POLS 022
INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL THEORY
Democratic Ideal
Thoughts on Government The very definition of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." Reasons why unicameral legislature is undesirable, a single: 1. assembly is liable to all the vices, follies and frailties of an individual. 2. assembly is apt to grow avaricious (extreme greed for wealth) 3. assembly is apt to grow ambitious (for lifelong power) 4. representative assembly (unable to because of)... secrecy and despatch 5. representative assembly (with judicial power) ... too numerous, too slow, and too little skilled in the laws. 6. assembly ... would make arbitrary laws for their own interest, execute all laws arbitrarily for their own interest, and adjudge all controversies in their own favor. Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a human and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. |
Donald Allen
Liberalism
Paternalism vs. Democracy: A Libertarian View These and other assaults on personal privacy and individual liberty are the baleful result not of small government conservatism but of large-government activism of the most intrusive, coercive, and paternalistic kind. Although crossing that border illegally is dangerous and often deadly, tens of thousands of Mexicans and others take their chances each year and cross into the United States. Reduced to its essentials, illegal immigration is simply another name for a black market in labor. Congress hasso far failed to reform our badly broken immigration system, notout of economic considerations but because of political cowardice People should take care of themselves, government needs to stay out |
Democratic Ideal
The Politics: Book III Chapter 11 For each individual among the many has a share of virtue and prudence, and when they meet together, they become in a manner of speaking one man, who has many feet, and hands, and senses ... Hence the many are better judges than a single man of music or poetry; for some understand one part, and some another, and among them they understand the whole. The Politics: Book IV Chapter 11 (of the wealthy)The evil begins at home; for when they are boys, by reason of the luxury in which they are brought up, they never learn, even at school, the habit of obedience. (the best form of government) is not democracy but "polity," that is, rule by the many in the interest of all. |
Democratic ideal
Democracy in America: Introduction While the kings were ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce. The influence of money began to be perceptible in state affairs. The transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of power which they believe to be illegal, and by the obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive. Society will not be stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be regulated and directed foward; if there be less splendor than in the halls of an aristocracy, the contrast of misery will be less frequent also; the pleasures of enjoyment may be less excessive, but those of comfort will be more general; the sciences may be less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance will be less common; the impetuosity of the feelings will be repressed, and the habits of the nation softened; there will be more vices and fewer crimes. |
Democratic Ideal
The Suppliants Theseus: Nothing is worse for a city than a tyrant. Wherever he rules, the law does not... But where a tyrant rules, he fears them, and, seeing the most talented among them as a threat to his own power, he puts them to the sword. How can the city survive and prosper, where its ruler stifles all initiative and uses his sword like a scythe cutting down its youth like he flowers of spring? |
Liberalism
Liberalism and Positive Freedom But when we thus speak of freedom, we should consider carefully what we mean by it. We do not mean merely freedom from restraint or compulsion. We do not mean merely freedom to do as we like respectively of what it is that we like. We do not mean a freedom that can be enjoyed by one man or one set of men at the cost of a loss of freedom to others. When we speak of freedom as something to be so highly prized, we mean a positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something that we do or enjoy in common with others. We mean by it a power which each man exercises through the help or security given hi by his fellow-men, and which he in turn helps to secure for them. |
Liberalism
Leviathan So that the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. (invade for grain, safety, and reputation) The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man has, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest [most effective] means thereunto. |
Liberalism
What is Enlightenment? Enlightenment is mankind's leaving behind its self-imposed immaturity. Because of laziness and cowardice, many supposedly grown men remain happily immature throughout their lives, readily allowing others to serve as their guardians After all, it is so easy to remain immature! If I have a book which does my thinking for me, a priest or pastor who serves as my conscience, and a doctor who tells me what to eat, then I need not take the trouble to think for myself. And yet I hear people shout from all sides: "Don't argue!" The military ...the public interest is served by the office-holder's neutrality and obedience- not by his argument and disagreement, which would be divisive and disruptive. Civil servants should not argue but obey... Dare to know—can be stumped by restrictions or religion. |
Democratic Ideal
The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States Many of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centrury laws operated not by excluding specific classes of citizens but by erecting procedural obstacles that were justified as measures to prevent fraud or corruption. It was to "preserve the purity of the ballot box" Notably, the targets of exclusionary laws have tended to be similar for more than two centuries: the poor, immigrants, African-Americans, people perceived to be something other than "mainstream" Americans. No state has ever attempted to disfranchise upper-middle-class or wealthy white male citizens. |
conservative
The Conservative Principles In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent thing more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order (harmony). Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of perfectibility. Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Eight, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a bigorous society. |
neoconservative
The neoconservative Persuasion One of these policies, most visible and controversial, is cutting tax rates in order to stimulate steady economic growth. It was only the prospect of economic growth in which everyone prospered, if not equally or simultaneously, that gave modern democracies their legitimacy and durability. A great power, the "national interest" is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, wose identity is ideological... inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. |
Liberalism
The "liberals" are the true "conservatives," conserving or protecting past gains from the new Deal and Great Society - Social Security, Medicare, and other popular programs - while those who call themselves conservatives are, in fact, radicals. The Politics of Inequality The legacy of slavery, America's original sin, is the reason we're the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee health care to our citizens. White backlash against the civil rights movement is the reason America is the only advanced country where a major political party wants to roll back the welfare state. A New New Deal The movement's politicization of everything, the way it values political loyalty above all else, creates a culture of cronyism and corruption that has pervaded eerything the Bush administration does, from he failed reconstruction of Iraq to the hapless response to Hurricane Katrina. |
