Archiving, Advancing, Protecting
There is little disagreement among political philosophers, democratic theorists or empirical researchers that politics, freedom, society and equality are core principles of liberal democracy. What is highly disputed, however, is the meaning of these democratic principles and the proper relation between them that makes for a good political order. The assumption has always been that there is a trade-off between freedom and equality. ‘Trade-off’ means in this context that both principles cannot be maximized at the same time. Investigations of data from democracies leads to reject the trade-off assumption which has a long tradition Freedom and political as well as economic equality are mutually reinforcing.
There is no evidence of a negative association between freedom on the one hand and equality on the other. The traditional libertarian fear of a trade-off between freedom and equality is unfounded, as we core principles of democracy possess a mutually reinforcing association. Societies and political orders do not have to decide between the two principles but can pursue the maximization of both freedom and equality. This does not mean, of course, that real-world politics cannot pursue one over the other, but any arguments to this end should no longer rest on the claim that the two principles are mutually exclusive in modern democracies. Politics, society, freedom and equality can certainly coexist.
Donald Trump boasts he’s the best president for Blacks since Abe Lincoln. But are Black lives really better under his administration? Charisse Jones at USA Today answer the question. Unemployment Three years into the Trump administration, African Americans experienced a record low unemployment rate of 5.4% in August 2019. But the...
At Bloomberg, there’s a deep dive into the major impact Latino voters could have on the 2020 election. Trump and Biden are spending more time and attention on Latino voters in the 2020 campaign as, for the first time, Latinos outnumber African Americans among eligible voters. A large turnout could...
In the New York Times, Michael Sokolove has a piece detailing how the gender gap in voting is really the white male gap. He actually calls it the white male problem. Why? Because if only white men voted, we’d be in trouble. The U.S. gender gap has been the subject...
Jessica Menton at USA Today details how the extra $600 in aid from the federal government began chipping away at a longstanding racial gap in jobless aid received by Black Americans and white Americans. However, with Congress at a months long impasse over a new relief package that would renew the $600,...
Jim Geraghty at National Review looks into it guided by the Reuben Navarette’s recent article in the Washington Post. Latinos are not a monolith (as we are constantly reminded by black people), so whom are the Latinos for Trump? As far as we can tell from public-opinion polls, there are...
The number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States rose as of Wednesday for a third straight day, with more than 62,000 new cases reported, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. Kate Smith of CBS News reports that black women continue to disproportionately bear the brunt of the economic devastation caused by...
This election cycle, five states have recreational and medical marijuana legalization up for a vote this election year. South Dakota has both a ballot initiative and a Constitutional Amendment in South Dakota to be voted on. Montana, New Jersey and Arizona, where medical marijuana is currently legal, have ballot measures...
Ice Cube chastised the Biden/Harris campaign for not meeting with him to discuss or incorporate his Contract With Black America while the Trump campaign apparently did It turns out the Trump campaign acted in bad faith, Ice Cube was used, and now he looks like a Sambo. The Biden/Harris “Lift...
Abraham Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party. Republican Ulysses S. Grant saw 90 percent of Black voters (in the very first presidential election we could participate in) cast a ballot for. That Black voting bloc muted what the majority of white voters wanted as Grant became the first...
Reid v. Covert (1957) is the 106th landmark Supreme Court case, seventh in the Foreign Policy module, featured in the KTB Prep American Government and Civics series designed to acquaint users with the origins, concepts, organizations, and policies of the United States government and political system. The goal is greater...