Who Decides?
by tgirschNovember 21st, 2008
Publius does a nice job summing up what’s at the heart of the liberal/conservative divide on “social conservative” issues:
The social conservatives’ positions tend to empower government over individuals. If they got their way, the public would be forced to submit to the government’s decision-making. The more liberal position, by contrast, allocates power to individuals – no one is forced to do anything. (Admittedly, this is not really a constitutional argument – just an additional explanation for why the Christian Right tends to scare people).
Take, for instance, the granddaddy issue of them all – abortion. The Christian Right position would require every single person in a given jurisdiction to give birth. (Yes, some would argue that it’s simply about letting the states decide – but still, they prefer this position because many states, and virtually the entire South, would ban abortion). Thus, the decision-making power here would belong to the government. Individuals would no longer be free to decide.
The pro-choice position, by contrast, ensures that individuals – not the government – will ultimately make these private decisions. Individuals remain free to have, or not have, abortions as they and their God see fit. And everyone remains free to persuade their fellow citizens of the values of bringing all pregnancies to term. But in the end, the individual – and not the state – would make the final call.
This pattern repeats itself across a number of issues. For example, gay marriage doesn’t require anyone to do anything. It merely allows consenting gay adults to be married. Gay marriage bans, by contrast, grant that decision-making power to the state.
Similarly, rights to contraception don’t require anyone to do anything – the ultimate decision remains with the individual. Contraception bans, by contrast, allocate the decision-making power to the government.
Same deal with school prayer. Banning school prayer in public classes doesn’t prevent anyone from praying privately at the school. But allowing public prayer, by contrast, would force non-Christians to sit through prayer sessions in a publicly funded school. Again, the decision to participate in prayer would be made by the state, not the individual.
The larger point is that these examples illustrate why many people fear social conservatives – simply put, many of the latter’s preferred positions would use the state to intrude on people’s lives and dictate very private and personal decisions to them.
Now, I think this is largely true. But at the same time, if you expand beyond the so-called “social conservative” issues, there are plenty of places where it’s the liberals who would be doing the forcing. Environmental issues, for example, or gun control.
That said, I think the fact that compliance is somehow enforced is not, in and of itself, necessarily a bad thing. It depends upon your view of the thing being enforced.
Categories: Church & State, Politics, Religion |
That said, I think the fact that compliance is somehow enforced is not, in and of itself, necessarily a bad thing. It depends upon your view of the thing being enforced.
And therein lies the biggest issue. You are okay with enforced compliance but only as long as that forced compliance fits with your idea of what is okay to enforce. How on earth is that any different than the Christian right? Based on your comment, if you took a position where you agreed with the Christian Right’s ideas, you would be okay with their perspective on what issues deserve enforced compliance.
Or am I missing something?
BU,
I think there are two things you’re missing.
(1) As a guideline, enforcement is a red flag; a solution that involves enforcement demands more scrutiny than one that does not, but may still be acceptible.
(2) Who is being forced is absolutely critical. Outside of gun control, “liberals” want enforcement of businesses and conservatives want enforcement of indivdiuals. (I’m wildly oversimplifying, but you can see the distinction being made.) I think that is what TG meant.
(Now, you might wonder why gun control is different. I certainly wonder, too. I think liberals are abjectly illiberal on that one, and wish they would stop.)
“business” IS people and often it is individuals so your point #2 rings somewhat hollow unless you are referring more specifically to large corporations.
Dan M. wrote: “(Now, you might wonder why gun control is different. I certainly wonder, too. I think liberals are abjectly illiberal on that one, and wish they would stop.)”
It’s different because “liberals” generally seek to regulate gun usage, not eliminate it, the way overturning Roe vs Wade would do to abortion, or Prop 8 does to marriage. And I don’t think instituting waiting periods on gun purchases, licencing firearms, instituting age restrictions is curbing one’s right to enjoy the sport any more than regulating alcohol restricts social drinking (as opposed to prohibition). Like alcohol, guns are extremely dangerous, and it is in the interests of the greater public to have some kind of control.
Janusz,
I’m not talking about things like waiting periods (worthless, but also harmless) or prohibition for felons and the insane (perfectly sensible). I’m talking about things like DC’s complete ban on handguns or NY’s expensive per-gun registration of handguns.
Also guns differ from alcohol rather importantly is that, outside of some dumb jokes about being too drunk to care, alcohol is not a solution to violations of the Fourth Amendment. Sportive uses of guns are completely unimportant.
BU,
“business” IS people and often it is individuals
Now, here’s a case where you’re talking just like a US Republican (pre- or post-neocon), which isn’t to say that you’re insincere or even misinformed (or i’d have just said neocon), but I do think it’s a somewhat glib phrase that overlooks some important things.
First, business isn’t people. It’s one of the things people do. One of them. Business regulations have, for instance, no effect whatsoever on what religion a person can espouse.
Second, there’s quite a large distance between individuals and large corporations, and a business pretty much stops being individual the moment you get more than a handful of partners and staff. Even the nice old folk-loric case of the private hardware store isn’t an individual thing the moment old Pops hires a clerk to help out, unless Pops is skulking behind the counter with that clerk giving the thumbs-up or thumbs-down for each chump that walks through his door, thus keeping things in the realm of his “freedom of association” (to put it in US fundy terms).
Third, business is actually two things people do. (1) run or be employed by business, and (2) consume or patronize business. Quite often immunities in (1) are restritions on (2) and visa versa. When we passed laws that said “private” banks had to give loans to blacks just the same as whites, that was a restriction on the business of the bank owners, and a freedom for the black people who used that business. Was it a restriction on the bank owners themselves? Not really, a dollar from a black man is worth the same as a dollar from a white man; how money the bankers could make and how the bankers lived their lives wasn’t in any way restricted, just the way that their business interacted with the public.