Being one who studies human nature and keeps an eye on the public process, I found this very interesting.
Howard Fineman, a senior correspondent with Newsweek and MSNBC, recently wrote a book about what he calls the "13 American arguments." He considers these arguments as the biggest shapers of public policy, historically.
Although Fineman is a lot more liberal than I am (Attila The Hun is a lot more liberal than I am), this list makes for good reading and even better thinking. My own comments are in italics, but here goes:
1 - What is a person?
(Several groups have received short weight here, Fineman points out. At one point, blacks were judged to be three-fifths of a person for census purposes. Women didn't have the right to vote until 1920. And now, there's the debate about the unborn ...)
2 - What is an American?
(Whatever the definition, all Americans share the same bio: We ain't from around here. All of us came from somewhere else, some generations ago. If you want to get technical, we'd all be in a world of hurt if the original occupants -- what we call the Native Americans -- kicked us out.)
3 - What role does faith have in public policy?
(This is one of those debates that just won't go away.)
4 - What can we know and say?
(Fineman is alluding to freedom of speech, and more importantly, freedom to know what the folks in Washington are doing to us.)
5 - What are the limits of individualism?
(This is just a small, but fundamental, part of the debate between liberals and conservatives.)
6 - Who judges the law?
7 - Debt and the dollar.
8 - Local vs. national authority.
(Another of those issues that keeps cropping up. You can look at South Carolina's history to see how this works.)
9 - Presidential power.
(Almost duplicates #8, but not quite. Fineman asks, how much presidential power is too much? The framers of the Constitution wanted a weak central government, and it's a safe bet the President is a lot more powerful than he used to be. Even with some highly-questionable executive calls in recent years, there is still some precedent -- witness Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus during the War Between The States.)
10 - Terms of Trade.
(As in, who controls it? Who sets the terms, calls the shots?)
11 - War and diplomacy.
(Fineman: "Do we need to change the world to survive in it?")
12 - Environmental issues.
(This is a fairly new phenomenon.)
13 - Creating a far more perfect union.
(You've heard your kids ask about this on long car trips: "Are we there yet?")
These issues (with the possible exception of #12) were somewhere in people's minds back when the Constitution was being framed, each came to the forefront at some point, and all remain important today.
Howard Fineman, a senior correspondent with Newsweek and MSNBC, recently wrote a book about what he calls the "13 American arguments." He considers these arguments as the biggest shapers of public policy, historically.
Although Fineman is a lot more liberal than I am (Attila The Hun is a lot more liberal than I am), this list makes for good reading and even better thinking. My own comments are in italics, but here goes:
1 - What is a person?
(Several groups have received short weight here, Fineman points out. At one point, blacks were judged to be three-fifths of a person for census purposes. Women didn't have the right to vote until 1920. And now, there's the debate about the unborn ...)
2 - What is an American?
(Whatever the definition, all Americans share the same bio: We ain't from around here. All of us came from somewhere else, some generations ago. If you want to get technical, we'd all be in a world of hurt if the original occupants -- what we call the Native Americans -- kicked us out.)
3 - What role does faith have in public policy?
(This is one of those debates that just won't go away.)
4 - What can we know and say?
(Fineman is alluding to freedom of speech, and more importantly, freedom to know what the folks in Washington are doing to us.)
5 - What are the limits of individualism?
(This is just a small, but fundamental, part of the debate between liberals and conservatives.)
6 - Who judges the law?
7 - Debt and the dollar.
8 - Local vs. national authority.
(Another of those issues that keeps cropping up. You can look at South Carolina's history to see how this works.)
9 - Presidential power.
(Almost duplicates #8, but not quite. Fineman asks, how much presidential power is too much? The framers of the Constitution wanted a weak central government, and it's a safe bet the President is a lot more powerful than he used to be. Even with some highly-questionable executive calls in recent years, there is still some precedent -- witness Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus during the War Between The States.)
10 - Terms of Trade.
(As in, who controls it? Who sets the terms, calls the shots?)
11 - War and diplomacy.
(Fineman: "Do we need to change the world to survive in it?")
12 - Environmental issues.
(This is a fairly new phenomenon.)
13 - Creating a far more perfect union.
(You've heard your kids ask about this on long car trips: "Are we there yet?")
These issues (with the possible exception of #12) were somewhere in people's minds back when the Constitution was being framed, each came to the forefront at some point, and all remain important today.
2 comments:
Sorry for my bad english. Thank you so much for your good post. Your post helped me in my college assignment, If you can provide me more details please email me.
Thank you, Anonymous (there can't be two people named that). When I read your comment I reread the post -- it's been a while since I read it. As I check on current debates -- health care, illegal immigration, governmental interference ad nauseum -- and look at them through Fineman's lens, everything seems to make more sense. But then the world makes a lot more sense after I've had a couple cups of coffee, too.
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