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Author: Paul O'Hara Publisher: Xlibris Corporation ISBN: 1796003905 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
Politics could be described as a kind of bartering that enables us to overcome the discontinuities in our lives by resolving conflicts in a peaceful, rather than unruly, manner and seeking a sphere in which there is some common or general accord. It is thus the art of compromise, conciliation, and negotiation rather than brute or naked force where it concerns meaningful and effective decision-making. It is also an attempt at establishing some legitimate authority in response to the different needs that arise in society and at creating a system of benefits and burdens that are binding to all. To this extent, it is about the means and not the end—or at least the sufficiency of any means as opposed to the morality of any end. To achieve what is good is thus to achieve what is useful or to at least achieve the best strategy or plan that suits the circumstance at hand. In this case, we do not say that if the end is right or wrong, then the means are value-free. Instead, we say that since the means are value-laden, then the end is value-free. Given that wielding a blunt instrument to achieve a result is neither ethical nor unethical, the best we can hope for is a more ethical approach to the fashioning of any singular or conjugate set of means. So it is with our diplomats in their global dealings and our policy makers in the world of home affairs. There is another view, however, that suggests the difference between the political and the nonpolitical hinges on the distinction between a public and a private life with the assumption that what is true for one must also be true for the other. That is that politics is an ethical activity that replaces right behavior with just behavior and that it is the pursuit of human betterment through ostensibly public means just as ethics is the pursuit of human betterment through ostensibly private means. In answer to the question where this line should be drawn, the most common response is between civil society and that entity we call the state. State institutions—such as the government, the judiciary, and the armed forces—could be regarded as public because they touch all aspects of communal life. On the other hand, institutions such as family, business conglomerates, trade unions, and divers clubs could be regarded as private because they support only limited aims and are voluntary to join as well as voluntary to quit (although, of course, not voluntary for joining in the case of the family). This may also generate a particular perception of public life as being good in one sense but bad in another. Participation in the activities of the state may be deemed worthwhile if this is seen to involve interaction among individuals who are both free and equal in their regard for one another. On the other hand, state participation may be seen in a negative light if this limits the range of our choices, especially if it interferes with family commitments and everyday leisure pursuits. But if politics is concerned principally with questions about the state, a related question concerns its origin—whether it has evolved naturally or whether it is a purely human artifice borne of certain indispensable needs. This controversy has a long history, dating back to the Greeks, and Aristotle is typical in the kind of approach that supports the former. Political associations are regarded as natural progressions, starting with those that are simple and working toward those that are more complex. The pairing of a male and a female is essential for the sake of procreation, and that introduces the basic unit of a family. The pairing of a master and a slave is essential for the sake of rulership, and that introduces the primacy of mental agility over physical strength. What we mean by the head of any household is then extended to the head of any village. Although in this case, the lord or master acquires a certain status that demands the strict loyalty of his subjects.
Author: Paul O'Hara Publisher: Xlibris Corporation ISBN: 1796003905 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
Politics could be described as a kind of bartering that enables us to overcome the discontinuities in our lives by resolving conflicts in a peaceful, rather than unruly, manner and seeking a sphere in which there is some common or general accord. It is thus the art of compromise, conciliation, and negotiation rather than brute or naked force where it concerns meaningful and effective decision-making. It is also an attempt at establishing some legitimate authority in response to the different needs that arise in society and at creating a system of benefits and burdens that are binding to all. To this extent, it is about the means and not the end—or at least the sufficiency of any means as opposed to the morality of any end. To achieve what is good is thus to achieve what is useful or to at least achieve the best strategy or plan that suits the circumstance at hand. In this case, we do not say that if the end is right or wrong, then the means are value-free. Instead, we say that since the means are value-laden, then the end is value-free. Given that wielding a blunt instrument to achieve a result is neither ethical nor unethical, the best we can hope for is a more ethical approach to the fashioning of any singular or conjugate set of means. So it is with our diplomats in their global dealings and our policy makers in the world of home affairs. There is another view, however, that suggests the difference between the political and the nonpolitical hinges on the distinction between a public and a private life with the assumption that what is true for one must also be true for the other. That is that politics is an ethical activity that replaces right behavior with just behavior and that it is the pursuit of