In her book It Takes a Village, Hillary defines "civil society" as a "term social scientists use to describe the way we work together for common purposes." In Hillary's world, the "common good" is the ultimate objective of society and the federal government is the arbiter and enforcer of "goodness." But in the minds of our Founding Fathers, a civil society was one in which various groups, individuals, and families work together for their own purposes, the result being a healthy and prosperous democratic nation. To them, the primary purpose of government was to prevent bad people (whether foreign or domestic) from interferring in this enterprise.
To my brother Tom, which of these definitions best describes your view of a civil society?
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Our society, as currently structured – or, more appropriately, as structured by the Founding Fathers – is the most civil society – even by Hillary’s definition – the planet has ever known. Nowhere, at no time is history, has there ever been a system sustained over so long a period that has been so effective at distributing wealth and providing material well-being to a broader sweep of people. In letting each man and woman – each family – work for its own interests, the common good has been well-served. George Gilder has written about the intrinsic altruism hard-wired into free markets. Quite the opposite is the case of the entitlement society, where the question isn’t, “What do I have to do to better myself and my family?” but “Where do I get mine?” It’s sick, it’s poisonous, it’s inevitable.
To the extent there are subsets of the larger population in this country who are still missing out on some of the blessings of American civil society, it’s precisely because they have been poisoned over the course of several generations by socialist entitlements. The left has consciously and cynically created a dependent class that is almost forced to vote democrat in order to keep its entitlements. Now, the dems are trying to make the entire society in the image of the nation’s worst inner cities. There is no question about this.
in 2009.....neither one
Then what is your current working definition of "civil society"? I think this is important because it is our fundamental concept of what constitutes a civil society and how it should function that informs our polical views.
Also in Hillary's book she talks about the importance of communities working together to better themselves and the places they work, but to answer your question: A civil society is one where we can hold honest debate and issues. It is one where we do not resort to lies and name calling and close our minds to new ideas. A civil society is where government steps in to correct societal ills when the free market seems incapable or unwilling to do it themselves. Examples would be stopping toxins from being dumped in our rivers, regulating predatory lenders, preserving some of the pristeen land located within this country. A civil society is one where people are not rewarded with additional welfare payments because they had another kid. Where, if on welfare, you have to take job training if you want to receive any payments. It is a civil society to reward businesses that will hire welfare recipients to reduce the burden, even if it means tax breaks for that business. It is a civil society who when no one else will do it, the government will take care of the infirmed and poor. It's a civil society that takes care of our veterans.
What is not civil....and I wish I had a camera that day, was when I was in DC one time there was a homeless guy with a sign around his neck wanting money and he was sitting under a MacDonald's help wanted sign. Personally, I have no use for those kind of people. It is also not a civil society when Newsmax posts a blog saying maybe a coup is in order. Nor is it civil for the Huff Post to imply without a shred of proof that a murder in KY might be related to the current anti government stuff coming from the right.
What was in the minds of our founding fathers sounds nice but today's world is not the world of 1788. Also remember, they fought hard to escape the King's tyranny where they had little to no representation. We have representation today and we have elections and elections have consequences. I think back then only property owners could vote. I think we have come a long ways since then.
Does that answer your question? I have more, but I am tired of typing.
Can you answer these questions for me. Answer good, bad, or no opinion. Current gov. programs or agencies.
Medicare, medicaid, social security, FDIC, flood insurance, FEMA, Homeland Security, NASA.
Medicare: not the government's role, kill it.
Medicaid: not the government's role, kill it.
Social security: not the government's role, kill it.
FDIC: not the government's role, privatize it.
Flood insurance: not the governments's role, privatize it.
FEMA: government's role to a point, but needs to be reined in.
Homeland Security: no problem as long as it stays within proper boundaries.
NASA: OK, but keep as much in private hands as possible.
ok thanks. I see we disagree on the governments role quite a bit. I thinkg flood insurance use to be privatized until they would not do it anymore without government assistance, but I could be wrong.
One more thing. A civilized society shouldn't fret over same sex marriage.
