This is a follow-up to my Wednesday post, with credit to my fellow MinnPost contributor, economist Louis Johnston.
The takeoff point for my previous piece focused on the verb “promote” in the Constitution, where it says, right in the preamble, that one of the jobs of proposed U.S. constitutional republic would be to “promote” the “general welfare.”
I don’t suppose a liberal will ever gain much ground in an argument with a conservative by citing the preamble’s description of the government’s purpose as, at least in part, to “promote the general welfare.”
But Hubert Humphrey apparently did think that the verbs in the preamble were a pretty good guide to understanding how the Framers thought the Constitution would and should be used. I know this in particular because Louis Johnston sent me a fuzzy video, with very clear audio, of Humphrey reciting great chunks of the preamble with special emphasis on the nine verbs it contains. He emphasizes the verbs to make the case that the Framers wanted this new government they were “ordaining” and “establishing” to do stuff, big stuff, to be active and specifically to be active in making life better for those who would be governed by the new government the Framers had just framed.
So I’ll embed the video below, with a warning that it’s visually fuzzy, but watchable, and Humphrey’s point is very, very clear. It’s in the verbs. It’s an action plan.
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“…that preamble is such a powerful moving force or statement of policy that we ought to remember what it says and to keep in mind that government is not to be indifferent to the injustices that inflict society…”
And yet some might say “he’s a partisan hack”.
Mostly, the happy warrior made MN proud.
A body divided against itself cannot stand, in the macro 0r the micro, in the body-politic or the human body. Good governance is born out of the polarity of duality, when two sides agree to be in relationship/tension.
For that to happen, both sides have to agree that the other side is legitimate.
Exactly! If both sides are committed to the ultimate uplifting of ALL the people, you have a functional government. This necessarily demands compromise, so that everyone gets something and the larger society moves forward and lives improve, even if they don’t do so along a given citizen’s own particular political preference.
When one of the poles, or philosophies, is no longer tenable – as in it lacks reality, and no claim is made to find compromise to serve the greater good, then that position and party are no longer valid.
And finally, needless to say – well, no, actually it needs to be said – any political party that chooses non-reality for its orientation, who regards laws as inconvenient and therefore breakable, who foregoes the platform for the personality, and for whom blatant lying is a daily method of operation, is no longer legitimate, and the opposing party is under no obligation to treat them as legitimate, or as equals. That political party has taken itself out of legitimacy and the remaining grownups must now lead the country, guided by their own lights and maturity.
And if one side is absolutely convinced that they are always right and the other side is always wrong, why compromise or even debate? See it my way or else is the guiding principle.
And it’s not us lovable, squishy liberals always open to finding a way to make everyone happy that are the problem.
Disagree about “two sides.” There are many sides, otherwise Trump’s impeachment wouldn’t have been bi-partisan. If there were only two sides the Democrats would get rid of the filibuster and pass its agenda. There are many sides, and each of two parties are made up of coalitions, sides if you will. Nothing says the two parties must work together to govern. One party may govern alone if in a clear, filibuster-proof majority or with cooperation of one or more factions of the other party as needed. The out party does need to respect the results of fair and legal elections, then accept new policies or modify them later if they are honored with a mandate from the voters. That’s a loyal opposition. We no longer have that these days.
I would agree your borrowing from Lincoln the house divided. I’d add that if one party no longer believes in “government by the consent of the governed” then we may indeed fall.
It seems like you all agree to not be in relationship/tension with Republicans. Now immobilize the right side of your body and let me know how that works for you.
When I was a young man in the early 1970s, my commie dentist told me that Humphrey had been a regular attendee to the local CPUSA meetings. I just rolled my eyes. The local rubes who called themselves commies were just looking for free stuff from the government. Politicians like Humphrey simply saw an opportunity to buy votes by suggesting that the government owed them something and dad gummit, he was going to see that they got it. And for that brilliant insight, they called him a great man.
