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Conservative's erosion of American's individual rights is not Organic [1]

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Date: 2023-06-10  

Communitarian: American politics of fraternity and friendship, of community and citizenship

By Ian Ward

06/08/2023

(Patrick J. Deneen is Professor of Political Science and holds the David A. Potenziani Memorial Chair of Constitutional Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Deneen is also an author.)

“… central project was to keep an eye on that counter-tradition in American politics and to remind people that America wasn’t a nation wholly rooted in a liberal tradition.” In the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, Deneen argues, liberalism has instead delivered the opposite: widening material inequality, the breakdown of local communities and the unchecked growth of governmental and corporate power. But Deneen’s political vision doesn’t end with minor tweaks to the Republican Party’s agenda. As Deneen explained to his audience at Catholic, (Catholic University of America), the major fault line in American politics is no longer the one between the progressive left and the conservative right. Instead, the country is split into two warring camps: “the Party of Progress” — a group of liberal and conservative elites who advocate for social and economic “progress” — and the “Party of Order,” a coalition of non-elites who support a populist agenda that combines support for unions and robust checks on corporate power with extensive limits on abortion, a prominent role for religion in the public sphere and far-reaching efforts to eradicate “wokeness.” “I don’t want to violently overthrow the government,” ...“I want something far more revolutionary than that.” “Whether it’s on the right or the left, there’s no one who’s been arguing for a tradition that says, ‘What a lot of people in this country need is just a lot more sort of predictability in their lives, a kind of continuity in which their lives are not being constantly disrupted.’”

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law.

The tenet of this article is that Liberalism has failed, and one of the most often pointed to failures is the wealth gap. The proposed solution is to revert to “traditional American values” and an authoritarian interpretation of our system of Republicanism.

There was no mention of the war on Liberalism conservatives have been waging on American politics since Regan. Tax cuts, withdrawal of Federal funding from infrastructure and education improvements are nowhere to be found in Deneen’s presentation. The rollback of affirmative action, Federal regulations of banks, the real estate marked and voting rights are also absent. However, the elimination of abortion rights, LBGT rights and stricter rules for granting divorces are.

Deneen’s solution to liberal's constant interruption in peoples lives is communitarianism. A philosophy that subordinates individual rights to shared norms and values that bind individuals into political communities. In Deneens view, it is not necessary to overthrow the government to make the shift to communitarianism. His proposal is for conservatives to take over local governments through the electoral process and implement communitarianism through legislation and the judicial system.

As Progressives, we must become more aggressive in the pursuit of our values and recognize that the differences in progressive and conservative values are irreconcilable. That truth is the bases of Newt Gingrich’s declaration that compromise is a bad word over 40 years ago, and the word has been all but banned from American politics by conservatives, ever since.

The divisions among the electorate are not a flaw in democracies, they are a feature.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/6/10/2174221/-Conservative-s-erosion-of-American-s-individual-rights-is-not-Organic

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