Re: European Convention and European Constitution -- LIFEBOAT

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Date Posted: 08:13:14 12/20/02 Fri
Author: SwimmingUpstream
Subject: Re: European Convention and European Constitution
In reply to: Wayne Hall 's message, "Re: European Convention and European Constitution" on 15:31:37 12/19/02 Thu

Dear Wayne,

Okay, then, to philosophical blindspots -- those that produce bad practices.

Government is formed to secure and advance interests.

Good government comprehends and does justice to all interests.

Calhoun erred when he stated that good government is formed essentially to protect minorities. That is only true if one equates "minorities" with "the weak" -- which is evidently not true in many cases. Thus, his notion of concurrent majorities misses the mark -- allowing a dominant minority to do just what strict majority rule allows a dominant majority to do.

Good government, then, is a contrivance designed to rationalize, by which I mean harmonize, ALL the interests extant within the polity. Your notion of "us" versus "them", is a pre-Rational notion of government, setting up a constant battle to further specific interests, rather than harmonize "enemy" interests with "friendly" interests. The interests of the "enemy" if they spring from natural and honest demands are not to be thwarted without regret - and always with the thought in mind that they ought to be fulfilled if circumstances can make this possible. The notion that there is an institutional enemy within a polity is a bad starting point UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO GRANT THE JUSTNESS OF THEIR EARNEST AND NATURALLY FELT INTERESTS AND MAKE CLEAR THAT THEIR ENEMY STATUS RESULTS NOT FROM THE FACT THAT THEIR INTERESTS ARE IN SEEMING CONFLICT WITH YOURS, BUT RATHER FROM THE FACT THAT THE MEANS WHICH THEY ARE EMPLOYING TO SECURE THEIR INTERESTS ARE BAD -- UNJUST, UNHARMONIZED, UNCHARITABLE -- MEANS.

Now, as to the "right to be governed" -- by whatever. A right is a general behavior that fulfills a natural need, and which does not unnecessarily injure the usefulness of the general behaviors of others in their pursuits of Happiness. The "right to be governed" as you refer to it seems to means the right to choose lawgivers -- a right that was early on exercised by casting lots, and later by more organized voting. To be governed by "active citizens" means, then, what precisely?

"Active citizen" is a person who wants to influence policy, and is actively working through some means to achieve this -- according to you. A member of a party is one of these persons, though you don't like that idea. And resorting to courts or referenda or some outsider to establish who is an "active citizen" and who is a member of a political party is to deny the authority of the "active citizen" to self-describe himself.

But what policies does an "active citizen" want to bring into existence? This is the crux. You are now trying to confine this question to the particular -- to the question of "globalism". Why not start your thesis with a cogent description of "globalism", and then state why you are against it?

With that in hand we can then look at whether your position is just, and what are the better means to achieve it -- including what are the better forms of government to achieve it.

What form(s) of government conduces to good government? I think a rational answer to that question will emerge after we clear away some of the ambiguity that still lingers around "active citizens".

Regards

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