human betterment through ostensibly public means just as ethics is the pursuit of human betterment through ostensibly private means. In answer to the question where this line should be drawn, the most common response is between civil society and that entity we call the state. State institutions—such as the government, the judiciary, and the armed forces—could be regarded as public because they touch all aspects of communal life. On the other hand, institutions such as family, business conglomerates, trade unions, and divers clubs could be regarded as private because they support only limited aims and are voluntary to join as well as voluntary to quit (although, of course, not voluntary for joining in the case of the family). This may also generate a particular perception of public life as being good in one sense but bad in another. Participation in the activities of the state may be deemed worthwhile if this is seen to involve interaction among individuals who are both free and equal in their regard for one another. On the other hand, state participation may be seen in a negative light if this limits the range of our choices, especially if it interferes with family commitments and everyday leisure pursuits. But if politics is concerned principally with questions about the state, a related question concerns its origin—whether it has evolved naturally or whether it is a purely human artifice borne of certain indispensable needs. This controversy has a long history, dating back to the Greeks, and Aristotle is typical in the kind of approach that supports the former. Political associations are regarded as natural progressions, starting with those that are simple and working toward those that are more complex. The pairing of a male and a female is essential for the sake of procreation, and that introduces the basic unit of a family. The pairing of a master and a slave is essential for the sake of rulership, and that introduces the primacy of mental agility over physical strength. What we mean by the head of any household is then extended to the head of any village. Although in this case, the lord or master acquires a certain status that demands the strict loyalty of his subjects.
Author: James McClellan Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 664
Book Description
This new Liberty Fund edition of James McClellan's classic work on the quest for liberty, order, and justice in England and America includes the author's revisions to the original edition published in 1989 by the Center for Judicial Studies. Unlike most textbooks in American Government, Liberty, Order, and Justice seeks to familiarize the student with the basic principles of the Constitution, and to explain their origin, meaning, and purpose. Particular emphasis is placed on federalism and the separation of powers. These features of the book, together with its extensive and unique historical illustrations, make this new edition of Liberty, Order, and Justice especially suitable for introductory classes in American Government and for high school students in advanced placement courses.
Author: Randy E. Barnett Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 019152204X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 363
Book Description
In this provocative and engaging new book, Randy Barnett outlines a powerful and original theory of liberty structured by the liberal conception of justice and the rule of law. Drawing on insights from philosophy, political theory, economics, and law, he shows how this new conception of liberty can confront, and solve, the central societal problems of knowledge, interest, and power. - ;What is liberty, as opposed to license, and why is it so important? When people pursue happiness, peace, and prosperity whilst living in society, they confront pervasive problems of knowledge, interest, and power. These problems are dealt with by ensuring the liberty of the people to pursue their own ends, but addressing these problems also requires that liberty be structured by certain rights and procedures associated with the classical liberal conception of justice and the rule of law. In this controversial new work, Barnett examines the serious social problems that are addressed by liberty and the background or `natural' rights and `rule of law' procedures that distinguish liberty from license. He goes on to outline the constitutional framework that is needed to protect this structure of liberty. This is the only discussion of the liberal conception of justice and the rule of law to draw upon insights from philosophy, economics, political theory, and law to describe comprehensively the vital social functions performed by adherence to these concepts. And, although the book is intended to challenge specialists, its clear and accessible prose ensure that it will be of immense value to both scholars and students working in a range of academic disciplines. -
Author: Henry A. Giroux Publisher: City Lights Publishers ISBN: 0872866203 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
"Giroux refuses to give in or give up. The Violence of Organized Forgetting is a clarion call to imagine a different America--just, fair, and caring--and then to struggle for it."--Bill Moyers "Henry Giroux has accomplished an exciting, brilliant intellectual dissection of America's somnambulent voyage into anti-democratic political depravity. His analysis of the plight of America's youth is particularly heartbreaking. If we have a shred of moral fibre left in our beings, Henry Giroux sounds the trumpet to awaken it to action to restore to the nation a civic soul."