"Communitarian philosophers are primarily concerned with ontological and epistemological issues, as distinct from policy issues."
I think this is one of the things that always gets me intangled in arguments - I like to look at the overall picture and explore the boundaries of the argument, but in doing so inevitably get tagged as being on one side or the other. Getting out of the mire of that is a difficult and usually impossible effort.
Back to the Communitarians:
"Central to the communitarian philosophy is the concept of positive rights, rights or guarantees to certain things. These may include state subsidized education, state subsidized housing, a safe and clean environment, universal health care, and even the right to a job with the concomitant obligation of the government or individuals to provide one. To this end, communitarians generally support social security programs, public works programs, and laws limiting such things as pollution."
And here is where they will find themselves opposed. They are going to have a really hard time explaining why they aren't just liberals dressed up in another set of clothes. It has been described as being a radical centrist point of view. This might be a difficult concept to swallow, but the theory behind it is very intriguing.
Here is a list of what "Radical Centrists" might believe:
- Maximize citizen choice, individual empowerment, and overall human potential
- Facilitate greater involvement in the political process (e.g., through referenda)
- Being of concrete help to those in the developing world
- Emphasize epistemic virtue, so that politics are grounded in objective reality
- Build character by promoting conscious moral choices
- Expand community by people creating value for each other in reciprocal relationships
- Possess a foundation of traditional values and common sense
- Enlibra, which presents itself as the productive middle approach to environmentalism
At least one blogger is pointing out how Communitarianism is part of a vast network of change that is striving for the collapse of civilized governments as we know them and replace them with a single, global political state. Churches with communitarian themes are to avoided as nothing more than brainwashing camps to enable the OWG (One World Government) to take over.
It looks like the anti-conspiracy side has it's heros, though, that oppose this benevolent sounding message. Take this about the president of the Czech Republic.
"Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, can drive communists, leftists, Greens, and one-world globalists to near apoplectic fury. However, the popular Czech statesman (finance minister, 1989-1992; prime minister, 1992-1997; president since 2003, reelected 2008) has become a hero to a growing tide of Europeans from Prague to London who are resisting the increasingly oppressive rule by the European Union’s bureaucrats in Brussels and the socialist-dominated European Parliament in Strasbourg."
Not all Communitarians believe this, surprisingly. Check out this blog by Niki Raapana, who talks extensively about Communitarians.
"But, and here's the real kicker, many people I know have completely embraced communitarian values! I am hearing more communitarian double-speak every day, and it's beyond bizarre to listen to it. I am beginning to wonder seriously about my choice to remain in the US and to reject the new requirements for global citizenship here where I was born with the right and the responsibility to resist tyranny. Now I can plainly see it, my countrymen will turn on me next time for not wearing the new shackles we all have to volunteer to wear under my grandious, insane delusion that there is a whole new system of government called communitarianism."
An interesting philosophy, nonetheless. Might bear some looking into.
Links
The Communitarian Party Blog
An Interesting Communitarian Blogger, Niki Raapanaort
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