tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18006131.post2231410701666677408..comments2023-11-05T01:46:58.890-08:00Comments on Quigley in Exile (annex): Bernie Quigleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11360730932876716461noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18006131.post-80846745474625995112008-09-08T13:44:00.000-07:002008-09-08T13:44:00.000-07:00Two points: First, federalism-whether Jeffersonian...Two points: First, federalism-whether Jeffersonian or not-stresses the power of state governments to adopt different postitions on the same question. In this sense, the states are like laboratories: they permit citizens to evaluate different policies and a citizen may choose "to vote" by moving. Clearly, Palin and other religious conservatives are not federalists in this sense. They assert that the federal government has the power to enforce the same policy across the various states. Hence their position is more Hamiltonian. <BR/>Second, to construe the difference between Hamilton and Jefferson as the opposition between unitarians and decentralists is to make matters obscure. Federalism is the ordered relationship between a single national government and a plurality of state governments. No doubt Hamilton and Jefferson had different understandings of that order and, therefore, the best relationship between the two governments, but both recognized the legitimacy of each. Of course, all this changed in the wake of the Civil War and, especially the 14th Amendment, through which the federal Constitution has been applied to the states. This remains the key question: How is the power of the federal government to be applied to citizens and which government should be primary for civic life? <BR/><BR/>If FDR presents the paradigm for liberal democrats, then Democrats such as Obama and Biden are, for the most part, unitarians. But Republicans such as Palin function as unitarians as well; on the most important questions (from their perspective at least), they want to impose the same laws upon all the citizens--and state citizenship is entirely beside the point. <BR/><BR/>A final point: the wedding of religous conservatives (a la Palin) with libertarians (a la Goldwater) make for a confusing and dangerous mixture as Dan Carter shows: the libertarian distrust of government is wedded to the zealots reckless application of federal power. Consequently, the government is used for private gain or to legislate tryannically. In either case, the common good, for which government exists in the first place, is undermined.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com