BODY POLITIC AND POLITICAL LIFE

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES Define civic, political, and private life and the activities of individuals in each sphere

Explain the importance of a written constitution in establishing and maintaining the principles of rule of law and limited government

Use the Pre-amble of the Constitution to describe the purposes and functions of government

Define and explain relationships between politics, government, and public policy

WHAT IS CIVIC LIFE? Civic life is the portion of a citizens

life which is concerned with the affairs of the community and the

nation as a whole

This is not to be confused with private/personal life—which is

the interests of the individual to pursue individual interests and

desires

CIVIC LIFE OR PRIVATE LIFE??? A persons decision to build a house in a specific

location?

A decision to get a part time job at a fast food restaurant?

A decision to attend college or university?

Turn to a partner and take 60 seconds to identify these as either civic or private

CIVIC LIFE OR PRIVATE LIFE???

Government and Economics overlap—we must learn about externalities

Can they be both???

A decision to make extra money by selling drugs?

Externalities When a behavior of an individual has ramifications (could be positive or negative) which impact people

outside of those who choose to take a course of action

EXAMPLES? ? ? Smoking

Who decides to live where?

Where government and economics go their separate ways is when you look at these examples—government tends to focus on intentions—economics tends to focus on results

It is important to note that these are fundamentally 2 different ways of looking at the world

A well educated community

Intentions

Governments as we indicated tend to focus on intentions, why do you suppose this is?

Policies tend to be successful in the long term, however, politicians are elected when?

In the short term Yes 2-6 years is considered the short term

The result of this is the they don’t typically run on what they did or didn’t accomplish (that remains to be seen. Politicians run on how well intentioned a

particular policy was/is.

At your table take 90 seconds to answer this question

Intentions vs. Results

A potential example of this would be involving drug use—a person who looks at the world from a government perspective might initiate a program to increase penalties for minor drug use (we have all heard that Marijuana is the gateway drug), thinking that this would prevent people from ever going down the path of using drugs—an economist may argue that the result of this would be to decrease respect for the law (thus create more not less lawlessness)

Intentions vs. Results Who is correct?

Certainly both sides would claim to be correct, but ultimately this question is up to the individual to answer—his or her answer to this question will ultimately determine a lot regarding their political views

So is a decision regarding education a civic or private issue?

Ultimately it is either one depending on the perspective that you take when looking at it—education improves communities (civic life)—individuals determine how much education to receive (private life)

If you think government is raise your hand

Political Life Politics is the process of people with similar and dissimilar opinions negotiate for the “common good”. Politics or Political Life requires that the decisions that are made are binding regardless of agreement

Politics will exist whenever people co-exist People usually rail against politics at work or at school when they work against them, but gladly accept politics when they work in their favor—we have all heard somebody claim that they didn’t get the job (or some other thing) because of politics at work

I am not suggesting that this isn’t a bad thing—but I would suggest that politics are inevitable as long as you plan to co-exist with other people

Political Life This allows many things to be accomplished which couldn’t be accomplished without tremendous individual cost for the “common good”

For example: how much national defense do you want? $1,000 per year? $10,000 per year? $100,000 per year

Individuals may value this differently and this creates problems…additionally, if I know that you place a higher value on national defense—I may minimize it’s importance to me, knowing that you will pay more

I get the benefit of extra national defense— without the costs

This creates a “free rider” problem—my gain or loss is not related to my willingness to pay

Why Do We Have Governments?

Particularly young people are often questioning why do we have this authority?

So what is it? What is the role of government?

Well for 1 governments attempt to not let that happen

One of the major reasons for organizing people is to ensure protection

It doesn’t matter if that protection is from an animal or other groups of people… We have strength in

numbers

Why do we have government cont…

• Based on the strength in numbers people began organizing

What other advantages exist when you are around a group of people?

People Organize

• So people start to organize thinking

But alas getting people together in groups has problems as well…can you think of any?

Jealousy Greed Struggle for power whatever the form

Governments are created to protect people from other people

Protecting the People • How do governments go about protecting the

people? military Some countries have a volunteer military

(the US) however as circumstances change so does the idea of a volunteer military

Some countries have compulsory military service ie North Korea

Protecting the People

• Military Spending Much more on this later…but remember you can only spend the money once

We will even talk about the value of a human life!!!

Turn to a partner—answer the question how much is a human life worth—you have 90 seconds

Pre-amble to the Constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Government roles ESTABLISH JUSTICE What is Justice?

Walter E Williams video Income Distribution and Fairness

That’s fairly confusing…can we have justice?

AS LONG AS WE LOOK AT PROCESS QUESTIONS AND NOT OUTCOMES ! ! !

Turn to those at your table—any reaction to the video???

Govt. Roles and Responsibilities cont…

Ensure domestic tranquility

Basically this is saying it is the role of government to make sure things are stable and secure within a country

As we get further into class the question will come up…At what cost? Just because the rules of economics are often ignored by governments does not mean they do not exist First rule of economics and life….Their

aint no such thing as a free lunch

Govt. Roles and Responsibilities cont…

Promote the general welfare Somebody quick…tell me what is the general

welfare? How do we promote the general welfare and justice???

Herein lies the ah… brilliance of government

Govt. Roles and Responsibilities cont…

securing the blessings of liberty…dictionary.com defines liberty as freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

But what happens when your liberty and my general welfare conflict? How do we legislate or make rules to free people from control or interference?

Walter E Williams video-Discrimination and Liberty Turn to your table and decide if you agree or disagree with

Professor Williams

IMPORTANCE OF A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION

A written constitution sets up a limited form of government If the responsibilities of the government are written down they are inherently limited to the things that are written ! ! !

Another important aspect of a written constitution is that it sets up a clear framework for the governmental system that will be implemented.

We will get into this much more in Chapter 3 as well as looking at the system that has been created in the United

States

Written Constitution

What are the problems with having a non-written Constitution?

What are the problems with having rules and laws that are not written?

Property Rights Case Study:

It won De Soto a Nobel Prize - - what are his primary ideas?

Thoughts from the video???

WRITTEN CONSTITUTION

The effectiveness of adhering to our constitution will be one of the major questions that will be addressed throughout this course.

The chapter readings for this chapter should provide some context for why the ability to think rationale and critical are increasingly important

The main argument of the readings and supporting points will be turned in two class periods from today—next class we will watch our chapter video—two class periods from now we will take our chapter exam

Review

• What is civic life? Please give examples of civic, public, and private life