WHAT ARE OUR SHARED VALUES?
How Can People Have Political Disagreements and Still Join Together As A Nation?
In John Halpin’s book review of Francis Fukuyama Liberalism and Its Discontents, he tries to grapple with the tension between maintaining order and tolerating diverse points of view. As Fukuyama explains,
The most fundamental principle enshrined in liberalism is one of tolerance: you do not have to agree with your fellow citizens about the most important things, but only that each individual should get to decide what they are without interference from you or from the state. Liberalism lowers the temperature of politics by taking questions of final ends off the table: you can believe what you want, but you must do so in private life and not seek to impose your views on your fellow citizens.
Nice idea, but it runs aground on the shoals of issues like abortion, illegal immigration, racial separatism, and transgender curriculum for kindergarten. The polemicists for these issues regard their opponents as illegitimate. The vitriol is so intense that these zealots advocate the suppression of their opponents’ ability to engage in political discourse.
I believe that Fukuyama is missing something more fundamental about the ingredients of a successful liberal society and political system. You cannot have tolerance and civility without a shared set of values and a commitment to a common interest. But what is this set of values and common interest?
The best analogy is one with sports. Baseball is a form of conflict and competition. However, it occurs in an orderly fashion because teams agree to adhere to the rules of the game and accept the umpire’s rulings as final.
Within these rules, teams can innovate and adopt strategies and tactics to gain advantages over their competition. However, even when a team suffers a defeat, it doesn’t blame the rules of baseball for its defeat. Teams are committed to playing because they understand that they have the ability to return to play another game and achieve victory.
I believe that Constitutions are similar to the rules of baseball. Political conflicts and competitions are conducted within the structure of the Constitution. Different factions will only have a commitment to adhering to the Constitution if they believe that they have a chance of winning power at a future date to enact their policy programs. The essence of political compromise and shared values is a willingness to allow your opponents to “win” in the future instead of rigging the rules of the game to prevent wins, or to use Constitutional rules to make victories meaningless.
Unfortunately, a lot of arguments about changing the Constitution are more about cementing policy programs permanently into place rather than building trust and commitment into the conduct of political competition.
The 13th (slavery), 14th (equal protection and due process), 15th (right to vote for all races), 19th (female suffrage), and 26th (age 18 voting) amendments were about enlarging the pool of participants in the political process. However, the remainder of the US Constitution outlines the rules of conduct of this competition.
There is no better way to find out what Americans have in common than to engage is a re-writing of the Constitution. Back in 1787 the Framers of the Constitution had many disagreements regarding policies like slavery, territorial expansion, and centralization of power. However, they shared enough core beliefs in common to compose a document that would enable them to engage in peaceful political combat from 1789 until 1861 the Civil War broke out.
There are serious deficiencies in the current Constitution over voting procedures and registration, gerrymandering, illegal immigration, suppression of speech, dark money in politics, Executive Branch dominance, Electoral College, Anti-Majoritarian powers of the Senate. Sizable portions of Citizens have lost faith in the Constitution and view it as fixing the rules of competition in an unfair manner. This encourages zealotry and extremism and a lack of commitment to the system. There are fewer and fewer shared values and reasons to adhere to the rules of the game.
This US Re-Constitution is my attempt to remedy these problems.
There are many thinkers who believe that the American experiment is a failure. Instead of extoling individual rights, free markets, property rights, tolerance, and political pluralism, we should emulate China or Russia and have a top-down management of the society and the economy to ensure the pursuit of common goals. Diversity and tolerance produces conflict and gridlock that prevents the efficient execution of important government programs. Many Americans find these ideas alluring because they lack a strong commitment to the foundations of our own political system.
If Americans want to create new foundations to build and sustain a stronger commitment to our nation, then engaging in discussions about drafting a Re-Constitution would be a great start.
David Barulich