I hope your dentist did better at drilling teeth than he did at history.
Hubert Humphrey engineered the merger of the Democratic and Farmer Labor parties specifically to drive the Communists out, and helped found Americans for Democratic Action to do the same thing at a national level. Humphrey also sponsored the Communist Control Act of 1954 (codified at 50 U.S.C. §§ 841-844).
“Politicians like Humphrey simply saw an opportunity to buy votes by suggesting that the government owed them something and dad gummit, he was going to see that they got it.”
Would you like to go on record as favoring the repeal of Medicare?
I believe you already are on record as opposing voting rights. Dennis, how many jelly beans in this jar? What? You’re asking me why the guy in front of you in line did not have to pass the jelly bean test? Well, his grandfather voted in this precinct so he is grandfathered in.
How about unions and labor? Opposed to them too?
It’s easy to spout right wing cliches about a guy who has been dead for 45 years, but maybe a little reading would go along way too.
If you knew even the slightest bit about Humphrey and the history of the DFL you would have realized that is absolutely nonsense. A complete falsehood.
“The takeoff point for my previous piece focused on the verb “promote” in the Constitution, where it says, right in the preamble, that one of the jobs of proposed U.S. constitutional republic would be to “promote” the “general welfare.””
And still, there are reasonable differences in defining what that entails.
I can promote peace between my children by breaking up every argument. Or I can promote sibling peace by letting them figure it out for themselves; and there are myriad alternatives between micro-managing their interactions vs letting them beat one another to a pulp.
I agree both that the goverment that governs best, governs least – but also it must step in to correct market / social failures.
Indeed. “Governs least” is not synonymous with “Governs not at all.”
It’s 9th grade Civics class and an old black and white TV set is on in the front of the room and Nixon is announced the winner of the 1968 election Wednesday morning. And while I may have been a little sad that day for our Minnesota guy, I can remember being a whole lot sadder in January 1978 and I am now teacher and driving home from school with the announcement that Humphrey has died. A fair and decent guy could have been the alternative to the years of Nixon lying and scheming. What if…
“What if…” indeed.
The ’68 Democratic convention and the heavy-handed dealing that refused to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democrats by the National Dem Credentials Committee was a tone-deaf response to the Freedom Rides and work of SNCC to register and get out voters. The Committee kept trying to “seat them but without voting privileges”, and postponing the minority report.
Hubert HHH was put in charge by LBJ. When Fannie Lou Hamer articulated so powerfully the conditions of Blacks in Mississippi, it was LBJ’s behind the scenes use of HHH and his own overt news conference to drown out Hamer’s message, that once again ignored this culmination of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Movements at the election.
I was livid at HHH at the time, but came to see it was the same Dem party that couldn’t bring itself to finally throw “all in” with their Black brothers and sisters.
What if the Dems had been as courageous and as insistent on social justice
as solidarity would have made it then?
What if?
Good points. A little mix up on 1964 vs. 1968:
“In 1964, Hamer’s national reputation soared as she co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the local Democratic Party’s efforts to block Black participation. Hamer and other MFDP members went to the Democratic National Convention that year, arguing to be recognized as the official delegation. When Hamer spoke before the Credentials Committee, calling for mandatory integrated state delegations, President Lyndon Johnson held a televised press conference so she would not get any television airtime. But her speech, with its poignant descriptions of racial prejudice in the South, was televised later. By 1968, Hamer’s vision for racial parity in delegations had become a reality and Hamer was a member of Mississippi’s first integrated delegation.”
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer
oops 1964!
thanks Edward.
And I came across this too:
Fannie Lou Hamer’s full speech before the 1964 Democratic Convention credential committee describing her attempt to register to vote in 1962 , the literacy test and being told by the owner of the plantation where she was sharecropper that she could go unregister or leave the sharecropped land. And later being beaten and arrested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RobTthUg04c
I would ask those MINNPOST commenters who recently defended the filibuster as being more sacred than protecting voting rights to give it a long listen because this is what the Voting Rights Act of 1965 changed.
