Let’s fight about why we fight!

Or, better yet, let’s continue the intriguing discussion begun by Professor Fallone about the nature of our political divisions. There are some interesting observations in the readings he suggests (I’ve seen only the Lakoff book), but they also raise some interesting (at least to me) observations and questions.

I have not read Gary Will’s book, but I have, like many of the readers of this blog, thought and wrote about issues of federalism and the proper role of the state.  I agree with the idea that there is a “myth” about these matters, if he means to use the term in its true meaning as an explanatory narrative, rather than in its popular corruption as “false.”

That narrative reflects a rather serious body of thought that is not limited to the political right or to any particular view of the founding. The idea that the “local and voluntary” (the term “amatuer” is pejorative and trivializes the debate) can be preferable to the “centralized and mandatory” is an important aspect of Catholic social teaching (expressed in the notion of subsidiarity) and of the Calvinist notion of sphere sovereignty. Toqueville, an outsider, saw American associationalism as a valuable antidote to the potential for democracy to consume itself.

Of course, none of these perspectives argue that a central government has no role to play and part of the difficulty with using historically successful arguments for central government is that they do not imply that expanded government is always good. The need for expanded government to, for example, start a central bank or facilitate interstate commerce, means that calls for additional expansion of central government  are actually or even presumptively meritorious.

This suggests two observations about our current political divide.