Liberty And Coercion

Download or read book Liberty and Coercion written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the conflict between federal and state power has shaped American history American governance is burdened by a paradox. On the one hand, Americans don't want "big government" meddling in their lives; on the other hand, they have repeatedly enlisted governmental help to impose their views regarding marriage, abortion, religion, and schooling on their neighbors. These contradictory stances on the role of public power have paralyzed policymaking and generated rancorous disputes about government’s legitimate scope. How did we reach this political impasse? Historian Gary Gerstle, looking at two hundred years of U.S. history, argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in two contrasting theories of power that the Framers inscribed in the Constitution. One theory shaped the federal government, setting limits on its power in order to protect personal liberty. Another theory molded the states, authorizing them to go to extraordinary lengths, even to the point of violating individual rights, to advance the "good and welfare of the commonwealth." The Framers believed these theories could coexist comfortably, but conflict between the two has largely defined American history. Gerstle shows how national political leaders improvised brilliantly to stretch the power of the federal government beyond where it was meant to go—but at the cost of giving private interests and state governments too much sway over public policy. The states could be innovative, too. More impressive was their staying power. Only in the 1960s did the federal government, impelled by the Cold War and civil rights movement, definitively assert its primacy. But as the power of the central state expanded, its constitutional authority did not keep pace. Conservatives rebelled, making the battle over government’s proper dominion the defining issue of our time. From the Revolution to the Tea Party, and the Bill of Rights to the national security state, Liberty and Coercion is a revelatory account of the making and unmaking of government in America.

Download or read book Liberty, Equality, Fraternity written by James Fitzjames Stephen and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Deleting the State written by Aeon J. Skoble and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the state a necessary evil? Or can we hope to evolve beyond it? This book, in the tradition of Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, sheds new light on persistent philosophical questions about the nature and justification of political authority.

Download or read book Working-class Americanism written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-31 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classic interpretation of the 1930s rise of industrial unionism, Gary Gerstle challenges the popular historical notion that American workers' embrace of "Americanism" and other patriotic sentiments in the post-World War I years indicated their fundamental political conservatism. He argues that Americanism was a complex, even contradictory, language of nationalism that lent itself to a wide variety of ideological constructions in the years between World War I and the onset of the Cold War. Using the rich and textured material left behind by New England's most powerful textile union--the Independent Textile Union of Woonsocket, Rhode Island--Gerstle uncovers for the first time a more varied and more radical working-class discourse.

Download or read book Coercion written by Alan Wertheimer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wertheimer attempts to move beyond previous theories of coercion by conducting a fairly extensive survey of the way in which cases involving coercion have been treated by American courts. This impressive project occupies the first half of the book, where he makes a convincing case that there is a fairly unified 'theory of coercion' at work in adjudication, past and present. This legal theory, however, is not entirely adequate for the purposes of social and political philosophy, and the last half of the book develops Wertheimer's more comprehensive philosophical theory. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy written by Robert L. Simon and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2002-02-26 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy brings together a collection of newly commissioned essays which examine fundamental issues in social and political theory. Written by leading social and political philosophers, each essay provides a map to the history of the issue at hand and a judicious assessment of the main arguments that have been brought to bear upon that issue.

Download or read book Active Liberty written by Stephen Breyer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.