What In The Hell!!!!!

[HARDCORE]

11-10-2020

The time was when the welfare of “Our United States of America” meant far more to the majority that did the power of any one political faction – “SO WHAT HAPPENED?”

Are we not still “All Americans First” – as the stench that has developed over this last election, proves beyond any doubt that, to some, political power is of greater concern than “National Unity” and for the record, this is exactly “What Our Foreign Enemies Want!”

“Get with it man” – no American that I know of has ever gone to war with the man that shares the same foxhole, nor should we ever allow any political party divisions to cause such an unconscionable rift within “Our Nation” and amidst our very own people? For politicians come and go, but “Our National Unity Must Survive Forever!”

So once again, “Get With It Man” – As it is more than obvious that to a few of these politicians, and their vested political parties as well, sinking their fangs into absolute power means far more to them than does “Our American Unity and Our National Brotherhood?”

And if we as “A Nation of Free and Independent Men and Women” are to continue to survive- the demands of the vested “Can Not, And Must Not Ever”, have more value and meaning to us, than does “Our National Allegiance - and Our Sacred Brotherhood!!” –

“And So It Is, And So It Must Forever Remain!!”

Hardcore

[Boats]

Amen Brother - well spoken words and all true. It's depressing as hell to watch the antics each day in Congress and nothing gets resolved. Both side's are guilty of this process.
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I decided to see what adheres to Public Interest (Political Science 101)
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Topic An old debate renewed: The Politics of the Public Interest
By: William Arthur Galston - 2007
Re: https://www.amacad.org/publication/o...ublic-interest

This report suffers a few persuasions relating to Options of "The politics of the public interest" in government. To invoke the public interest was also to suggest the possibility of concern for society as a whole.

The public interest, he said, might well be multidimensional: governance in the public interest will be motivated by equal concern for the interests of all, respect for fair procedures, and a norm underlying every vision of a good society – namely, aversion to needless conflict.

We may be forced to conclude that the content of the public interest varies, essentially rather than accidentally, among political communities, and among cultural and religious constellations as well. But even if the public interest lacks the universality and bindingness that are thought to characterize human rights, it may nonetheless remain a meaningful and useful standard for public life.

And not without reason. The public interest was linked, historically and conceptually, to the administrative state, which as the home of ‘establishment liberalism’ came under attack from both the left and the right. The New Left argued passionately against bureaucracy and for participatory democracy. And if that dream was unattainable, then second-best was the proliferation of programs not only targeted toward, but also controlled by, different groups. Anything, it seemed, was better than rule by bureaucrats.

Nonparticipation was not the only objection to the administrative state. Bureaucracy embodies not only structure and hierarchy but also a drive for objectivity – the restriction of arbitrary discretionary power in favor of rules with clear empirical standards of compliance. But among activists and left-leaning intellectuals, the suspicion spread that whatever their content, unitary standards always repressed diversity and that objectivity was nothing more than the subjectivity of the powerful. In reality, they argued, there was an indefinite number of possible perspectives, none of which could rightly claim all-things considered priority over the others. But because the perspectives of the powerful had dominated politics for so long, it was high time to listen to those of the subordinated. The point was not whether doing so would serve the public interest, the cogency of which perspectival pluralism called into question, but whether the voiceless would at long last be heard.

Arguments of this sort set off a clamorous debate that reshaped American politics for a generation. But there are signs that this long cycle is coming to an end and that there may be renewed appetite for a politics of common purpose. It is in this context that the public interest, along with allied ideas such as the common good, may well receive a new hearing. This opportunity poses a challenge: Is it possible to learn from past difficulties and frame a conception of the public interest that is both defensible and useful?

Perhaps experience can lead us to agree on some orienting propositions:

1. The public interest points us toward features of a specific, demarcated ensemble of individuals, not to global humanity as a whole.

2. That ensemble is not just an aggregation of individuals. Rather, a public is constituted (sometimes tacitly) through a particular political form that rests on specific assumptions and pursues certain ends rather than others. The public interest derives content, at least in part, in reference to those assumptions and ends, from which it follows that the substance of the public interest may differ from community to community.

3. The term ‘public’ refers not only to a formed group of individuals, but also to the dimension of their lives in which they relate to and affect one another to a significant degree. There are aspects of life, often called ‘private,’ that lie outside the zone in which considerations of the public interest apply. The manner in which the public is constituted helps locate the perimeter of that zone.

4. The ‘public interest’ typically denotes some broad advantage of the community considered internally. We use a different location – the ‘national interest’ – to denote the broad advantage of the community in its external circumstances.

5. Human beings cannot live alone and can only live together by attending to, and to some extent accommodating, the interests of others. A stable and peaceful society, and the means to it, is therefore a part of the public interest. These means will typically include institutions and decision-rules recognized as legitimate, an ensemble of shared beliefs and traits of character, and bonds of truce and confidence among members of the community.

6. While we cannot determine the public interest through an aggregative calculus, we can certainly say that searching for the public interest requires us to consider the interests of all, not just a part, even if the part constitutes the majority of the community.

7. The public interest has a temporal dimension that views the political community as an association intended to persist across generations. It is in that spirit that the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution speaks of extending the blessings of liberty beyond the founding generation to “our posterity.” Après nous le deluge is in principle inconsistent with the public interest.

8. We typically invoke the public interest as a norm when binding, authoritative action is at stake: a proposed government policy promotes, or fails to promote, the public interest. But we can also judge the acts of other influential social agents – such as foundations, corporations, and unions – against this standard.

9. We are especially inclined to invoke the public interest as a critical norm when we see narrow groups (the ‘special interests’) pursuing their own advantage without concern for the rest of the community. But this opposition between the part and the whole is not a comprehensive template, because it is possible that the actions of even an overwhelming majority can be inconsistent with the public interest.

There is no guarantee that reflection guided by these propositions will always – or usually – point to a single clearly preferable course of action. Experience suggests that when multiple important public goods are at stake, reasonable and well-informed individuals will disagree about their relative priority or weight, and also about the most effective and efficient means for promoting them. Like other high-order norms, the public interest cannot wholly overcome the uncertainties of deliberating in the real world.

Nor is there reason to believe that the public interest constitutes the single highest ethical standard of public life. Not that any other norm does either. We will often be challenged to choose among, or balance, competing norms with moral weight: rights, liberty, equality, justice, and the public interest, among others. We may, if we choose, obscure these tensions through definitional fiat, for example, by denying that any action that violates individual rights or contradicts justice can be considered consistent with the public interest. But whatever we say, the same hard choices will remain.

None of this means that the concept of the public interest is either vacuous or useless. Like the common good, it has a critical edge and rhetorical force. It does not require us to ignore our individual interests, but it invites us to refine and pursue them in a larger context – a social world in which others have claims different from, but no less weighty than, our own. It seeks to summon what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.”

While the public interest points toward better political practice, by itself it can neither define nor achieve it. Like the common good, the public interest can help us understand and seek a politics of common purpose. But it can be useful only if those who invoke it do so with a clear sense of its limitations when applied in practice, and with the frank acknowledgement that no normative category can overcome the empirical uncertainties and moral risks of acting in the real world. It is always right to ask how the public interest may be promoted. But that is not a question that social scientists or philosophers or theologians can answer. The answer is worked out in the thrust and parry of political competition. Not better theory, but rather better practice, is the remedy for the ills that befall the body politic.

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Personal note: My Political Science was a little rusty. I read up and felt this was a decent outline for more & a refresher for me.

There are many Political Science folks who could add to this much better than I.

Boats