those things through, I do not see a difference between politics & philosophy. In Madison's justly famed words, what is politics but the deepest reflection on human nature? I believe there are various other sets of answers to those questions. In America, the Progressive politicians & writers came up with the closest thing to an alternative to the view of the Founders. At least because of their influence, they're worth taking seriously. You can sum up the difference this way: Ought man to take his bearing from what is right or from power?

Permalink Reply by LShieldes on February 20, 2013 at 12:26pm

I'll be honest, I am afraid to answer your last question because I am not sure exactly what you mean. It just feels like it is different from what you are explaining earlier.

My gut reaction is to take what you said at the beginning. While the Founders came up with answers, and very good ones, there should still be some doubt left over. In the context of the article, where we can have some doubt on the answers, we can question them, and if we question them can we improve on them or simply just strengthen what is said(ie clarification).

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 20, 2013 at 12:34pm

Politics is essentially confrontational. You always lose something in winning something, as a city.

The party you support & the other party cannot both win. One must relegate the other to the status of junior partner; more loyal than opposition. Like FDR did with the GOP, & it lasted until Reagan. That's how politics works in America: Somebody has to convince America he is speaking for the majority, which Americans are happy to believe means America. Then rule is more or less taken for granted; after a generation or two, it falters. Like the GOP did, when it ran into TR & Wilson.

The proposition that America today is all things considered better than it was an hundred years ago is not self-evidently true, to my mind. In fact, in my experience everyone believes it's much better now than then; I make it my business to argue to the contrary, so far as that is possible anymore.

Permalink Reply by Will on February 20, 2013 at 12:01pm

In my case, I don't want to question the Constitution, for fear this will happen.

Side 1:  the Constitution's great, but of course nothing's perfect.

Side 2:  Great:  let's tweak it.  

Side 1:  OK.  How?

Side 2:  We'll eliminate hate speech/negative attack ads/unfair portrayals of sympathetic groups/intolerance of religion/whatever it is that sounds bad.  We'll limit freedom of assembly to those who use it responsibly.  We'll restrict the right to a fair trial to those who don't damage the environment/harm children/criticize the President-for-life/interfere with a healthy, drug-free environment/commit crimes...

Side 1:  I was hoping we could enhance human rights, not limit them.

Side 2:  Everyone has a right to a healthy society.  Thanks for the help!

That is, if we were going to expand human rights, I'd be fine with it.  I don't think that's likely this decade.  The current purpose of saying the Constitution isn't that great (Ginsberg) is to empower government relative to the individual, not the reverse.

Permalink Reply by Liam S. on February 20, 2013 at 12:11pm

That is, if we were going to expand human rights, I'd be fine with it.  I don't think that's likely this decade.  The current purpose of saying the Constitution isn't that great (Ginsberg) is to empower government relative to the individual, not the reverse.

So your problem isn't with questioning, in principle. It's a fear of the current generation in power doing so? 

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 20, 2013 at 12:14pm

Current generation in power? Do you think he loved how things were working in the '70s, or before that?

Permalink Reply by Liam S. on February 20, 2013 at 12:16pm

I don't know. He's the one that specified "this decade"

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 20, 2013 at 12:28pm

There is something strange about the decade. Not a word used much in relation to politicians. Still, I bet he's not fond of where the country has been going since the end of WWII.

Permalink Reply by Will on February 21, 2013 at 10:42am

So your problem isn't with questioning, in principle. It's a fear of the current generation in power doing so? 

Yes, that's what I meant.  Questioning seems essential to me.  But I'd rather question in the direction of more freedom, not less.  A reasoned discussion of positive versus negative rights... if we had that, and could re-establish the primacy of negative rights, it would feel safer to admit the possibility of tinkering.

As for which decades would feel safer (!) ... maybe not many.  But we were going toward more individuality and freedom in the 70's, I think (for all that decade's other faults).  The late 1860's and early 1870's were a great time for rights discussions in the US, too.  The 1890's and 19-aughts, in another way (at least regarding suffrage).  The 19-teens, not so much.

Permalink Reply by LShieldes on February 21, 2013 at 10:11am

What about with your religion?

Are you ok with doubting your religious leaders and the books of your religion, or should that be a sacred that you do not touch?

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