Liberalism
A Letter Concerning Toleration First, because the care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate, any more than to other men. It is not committed unto him, I say, by God; because it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another, as to compel any one to his religion. In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force: but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. In the third place, The care of the salvation of men's souls cannot belong to the magistrate; because, though the vigour of laws and force of penalties were capable to convince and change men's minds, yet would not that help at all to the salvation of their souls. |
Democratic Ideal
Criticizes the claim that the people, acting collectively, are less wise than a single king or prince. The Prince It is the nature of the multitude either humbly to serve or insolently to dominate. ... when both freed from such control, we shall see that the people are guilty of fewer excesses that the prince, and that the errors of the people are of less importance, and therefore more easily remedied. For a licentious and mutinous people may easily be brought back to good conduct by the influence and persuasion of a good man, but an evil-minded prince is not amenable to such influences, and therefore there is no other remedy against him but cold steel. |
Democratic Ideal / Liberalism
Considerations on Representative Government Suppose the difficulty vanquished. What should we then have? One man of superhuman mental activity managing the entire affairs of a mentally passive people. Their passivity is implied in the very idea of absolute power. The nation as a whole, and every individual composing it, are without any potential voice in their own destiny. ... a passive character, which yields to obstacles instead of striving to overcome them, may not indeed be very useful to others, no more than to itself, but it might be expected to be at least inoffensive. But the great mass of seeming contentment is real discontent, combined with indolence or self-indulgence, which, while taking no legitimate means of raising itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level. On Liberty Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grown. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. |
liberalism
The Rights of Man Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generation which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Common Sense Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. —- focus on the now. |
democratic ideal
Funeral Oration Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them ... Our city is thrown open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret if revealed to an enemy might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. For we the lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. We make our friends by conferring, not be receiving, favors. Now he who confers a favor is the firmer friend, because he would fain by kindness keep alive the memory of an obligation: but the recipient is colder in his feelings, because he knows that in requiting another's generosity he will not be winning gratitude but only paying a debt. |
conservative
Raegan's themes were in fiscal conservatism, low taxation, and minimal government; the second, the importance he attaches to Americans adhering to Christian beliefs and values; the third, a retrospective look at these themes and an added emphasis on what he calls "the new patriotism" praised and prized by him and by many other conservatives. |
liberalism
The New Deal A glance at the situation today only too clearly indicates that equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists. Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has long since been reached and there is practically no more free land. More than half of our people do not live on the farms or on lands and cannot derive a living by cultivating their own property. There is no safety valve in the form of a Western prairie to which whose thrown out of work by the Eastern economic machines can go for a new start. These two requirements must be satisfied, in the main, by the individuals who claim and hold control of the great industrial and financial combinations which dominate so large a part of our industrial life. They have undertaken to be, not business men, but princes - prices of property. — corporations claim to not want government but always go to govn for help. |
liberal
Government - far from being a "necessary evil" - is an entirely unnecessary evil. Libertarian Anarchism If no man may aggress against - invade - the person or property of another, this means that every man is free to do whatever he wishes, except commit such aggression. Since the libertarian also opposes invasion of the rights of private property, this also means that he just as emphatically opposes government interference with property rights or with the free market economy through controls, regulations, subsidies, or prohibitions. |
communist/social utopianist
Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark 1. the power of every individual to form his own character. - universally formed for the people 2. The affections are at the command of the individual—not 3. It is necessary that a large portion of mankind should exist in ignorance and poverty in order to secure to the remaining part such a degree of happiness as they now enjoy..—Nature has provided means by which population may be at al times maintained in the proper state to give the greatest happiness to every individual, without one check of vice or misery. Men shall not be called upon to assent to doctirnes and to dogmas which do not carry conviction to their minds. |
liberal
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter 2 In civilized society he stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature as from habit, custom, and education. But without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and convenience of life which he wanted. |
liberal
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty. The danger of minding other people's business is twofold. First, there is the danger that a man may leave his own business unattended to; and, second, there is the danger of an impertinent interference with another's affairs. The friends of humanity start out with certain benevolent feelings toward "the poor," "the weak," "the laborers," and others of whom they make pets. They generalize these classes, and render them impersonal, and so constitute the classes into social pets... Every bit of capital, therefore, which is given to a shiftless and inefficient member of society, who makes no return for it, is diverted from a reproductive use. |
communist
Utopia: from book I “I have no doubt, Master More”, said Hythloday, “that whenever men have private property and money is the measure of everything, there is is hardly possible for the commonwealth to be justly governed or to flourish in prosperity. Unless, that is, you think that justice is done when all things are in the hands of evil men, or that prosperity and happiness are found when everything is divided among a few—andeven those few do not really thrive—while all the rest live in misery and wretchedness” Where money is the standard of everything, many vain and superflouous occupations must be pursued, although they serve only for wanton luxury and false pleasure. Many times. Also, when they have no such work to do, an open proclamation is made that they should devote fewer hours to work. For the authorities do not force the citizens to labor unnecessarily. Why should they? |
communist
We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. Property of artisan—has already been destroyed. Of bourgeois property for the laborer—it creates capital which exploits wage labor. Capital is not a personal power, but a social power.
Capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.
For those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work.
Capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.
For those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work.
Sale of military weapons to local police Departments
The Trump Administration is rolling back Obama-era restrictions on equipment that police officers can obtain from surplus military equipment. Items such as non-lethal grenade launchers (modified to shoot gas canisters), military rifles and body armor. This isn’t surprising since we have seen the type of security measures Sessions is interested in enacting, such as a stronger force on the (failed) war on drugs despite public opinion moving towards the legalization of marijuana.
Militarizing our police officers will not make our cities safer, it will simply dehumanize police officers to the public, and the public to police officers since hiding behind an armored mask will allow them to detach their actions to whom they actually are. Police officers already have a bad reputation in being racists and abusing their power, by dehumanizing them to look like robots, we are further dividing the public and the officers that are supposed to protect and serve us, not suppress us and beat us in line.
People posing as a police department were able to purchase over a million-dollars’ worth of equipment, which shows that the items can easily get into the wrong hands, and though this is a legitimate concern, it brings into question the Second Amendment which states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. I interpret this to mean that we the people, should not need special privilege to purchase the same weapons that are being used by the police (and possibly by our military). These weapons getting into the wrong hands is a risk that comes with making sure that we the people keep and bear arms.
This article was very straight-forward, it provided the viewpoints of conservatives and liberals, no bias was detected in either direction. I do not agree with militarizing our police department, Police Unions have made it almost impossible to hold police officers accountable for their misbehavior and we have seen many times where they have acted as judge and jury when interacting with the public. We would benefit from re-training our officers to deescalate situations, and to understand the people in the neighborhoods they patrol. Luckily, our police department in the city of Los Angeles do not plan on participating in gathering such weapons for their officers, which makes me proud to be living in California.
Works Cited
Tanfani, Joseph, and Kate Mather. "Trump Is Ending Restrictions That Limit the Military from Giving Surplus Gear to Police." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2017. Web. 31 Aug. 2017.
Militarizing our police officers will not make our cities safer, it will simply dehumanize police officers to the public, and the public to police officers since hiding behind an armored mask will allow them to detach their actions to whom they actually are. Police officers already have a bad reputation in being racists and abusing their power, by dehumanizing them to look like robots, we are further dividing the public and the officers that are supposed to protect and serve us, not suppress us and beat us in line.
People posing as a police department were able to purchase over a million-dollars’ worth of equipment, which shows that the items can easily get into the wrong hands, and though this is a legitimate concern, it brings into question the Second Amendment which states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. I interpret this to mean that we the people, should not need special privilege to purchase the same weapons that are being used by the police (and possibly by our military). These weapons getting into the wrong hands is a risk that comes with making sure that we the people keep and bear arms.
This article was very straight-forward, it provided the viewpoints of conservatives and liberals, no bias was detected in either direction. I do not agree with militarizing our police department, Police Unions have made it almost impossible to hold police officers accountable for their misbehavior and we have seen many times where they have acted as judge and jury when interacting with the public. We would benefit from re-training our officers to deescalate situations, and to understand the people in the neighborhoods they patrol. Luckily, our police department in the city of Los Angeles do not plan on participating in gathering such weapons for their officers, which makes me proud to be living in California.
Works Cited
Tanfani, Joseph, and Kate Mather. "Trump Is Ending Restrictions That Limit the Military from Giving Surplus Gear to Police." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2017. Web. 31 Aug. 2017.