And how did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the sacred filibuster coexist in 1965? Because the opposition could attempt to rally support for the minority position by getting up and talking: holding the floor for as long as they could. And if they could not convince enough of their colleagues to join their minority position after their unlimited opportunity to argue its’ merits?
They voted and the majority ruled.
Anyone who can watch the full video clip and still support the Mitch McConnell quick and easy filibuster as a way to stop the protection of voting rights deserves to be called something that the MINNPOST censors would never allow me to post.
Thank you for linking that video.
It occurs to me– Nobody has to teach Critical Race Theory to make indelible the history of the Black experience in America. We have real heroes’ stories to tell our posterity.
Teaching the histories of American Black women who drove the energy of the Civil Rights Movement will enlighten and I dare say WAKE the American people to the atrocities they faced, and the justice they have so long deserved.
Fanny Lou Hamer, and so many more… https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/black_women_civil_rights_movement_5.pdf
Once again – it’s an interesting and recurring theme – we’ve established that Mr. Tester doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Without doing any research myself (much like Mr. Tester) I’d say that Mr. Tester’s dentist has shown himself to be an unreliable source of factual information. I certainly hope Mr. Tester is able to avoid his own vote being “bought” by superfluous government services and facilities – in other words, he should not use Medicare, and absolutely not use public roads to get to his next medical appointment.
I think the most important observation we can make about Humphrey is that the Democratic Party essentially repudiated his perspective when neolibaral “New Democtats” took control of the party in the late 70’s and 1980’s. The Party dramatically diverged from Humphrey’s liberal mentality with the assumption that no more big projects were left to start or complete and nothing but a little tweaking of existing programs here and there is the only mission left to government.
For decades Democrats wouldn’t even allow discussions of any proposals that involved more than a minor level of government involvement. HRC and her fellow New Democrats never even considered for a moment extending the Medicare program that Humphrey helped build when she was tasked with fixing the health care crises for instance.
To these Democrats Humphrey is an historical relic that they celebrate but refuse to emulate, and this is ultimately how they end up in a place where they’re incapable of fielding a candidate that could defeat Trump. The idea that only way we promote the general welfare is by promoting profit (monetization) and “markets” is NOT an affiliation with Humphrey, more often than not it’s an affiliation with things that Humphrey opposed for most of his life.
“a minor level of government involvement.”
5.4 Trillion is not “minor”.
” 5.4 Trillion is not “minor” And you’d like see less? My point exactly. We have a $20 trillion economy by the way, you can decide of $5.4 is too “big” a government for yourself… but isn’t that the Republican perspective?
I am perfectly happy with 5.4 and the hopefully added 1t “bi partisan” infrastructure bill.
As a practicing capitalist, I am much more satisfied with several trillion dollars being thrown into the free market and allowing manufacturing, construction, technology and other sectors competing for their share rather than a very socialist across the board tax cut that says: “Don’t do anything different, don’t hire, don’t grow, don’t take any chances and here is another 15% next year”
As DJT told his guests in the dining room at Mar a Lago after the tax cut passed:
“You all just got a lot richer,” He had to inform them about a gift.
Also, it never hurts to acknowledge that Biden has far exceeded the negative expectations of supporters of other D candidates in 2020 for progressive policies. So I will…
” rather than a very socialist across the board tax cut that says: “Don’t do anything different, don’t hire, don’t grow, don’t take any chances and here is another 15% next year””
I think I agree with what you’re saying, but tax aren’t a socialist priority or agenda as a general rule. The conservative mind set is the one that is averse to risk and tethered to the status quo. Trump was only disruptive in the sense that he dropped the Republican charade of pseudo cooperation and bipartisanship. He says openly what Republicans have been saying in back room for decades. That’s the nature of Fascism… it hides in the shadows until it thinks it has enough power to emerge.