About Civitarianism

Definition

Tenets

• All men are created equal
• A melting pot, not a salad bowl
• "A job for each and a church for all"
• Democracy is the principle
• Majority rule

Why Light Purple?

Light purple blends our national colors: red, white, and blue

We mix and match "liberalism" (blue) and "conservatism" (red).

• Not classical liberalism: that is bad economics
• Not contemporary liberalism: that is bad civics
• More like, "conservative liberalism" or, if you prefer, "big government conservatism"

And the mixing and matching of "red" and "blue" is etched against the background of our Enlightenment origins.

Enlightenment and Christianity

Fix the Constitution

A Two Cent Version of our Civic Heritage

• The civic truths of our country are found in its earliest decades.
• We declared our independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, but we celebrate July Fourth because that was the day the Declaration of Independence was ratified.
• The Declaration says that governments are instituted to secure our unalienable rights, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
• In other words, our "natural rights," however much from God, are known democratically.
• Initially, the Founders assumed an inverted relationship between governmental power and individual liberty.
• That assumption was challenged by the breakdowns of American governance during the "long decade of American Genesis" prior to enacting the Constitution in 1788.
• Those failures drove home the moral truth that liberty needs government, that properly construed central government protects liberty, and that democratic consent—"the republican form"—is central government, properly constructed.
• The Constitutional Convention in 1787 had one purpose: to create a more compact, robust, national union by strengthening central authority.
• The Constitution was opposed by anti-Federalists, who worried that it would undermine American democracy, which they associated with localism.
• This worry was contained by the promise of a "Bill of Rights;" Americans mistakenly believed civil liberties protected democracy rather than the other way around.
• It was thought that the new constitutional republic would be non-partisan in nature.
• The non-partisan ideal rapidly evaporated, as Federalist policies created an eruption of democratic outrage.
• The "Revolution of 1800" established, in case there were any doubt, that ours was a Jeffersonian, explicitly democratic, republic.
• For the next two decades, during the "Era of Good Feelings," we reverted to non-partisan government, with the Federalists relegated to the dustbin of history.
• During that time, political elitism was unambiguously rejected and Americans sought to create a middle-class democracy.
• A renewal of partisan fervor picked up in the 1820s, mainly over the role of the central bank in the economic life of our country.
• The earliest decades of our national life were characterized by expanded voting rights, majority rule, widespread democratic participation, and hostility to concentrated economic power.
• Although "Jacksonian America" had profound moral failures, mainly in its treatment of non-white people, it represented a high-water mark in terms of our civic character.
• Commonly held falsehoods, especially the idea that localism fosters democratic empowerment, helped produce economic failures.
• The economic failures were limited by the "Whigs," who championed "the American system" and vigorous national government.
• They were also limited by the expansive nature of Jacksonian policies towards the West.
• This democratic high mark ended in the 1850s, over slavery. For many Americans, national democracy was less important than local autocracy. For most Americans, slavery was an abomination, both morally and economically.
• In 1857, the Supreme Court effectively overruled legislation for the first time with the Dred Scott decision, launching a pattern of anti-democratic behavior from the courts which persist to this day.
• The country fell into civil war when the South rejected the results of the 1860 election.
• After the Civil War, and facilitated by a newly activist judiciary, the United States drifted away from its Jeffersonian ethos and towards oligarchic rule.
• While there were some important reforms implemented in the early part of the 20th century, the Jeffersonian vision was not reinstated until the middle 20th century, in the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II.
• The Great Prosperity, which extended from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, strengthened middle-class capitalism by reinforcing it with an active and energetic national government.
• During the Great Prosperity, a critical mass of Americans saw government as a positive good rather than simply a necessary evil.
• This second version of "Jacksonian America" led to a broad dispersion of prosperity but faded as Americans grew contemptuous of government again.
• Today, disdain for government is regarded as worldly wisdom itself, but corruption is a function of the human soul, not governmental power.
• Despite the asymmetrical competition between the two, anti-government politicians are every bit as corrupt as pro-government politicians.
• In the earliest days of our republic, the Federalists were right about a strong national government, and the Democratic Republicans were right about the importance of democracy.
• Too many Americans today have it ass backwards, thinking that national government should be weak and that democracy is just one freedom among several.
• But in our earliest decades, and again in the mid-20th century, Americans were quite clear that their country, and its government "of the People," was about "the Democracy."

Third Party? The Democracy!