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Showing posts from December, 2010

Reason and Civility in Politics

Come January we will have a national government that we have to live with, at least for the next two years. And now I wonder, what have we learned from the recent mid-term elections, and what do we have to look forward to? One thing I’ve learned is that politics haven’t changed much since 1787, the year the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia adopted the Constitution and sent it on to the thirteen states for ratification. Our political landscape now is at least as contentious and infused with partisan rancor and competing interests as it was at the time of this nation’s founding. One problem faced by our founders that will certainly sound familiar to us is the question of motives behind political positions. It was not always possible to discern whether another’s positions and advocacy were born of integrity and mutual regard. As Alexander Hamilton noted in The Federalist No.1 , “we are not always sure, that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles