Finally have some time to read the separate chapters of Kevin's book he sent a few weeks ago. My comments in BF-- Billy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Quotes from Chapter 9 : Americans know it is not inevitable that free societies get more and more atomized as long as their citizens are an ethical people who are capable of neighborliness.
one of the greatest dangers we are facing as a nation today is that our growing ethnic and cultural diversity will not also come with the requirement to embrace American notions of neighborliness. Without neighborliness we cannot enjoy the social connectivity that American communities need to flourish. Certainly a worthy ideal ; and if you have ever lived somewhere which is neighbor-centric you would know exactly how valuable this concept is. There are ways to bring this about. Marry into a local family is probably the best procedure ; although this is hardly an optimal reason for wedlock, is has this effect. But obviously as a social strategy it has little prospect for large scale change. More germane is the course of voluntary associations. These can be political ( especially community mobilization for achieving some common objective ) or religious or social or based on common interests like hiking, gardening, games, books, writing, etc. Can we do more than promote this as anything except as an ideal ? Yes, but only if we make it clear that there is practical utility, real-world advantage, something immediate. My experience with a free speech group here in Oregon tells me it can work and be perceived as useful. What we could at least do is try and popularize the idea of local free speech groups in every community. But it must be said that you could expect opposition every step of the way. Most people simply DO NOT want free speech to flourish. What they want is freedom for their ideas, not the ideas of others. And if you are in any way contrarian then you will get tarred with the charge of siding with the enemy, whatever the local enemy happens to be, either L or R. Here is where there is greatest opportunity for common cause with Libertarians. But since RC is not a minarchist philosophy, what Libertarians would want is free speech to espouse "anti-statism" and if you, instead, promote a "responsible state," a state that is pro-active in any number of areas even if not as much as the current state, then the Libertarians would strenuously object. The way out might be to agree at the outset to simply not discuss the size and functions of the state, but then, by definition, Libertarians would not be interested. Or are there other areas where mutual attraction to free speech just might provide the basis for co-operation ? Some preliminary considerations... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- the conventional wisdom, diversity is our strength, seems to be an incomplete notion that demands further investigation. This conventional wisdom may be true, but...there are greater challenges with diversity than we may want to acknowledge. Diversity presents significant challenges to social connectivity. I hate to bring this up, but there really are issues with race and ethnicity. As in many things, we need to be clear that no population is all one thing. But there is a reason for the population boom in the interior West and to an extent the Northwest : There are relatively few African-Americans. There are large numbers of Latino immigrants but in almost no cities are they more than a 5 % or 10 % minority, and as long as the numbers stay in that range problems are minimal. But even a small number of blacks and there can be major problems. Even in Eugene, with maybe a 2 % black population, with violent gangs now --very recently-- becoming an issue. Statewide, anyway, the black population is about 1-1/2 %. Same story in Utah, Idaho, Montana, and most non-major-urban centers in the interior West. This translates into low crime, safe schools, and few run-down houses or shabby neighborhoods. And it translates into much white in-migration. It is fine and dandy that we are in favor of brotherhood and harmony among all people. We should have those values. But the practical reality is that a very large % of the black population, some estimates put it at about 1/3rd, are prone to criminality, to anti-education values, to drug abuse, and still other extremely undesirable qualities. Any recommendation for neighborliness, etc, has to take these demographic realities into account. Otherwise it is idealism with insufficient substance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- our traditional American notions of pluralism with voluntary neighborliness are... underrated and essential elements for any society that wishes to overcome the challenges offered by growing ethnic and cultural diversity. We may have something to teach the world. Instead of seeking healthy lifestyle solutions and neighborly charity from friends we now tend to turn to professionals with the misguided hope they will therapize, medicalize, or social work us to health. I believe if we were to deconstruct the human services system in America in order to create more simplicity, effectiveness, and efficiency, the health of the nation would improve dramatically. [ we should be ] intentionally de-funding and deconstructing our behemoth human services system in order to improve the health of the nation. That step would renew neighborliness more than any other systemic action. Seems to me that the criticisms are true enough, but the recommendation to defund and deconstruct human services really needs much greater differentiation. That is, any present day services that can be identified that are working well, leave them alone, praise them, make it clear that they are not the problem. The target should be the other services only. Otherwise you make needless enemies and would cause a backlash against your cause. This is a problem with any ideology, Libertarianism in this case. The ideology may , indeed, address some problems well, or well enough, but then it gets applied to everything, including areas where it is inappropriate, and people who are satisfied with the way things are become understandably upset. Why pick fights you don't need ? ------------------------------------------ ours has become a professional services society with most of our great minds gravitating toward financial and social services instead of engineering and science. Professionalization is thus an inevitable by-product of prosperity but is paradoxically also destroying creativity and community Professional service providers are not neighbors. They are workers who are offering pseudo-kindness for money What is the actual recommendation ? The point is well taken, but "professionalism" is a pretty large canvas which means many, many things. Again, differentiation is a necessity. Are