POLITICS 101 e-mail: MountainObserver@2ndAmendment.net
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www.evansnovak.com Robert D. Novak
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With this web page the Mountain Observer is going to attempt to lay out some basic ideas about politics, what it is all about, and how things fit together. It is intended to be a helpful analytical tool for those who have never understood the subject and don't know quite how to start. You are invited to ask questions and make suggestions; Don't be shy.
What is politics? The dictionary definition is that politics is the "art and science of government", which begs the question: Why is any of this necessary? Anarchists will say it isn't.
At the most elementary level, throughout history, people have valued some degree of cooperation with one another as opposed to strict individual isolation. This, of course begins with the fact that men and women are mutually attracted to each other, with the consequent result of children, perpetuating the species. The nuclear family is the fundamental building block of concentric social blocks of association that evolved for the purposes of mutual self defense, provision of shelter, and the acquisition of food and sustenance. Family clans evolved into tribes, broader cultural identities, city states, and eventually national states. Through most of human history, the identified social unit has been lead by a "leader", or "sovereign", be he a father, chieftain, chief, king, emperor, or what-have-you, who by guile, force of personality, wisdom, popular appeal, cunning, or just plain force, ran the unit until he died, or was overwhelmed, or both. Such leaders were successful to the extent that the common social group interest in stability was provided, under which the group's self defense, shelter and food could be acquired and satisfied. Tribal, and later imperial, politics, was the art of leadership to organize the ability of the group to accomplish these end purposes.
There began to develop the concept of law, that is to say social rules generally accepted as mutually beneficial, and necessary, to the ordering of the group. Enforcement of these rules was implicit in the existence of the rules themselves, and the success of the leadership, or "sovereign", to articulate the rules, and to judge and enforce the application of the rules, evolved as a yardstick of political success.
In the western world a new competing idea to that of a single all powerful "sovereign", began to evolve with the idea of democracy. Throughout western history, since the days of ancient Greece, the evolution of democratic institutions has stumbled forward. The fundamental problem has always been that pure democracy under any kind of stress quickly converts into mobocracy, with consequences frequently worse than that of a central all-powerful "sovereign" king or emperor. The classic example is that of the aftermath of the French Revolution in 1789 that led to the "justice" of the guillotine. Another way to illustrate the point is to imagine a situation in which a group of 5 individuals, 3 men and 2 women, organize themselves into a pure democracy. The majority rules, and the 3 men vote to engage in what we would identify as community rape at will, or general community access to the women. This is a condition of pure democracy, under the unrestrained rule of the majority, or mobocracy, the tyranny of the mob, the presumption being that the women would object.
Across the Atlantic, in 1789, history conspired to give birth to a different idea. The American colonists had rebelled in 1776 against King George of England. The major complaint of the colonists was that in imposing taxation upon them, the King had done so in violation of Britain's own (unwritten) constitutional requirements of proper representation in Parliament. The new written Constitution of the United States, hammered out in Philadelphia in 1789, designed a constitutional republican form of democracy that recognized and respected the rights of political minorities as it empowered the decisions of political majorities, under law. Sovereignty resided with "the people", to be reflected upward through a republican process, to guide a federal arrangement of government, and to protect "the people" from the actions of their government, and the dangers of mob rule. Nothing like this had ever occurred before in history, and it has never actually been duplicated since. It is in the context of a well ordered republican constitutional democracy that individuals can realize the possibilities of freedom.
Running in the background of this discussion is the question of economic organization. Market economics reflects a recognition of a perceived advantage to the division of production talent, and the reality of resource advantages. There is an advantage to cooperation among individuals, and groups, in accumulating the assets of shelter, sustenance and personal comfort. Wealth is accumulated and controlled through the labor and skill (both technical and political) of the defined sovereignty. In the modern industrial context, statist political conditions artificially dictate economic parameters, i.e. socialism. Constitutional republican democracy enables the possibility of free market capitalism accruing in the favor of the individual (sovereign).
