The Death Of Liberal America Essay -- essays research papers

Americans seem to arrest lost any sense whatsoever of what liberalism means and what it strives to insure. Liberals have insisted that tyranny can only be combated by the multiplication and fragmentation of power. A free society is one in which there are various centers of power, various positions from which people have the skill to influence decisions. Thats the whole point behind creating three branches of government, the vaunted separation of powers. Liberalism aims to insure peace and prevent tyranny in pluralistic societies. Liberalism strives to place gobs of individual actions outside the pale of politics and beyond interference from the state or other powers. And, culturally, it strives to promote tolerance, where tolerance is, at a minimum, indifference to the choices and actions of others and, at best, a recognition that diversity yields some social benefits. Liberalism guarantees through freedoms of speech, the press, and association, and through the institutional mech anisms of election, jury trials, and legislative deliberations, the active engagement of citizens with one another. Liberals should promote in every way possible the existence of a vibrant, accessible, and uncensored civil society. In short, liberalism proliferates the occasions where citizens of different opinions, backgrounds, creeds etc. mingle with one another, express their views, and designate about specific issues. And in some, but not all cases, these settings have to draw to a decision that is then accepted, even when not very satisfying, by all the parties involved. Democratic procedures of decision making which guarantee to all interested parties their chance to say their piece (their chance to sway others by argument), and use the select and majority rule to adjudicate differences, are a vital liberal expedient for keeping the peace. Thats because democracy, amazingly enough, has proven an astoundingly effective way to piss people to accept - peacefully - the fact th at they have ended up on the losing side of a political debate that was resolved by a vote. Liberalism, we might say, relies to some extent on the desire of all the participants to maintain the social peace. But even more fundamentally, it expects that the process of deliberation will move participants to an appreciation of the others involved, and the desire to come to an eventual decision that satisfies as m... ... strife. There are few things worse in this world than sectarian violence. Do the Republicans actually know what fire they are playing with when they encourage sectarian divisiveness? And just look at the electoral map of the past two presidential elections. The southbound and the West are lined up against the Pacific Coast States and the North. We havent had such a regional divide since 1860. How long can calcium and the Northeast be shut out from national power? A population hardened into set divisions, a population without a big dower of swing voters is in bad sha pe a population where those divisions correspond to geographic boundaries is really courting disaster. If the South and West maintain their current coalition, we have a reversion to the regionalism that culminated in the Civil War. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the South continues to be the fly in the ointment of American democracy. It has never been as fluid in its awarding of votes in national elections as the other regions, and that has been a constant problem. The fact remains If you arent outraged, you arent paid attention. Seems like a lot of people arent paying attention.