all professionals bad news ? No-one can possibly think so, and I do not believe this is the intention here, but sometimes it sounds that way. --------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 12 Consistent with my belief that we are at a tipping point in American history in which our liberty is disappearing because of an expansion of government and related corporate interests, my restoration plan is largely a call for a widespread deconstruction of institutions that drink at that well. in a society that is economically and morally bankrupt our priority should be getting back to basics by deconstructing what is not working and rebuilding our economic and moral infrastructure, based on an enduring set of values. David Brooks believes that as the world changes, the United States will need to be able to define itself by its values rather than by its rank, which is a position that mirrors my own thinking. I could not possibly agree more. OK, what are those values ? ------------------------------------------------------------------ In contrast to how much of Europe now operates, Prince Adam [ of Liechtenstein ] envisions the state as a service company whose limited role is to serve and protect its citizens as efficiently as possible. This may work for a duchy which is the size of a county in an American state, but it simply is not in the cards for a mega-power with 300 million people. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The new American center is making its core beliefs well known and they are angry. They distrust big government and they distrust big corporations. They see both entities as corrupt, inefficient, and essentially broken. My belief is we have an unholy alliance between government and large corporations that needs to be put asunder -------------------------------------------------------------------------- we should always err on the side of freedom from government as our Founders warned. This statement is far more true for the Articles of Confederation than it is for the Constitution. At that, the original Constitution assumed that the states would each exercise considerable powers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The best way to immediately affect our broken community would be to starve the government sponsored and union money interests in the human services sector to reduce waste, bureaucracy and professionalization. Public safety net advocates and Libertarians should be able to agree that if public services are deemed to be necessary, the best way to help people is to get the resources and services to them directly and with as little middle man interference as possible. Too draconian. And too non-selective. Are all ( 100 % ) gvt agencies wicked ? Who can possibly say any such thing ? Yet Libertarian ideology seems to demand that we lump together the Dept of Agriculture with Justice, and the Forest Service with scams like gvt investment in Solyndra. This is nonsense. You've got to differentiate the good from the bad, and demand reforms of the bad, or termination of the bad, but do not touch the good and, if anything, praise and support the good. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It is often said in jest by serious reformers that we would be better off standing on the street corner and handing out one hundred dollar bills to people rather than subjecting them to the layers of our awkward and inefficient human services system. if we closed several ineffective federal government departments and streamlined others, returning those functions to states and local communities like our Founders intended, we could save trillions of dollars per year in waste and inefficiency. We need to eliminate the lion's share of government sponsored human services programs, returning to the America of the early twentieth century that believed in voluntary neighborliness. In essence, we need to advocate for the dismantling of the early Progressive Era, New Deal, and Great Society programs that have done so much to increase entitlement and destroy American communities. Not gonna happen. Some programs, I'm not sure which ones, might deserve the axe, but across the board ? No way, Jose. ------------------------------------------------------- [ We need ] a national strategy to revitalize the manufacturing sector of our economy and a corresponding reduction of the services sector, which is bloated and harmful to community well being Absolutely. Some of my proposed Amendments deal with exactly this issue. --------------------------------------------------------------------- I also support a Baby-Boomer give back in Social Security where Baby-Boomer seniors (those reaching the retirement age this year) would see their benefit cut by as much as thirty percent. This is political suicide. Anyone who recommends such cuts would face a firestorm from the AARP and 60 million seniors who vote at the highest levels of any demographic group. The fix is much simpler ; a new Amendment addresses the issue. --------------------------------------------------------- I support reductions in military spending in weapons systems curtailments, personnel cost reductions, and base closures around the world and especially in Europe. The United States can no longer afford to be the global policeman and the NATO protector because we have nearly bankrupted our economy doing it. It is time that European and other prosperous nations contribute a larger share of the defense burden around the world. It would have helped not to start a really large number of paragraphs with "I support" or "I believe that." Several years ago I took a writing course at the local college : Despite having been an editor in the past and a teacher. Regardless, there were things I had forgotten, and some new approached to effective writing I had never learned. Even in the preceding paragraph use of "I" is excessive, but to make a point. After all, unless you are writing autobiography, why does your opinion matter to a reader ? What a reader wants to know is why an idea or proposal is a good idea and can be helpful. etc. "I" is almost always superfluous. And all it really does is to record someone's opinion. The only exceptions to the "no I rule" are when someone is a well known and well respected authority, like the Pope or a foreign policy expert such as an ambassador to a particular country and you want the informed opinion of someone who knows that country personally though experience. --------------------------------------------------------------- More generally, a nice overall approach to various issues. The best of intentions. But the devil is in the details. There are all kinds of particular problems. Still, the goal of these chapters is for the best and there are ideas in the material that can be worked with. Billy -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
