{"id":726,"date":"2006-06-14T22:47:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-14T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2006\/06\/politics-the-rhetoric-of-active-citizenship\/"},"modified":"2006-06-14T22:47:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-14T22:47:00","slug":"politics-the-rhetoric-of-active-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2006\/06\/politics-the-rhetoric-of-active-citizenship.html","title":{"rendered":"Politics: the rhetoric of active citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I received an email today from Howard Dean. I get emails from him from time to time, and from others (John Conyers<\/a> from time to time, Russ Feingold emailed me today too, reminding me why he\u2019s a Progressive Patriot<\/a>). It feels nice that these guys keep in touch. <\/p>\n

One of the things Howard mentioned today made me think. He said that what he\u2019s fighting for is (something like) \u201cactive citizenship\u201d \u2013 sorry I don\u2019t have the direct quote, I deleted it too soon. Anyhow now I\u2019m sitting in a downtown Missoula coffee shop (not) working on one of my overdue philosophy papers and something occurred to me, and it runs something like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I like the Democratic party because they generally support higher taxes and a stronger social infrastructure (health care, retirement plans, education, and so on). <\/li>\n
  2. With a good social infrastructure, I don\u2019t have to worry so much about those things and can enjoy life and pursue my livelihood (eventually teaching and writing) wholeheartedly.<\/li>\n
  3. But since I don\u2019t worry about those things, I tend to be rather ignorant about them (education being an exception in my case).<\/li>\n
  4. Therefore my ability to make intelligent decisions about how my beloved government ought to manage those things is severely curtailed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    On the other hand is the Republican party (boo, hiss), which in most cases would argue that:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. People, not the government, know best how to spend their money.<\/li>\n
    2. People, through the free market, are the quickest to respond to changing economic landscapes.<\/li>\n
    3. Government management quickly becomes stale, bureaucratic, and corrupt \u2013 While no<\/span> government would be anarchy and terrible, we should have the smallest government possible (this may be more of a libertarian than a strictly Republican claim \u2013 see Robert Nozick<\/a> for the most cogent philosophical argument for such a system)<\/li>\n
    4. Thus taxes represent people handing over their responsibility for \u201cactive citizenship\u201d to a government that is inherently untrustworthy.<\/li>\n
    5. Keeping money, and responsibility for social issues, in the hands of people forces them to stay alert and active in their citizenship, resulting in a creative, dynamic society.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      hmph\u2026<\/p>\n

      I like the idea of \u201cactive citizenship\u201d and for me that translates into fighting for a better educational system (teaching people how<\/span> to think, not so much what<\/span> to think). But at the same time I like the idea of a government that handles the details on my behalf, so I can focus on the things I love in life. I find that I pay less attention to my government itself (it\u2019s depressing, and often enough on both sides of the isle \u2013 as witnessed as Hillary Clinton addressed Progressive Democrats<\/a> this week) and more to so-called special interest groups like the National Resource Defense Council<\/a> and Democracy for America<\/a>. <\/p>\n

      But can I consider myself an active citizen when I pay so little attention to the government itself, and less to the intricacies of issues outside my limited sphere of interest? Am I spoiled by the social infrastructure which allows me to know so little? Would I be better off with lower taxes and more decisions to make (i.e. more choices)?<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I received an email today from Howard Dean. I get emails from him from time to time, and from others (John Conyers from time to time, Russ Feingold emailed me today too, reminding me why he\u2019s a Progressive Patriot). It feels nice that these guys keep in touch. One of the things Howard mentioned today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPolitics: the rhetoric of active citizenship<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I received an email today from Howard Dean. I get emails from him from time to time, and from others (John Conyers from time to time, Russ Feingold\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2006\/06\/politics-the-rhetoric-of-active-citizenship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Politics: the rhetoric of active citizenship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I received an email today from Howard Dean. 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