SUMMARY: There are, in fact, only two basic ways that any civilized society can realize government:
1). Top down "sovereignty" Statism Dictatorship Socialism
2). Bottom up "sovereignty" Freedom Constitutional republican democracy Free market capitalism
All forms and philosophies of government ultimately are dominated by one of these two categories. Mixtures of the two have a natural tendency to default toward Statism, for reasons that we will explore later. As we will come to see, what I have described here is not unique to the western world, but is common to all of mankind. However, it is not a coincidence that the concept of constitutional republican democracy evolved in the west. Both the philosophical and legal framework rests squarely on the western concept of reason, and Judeo-Christian and Roman history.
So what, might you ask is this business of "Left" and "Right" all about?
Omitting the historical specifics, the concept of "Left" and "Right" is a modern tool (200 plus years) of analysis of what might be described as the political spectrum. The middle of the spectrum is "democratic", in the sense that political legitimacy is assumed to rest on the consent of the governed, and documented by regular free elections as required by law. Moving to the extreme Left, or Right, we get into unambiguous Statist territory, with a shift of sovereign power to the top, i.e. dictatorship. One inevitable consequence of any Statist condition, left or right, is economic socialism. By definition, individual freedom disappears.
In the modern historical context, left wing statist economics manifests itself in the communist format of state ownership of the means of production and distribution; private property disallowed. Right wing statist economics in the fascist format manifests itself in private ownership of the means of production and distribution, but tightly controlled by central political planning and regulation, most easily accomplished through the large corporate format. The lines between "public" and "private" tend to become blurred.
It was been argued, and the Mountain Observer concurs, that the left-right statist extremes, for purposes of analysis, actually "join hands" in the rear of a circular spectrum. The dominate characteristic of either extreme is Statism, although communists are tilted toward an international format, while fascists manifest an extreme form of nationalism. There are reasons, to be better understood as our discussion continues to unfold, why it is important to understand Left-Right statist collaboration, in spite of the differences.
Within the "democratic" center of the spectrum, in the contemporary American context, we observe left wing "Liberalism" in tension with right wing "Conservatism", both, at least theoretically, grounded to the principles of constitutional republican democracy as outlined above, and more particularly described by American history.
So what, might you ask is this business of Republicans, Democrats and political parties?
In a non-statist environment, political parties are voluntary associations of people with similar ideas and preferences , concerned with how an identified political entity, or jurisdiction, should be governed. To be effective, a party must be officially recognized by some legal process that usually includes the parties demonstration of the ability to draw votes. It is through a political party's election to office that political power is obtained, exercised and projected. However, the key to success of republican democracy is the legal acceptance of defeat, and the legal respect of the defeated, which is the purpose of a republican structuring of a stable system.
Over the years, in the United States, we have evolved, effectively, a two party system (Note that the founding fathers were suspicious of parties in the official sense, and there is not a word of recognition of parties in the Constitution). While there is a list of parties recognized, and on the ballot, in various political jurisdictions, today there are two dominate parties: Democrat and Republican. It has become the custom of both parties to publish a platform, or statement of their official beliefs and positions, which are generally reviewed and up-dated every 4 years.
Focusing on the political scene just in the United States, in the real world, there are, of course, many points of view and political perspectives. While parties officially recognized on the ballot serve the purpose of functioning as avenues to actual political power, running in the background is a universe of competing ideas, interests and historically imbedded habit. At the risk of over simplification, we can roughly break the leading broader contemporary political philosophies down as follows:
Conservative Traditional social values Qualified free market Friendly to traditional religious values
Libertarian Generally liberal social values Free market Unfriendly to religion/hedonistic
Liberal No consistent discernable values* Big govt in charge Unfriendly to religion/hedonistic
* Liberals are likely to fault this characterization. However, in response to the question put directly to them, assuming they will admit their Liberalism in the first place, what you are most likely to hear is a stream of invective against Conservatives. It is not difficult to determine that in the values department, Liberals stand in quicksand, and furthermore tend to be factually and objectively challenged.
At the ballot box, Republican Party tends to attract Conservatives, and, in recent years, many Libertarians. Today, there is a semi-submerged civil war within the party among several wings over the direction of the party's future. One could view this as a healthy debate, and where the action's really at.
At the ballot box, Democrats have come to rely heavily on Liberals, many with disparate single issue priorities, but sharing in common a preference for large central government, a sense of mutual victimhood and a Secular/material sense of the world.
The Mountain Observer
Continuing development pending
FMOWEB 320-001 POLITICS 101