--Dennis J. Kucinich, former US Congressman and Presidential candidate "Giroux lays out a blistering critique of an America governed by the tenets of a market economy. . . . He cites French philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman's concept of the 'disimagination machine' to describe a culture and pedagogical philosophy that short-circuits citizens' ability to think critically, leaving the generation now reaching adulthood unprepared for an 'inhospitable' world. Picking apart the current malaise of 21st-century digital disorder, Giroux describes a world in which citizenship is replaced by consumerism and the functions of engaged governance are explicitly beholden to corporations."--Publishers Weekly In a series of essays that explore the intersections of politics, popular culture, and new forms of social control in American society, Henry A. Giroux explores how state and corporate interests have coalesced to restrict civil rights, privatize what's left of public institutions, and diminish our collective capacity to participate as engaged citizens of a democracy. From the normalization of mass surveillance, lockdown drills, and a state of constant war, to corporate bailouts paired with public austerity programs that further impoverish struggling families and communities, Giroux looks to flashpoints in current events to reveal how the forces of government and business are at work to generate a culture of mass forgetfulness, obedience and conformity. In The Violence of Organized Forgetting, Giroux deconstructs the stories created to control us while championing the indomitable power of education, democracy, and hope. Henry A. Giroux is a world-renowned educator, author and public intellectual. He currently holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University. The Toronto Star has named Henry Giroux “one of the twelve Canadians changing the way we think." More Praise for Henry A. Giroux's The Violence of Organized Forgetting: "I can think of no book in the last ten years as essential as this. I can think of no other writer who has so clinically dissected the crisis of modern life and so courageously offered a possibility for real material change."--John Steppling, playwright, and author of The Shaper, Dogmouth, and Sea of Cortez "A timely study if there ever was one, The Violence of Organized Forgetting is a milestone in the struggle to repossess the common sense expropriated by the American power elite to be redeployed in its plot to foil the popular resistance against rising social injustice and decay of political democracy."--Zygmunt Bauman, author of Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All? among other works Prophetic and eloquent, Giroux gives us, in this hard-hitting and compelling book, the dark scenario of Western crisis where ignorance has become a virtue and wealth and power the means of ruthless abuse of workers, of the minorities and of immigrants. However, he remains optimistic in his affirmation of radical humanity, determined as he is to relate himself to a fair and caring world unblemished by anti-democratic political depravity."--Shelley Walia, Frontline
Author: Glenn Greenwald Publisher: Macmillan + ORM ISBN: 1466805765 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 357
Book Description
From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world. Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud. Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else.
Author: Stephen Breyer Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307424618 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 176
Book Description
A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.
Author: William M. Wiecek Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
The two-hundredth anniversary of the U.S. Constitution and the intense debates surrounding the recent nominees to the Supreme Court have refocused attention on one of the most fundamental documents in U.S. history—and on the judges who settle disputed over its interpretation. Liberty under Law is a concise and readable history of the U.S. Supreme Court, from its antecedents in colonial and British legal tradition to the present, William M. Wiecek surveys the impact of the Court's power of judicial review on important aspects of the national's political, economic, and social life. The author highlights important decisions on issues that range from the scope and legitimacy of judicial review itself to civil rights, censorship, the rights of privacy, seperation of church and state, and the powers of the President and Congress to conduct foreign affairs.
Author: John RAWLS Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674042603 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 624
Book Description
Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.
Author: Timothy Sandefur Publisher: Cato Institute ISBN: 1939709040 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 217
Book Description
The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty documents a forgotten truth: the word “democracy” is nowhere to be found in either the Constitution or the Declaration. But it is the overemphasis of democracy by the legal community–rather than the primacy of liberty, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence–that has led to the growth of government power at the expense of individual rights. Now, more than ever, Sandefur explains, the Declaration of Independence should set the framework for interpreting our fundamental law. In the very first sentence of the Constitution, the founding fathers stated unambiguously that “liberty” is a blessing. Today, more and more Americans are realizing that their individual freedoms are being threatened by the ever-expanding scope of the government. Americans have always differed over important political issues, but some things should not be settled by majority vote. In The Conscience of the Constitution, Timothy Sandefur presents a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law.
Author: Paul O'Hara
Author: Paul O'Hara
Author: James McClellan
Author: Randy E. Barnett
Author: Henry A. Giroux
Author: Glenn Greenwald
Author: Richard Price
Author: Stephen Breyer
Author: William M. Wiecek
Author: John RAWLS
Author: Timothy Sandefur