OK, we definitely disagree here. A civil society must not allow same-sex marriage, unless it is prepared to allow polygamy, pederasty, and every other form of debauchery. And any society that permits by law any of these practices is doomed to a short and miserable existence. You may argue that why should we care what people do in the privacy of their own home. But that is an evasion of the real issue. Our nation was constructed around the principle that all citizens will behave according to biblical morality and those who don't will be restrained by law enforcement. The moment we dismiss biblical morality (natural law) as the foundation and replace it with the reasonings of man, we enter the realm of "anything goes." And if anything goes, we are on our way to anarchy and it's inevitable savior, tyranny. To give up the solid ground of biblical morality, even when practiced in private, is to usher in the quicksand of moral relativism, which sadly is the course we appear to be on. This is why our country is currently so screwed up. How long can we continue when so many kids are drugged up just so they can sit still in school and over 1/10 of the adult population is on antidepressant and psychotopic drugs? We are quickly falling apart, which is why so many are looking to the government to resolve their personal issues.
so we indoctrinate the homosexuals to beocme straight? Do we usher them out of the country like some have suggested. (I will find that quote from the FRC? this weekend). What has changed in this country over the years is that religion was allowed to creep into the political mainstream. It's always been there, but in the 80's it came out in the open and everytime a dem is put in office the country becomes subjected to all this rhetoric. You offer me no proof that the country would turn to anarchy and chaos with same sex marriage. Nor do I see how same sex marriage opens the door to polygamy. You asked me about a civil society. Civility is accepting that not everything done has to be something in agreement with what religious dictates might say or be interpreted to say. It is not 1788 any longer. Decisions made, right or wrong over the last 200 years has put us where we are. To me, wanting to return to 1788 or even Leave it to Beaver days is just not practical.
I see Sen. Hatch was able to get $50 million appropriated for teaching abstinence. I also see Texas is ready to drop their abstinence program because it did not work. Here we can probably agree, abstinence starts at and ends at home. Heck, it didn't even work for Palin's daughter.
I would be interested to receivean email from any of you guys on how you would solve some of the issues that Dave says privatize in the previous posts.
But I am happy to disagree with yoru guys. That's what its all about.
Your statement that I was responding to was about same-sex marriage. I do not expect every citizen to live a moral lifestyle. The important thing is that the vast majority do and that our laws reflect biblcal morality (hense, the law should not allow same-sex marriage). You seem to believe that the definition of morality has changed over the years, but I agree with John Locke, who wrote, "The law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as
others. The rules that they make for man’s actions must be conformable to the law of nature―i.e. to the will of God." Basing our laws on anything else is to build on the arbitrary reasonings and rationalizations of man, and that is a prescription for societal failure.
John Locke also said, "We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves."
He also said, "What worries you, masters you".
Both of these quotes are somewhat applicable today. I am not sure yours is.
You have just demonstrated the core difference between you and me, Bill, and Brian. You apparently believe in the evolution of truth, in the pragmatic adjustment of values, that morality is relative to current societal trends. We believe that truth is settled and will not, nay, cannot, change. We believe in principles that are fixed, absolute, that apply to all people at all times. We believe that the morality of happiness (as it used to be called) is defined by the Bible. Isn't it interesting that the further society strays from biblical morality, the unhappier it gets and the more it looks to the artificial happiness produced by synthesized chemicals.
Weighing in a little late here and the conversation has moved but . . .
think I get it now. The problem is the choice of terms. We really shouldn't be talking about "civil society."
There is implicit in the term an idea that we ought to all be "civil" to each other. In common parlance, I think that means we ought to be "nice."
In fact, we should be talking about a free society. Up until sometime in the 20th century, political discourse in this country was anything but nice and the media were anything but impartial. With the advent of the web, we're just seeing a return to the healthy combat of ideas that characterized most of our nation's glorious history.
I for one don't long for honest debate with Harry Reid et al. I want to defeat him. Pure and simple. He and his ideological brethren have nothing to say that interests me.
The left wants to turn off the "noise machine" because they can't control it. Welcome to the 21st century because, you know what, in a free society, you're not going to turn it off. Up yours, buster. That's the rallying cry of the noise machine.
This whole idea of bipartisanship and making nice with your deadly ideological enemies is just nonsense. Bipartisanship from the left's perspective basically means, I'll meet you halfway - as long as you've already come 99.9 percent of the way to agreeing with me. And if you won't do so, why then you're just a wild-eyed unreasonable ideologue.
I'll tell you where evereybody gets along and makes nice all the time - and where, to reference Tom's LOckean quote, there are far few disputes: North Korea. Cuba. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Red China.
Nope; keep your civil society and give me a free one.
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