honorentheos wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:54 pm
MG 2.0 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:54 pm
I did. Go back and look. It may not be the definition that you would like, but it’s there.
I recall the post where you described it as being more or less anything that makes democracy work. I noted that was about as vague as a campaign slogan and asked for something more defined but got nothing back. So I take it from the above you are saying that's about all you can contribute to that. Noted.
How would you define civil society?
I described this for you earlier in this thread. I'll quote it for you:
Civil society, in concept, derives from the idea that individuals within political and economic systems form ties and shared community identities that, while not independent of them, are different from the political and economic systems of their culture and society.
What one means by "civil society" is sensitive to context. What one may describe as civil society varies by region, by which side of the urban/rural divide a community lies on, and by demographics. When I asked you to define it, it was in part to understand what you felt was being threatened that lies in this space interfacing with, but different from government and the economic system. Which, it should be noted, also have regional and local variation as well.
Civil society in the United States is a patchwork quilt.
Would that definition include respect and value of human life, including the unborn and undefenseless?
The expressions of civil society around the country (outside of government, derived from shared ties of community and identity) almost by definition include what respect for human life means and how one values it, but not the debate about abortion. That's a question of rights which lies squarely within the sphere of government. And that by necessity demands discussion of personhood or what traits and conditions are required for being identified as having personhood. Community identity and, by extension, civil societies around the country have varied ways of valuing individual personhood and that influences the abortion debate. But while that informs the debate, it is not the arena where abortion should be decided in a pluralistic society. And, to be clear, the US is a pluralistic society and always has been.
Would a civil society include the right to bear arms as described in the second amendment of the constitution? If not, why?
Again, this is squarely in the arena of government not civil society. Civil society absolutely influences gun culture by region that influences the debate, but the debate around the 2nd amendment isn't a debate about civil society. I grew up in semi-rural Utah. Boys getting their blue cards was a right of passage and it was very much a part of our community. We learned how to handle firearms from our dads, went out and learned how to behave while carrying them in groups through social interactions that reinforced a respect for firearms, their use, and their storage. My dad stopped going hunting because hunting culture in Utah changed and by the time I was old enough to go, he had stopped hunting big game out of concern too many people out hunting were no longer maintaining that same social contract he had been raised with and passed on to us. Was he right or wrong? I don't know. But I think of that when someone gets their government chocolate in the civil society peanut butter. As for the Second Amendment debate itself, I would invite you to spend more time in Spirit Paradise where we talk poltics. Here's a sample:
I don't think the question (about whether the Second Amendment is about collective or individual rights) is too off the wall given the issue of whether the amendment refers to collective rights or individual rights has been a central question surrounding it. But as Res says, Heller definitively established the modern interpretation of ownership being an individual right. That said, Scalia made it explicit that the right to bear arms was not unlimited, and that the government could rightly preclude private ownership of certain types of arms.
I think the historic answer is the amendment refers to a collective right extrapolated out from an individual right. When James Madison presented the amendments to the House with what became the Second Amendment actually legible in form, it read:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
Madison was seeking to keep faith with promises made during ratification to bring amendments to the Constitution forward demanded by Antifederalists. As a Federalist, his concern was that failure to do so could give leverage to Antifederalists in convening a second convention which could undo the Constitution and send the nation backwards yet again. One concern held by the States was that a strong Federal government could disband State militias. I think his wording shows thia concerned deserved being enumerated and protected. But also, it gets to his own views regarding rights. That being, enumerating them was not valuable, and potentially dangerous. Prior to being elected to the House, he had referred to enumerated rights in State constitutions as parchment barriers or paper barriers, easily bypassed by State governments when it had suited them. He feared that enumerating rights would lead to the belief that any right not explicitly enumerated was not, therefore a right. He inserted the Ninth Amendment precisely because he felt it needed enumerated that rights existed that weren't enumerated explicitly. And I think this is how the individual right to bear arms is treated in the original language - it is assumed so it need not be expanded upon. Rather the protection of State militias was built up upon those assumed individual rights.
The second amendment was explicitly included in the proposed amendments mainly sheparded by Madison between the House to the Senate because of concern by Antifederalists that a standing national army would be able to reign tyrannically over the states where it suffered the hatchet wording job it received. There's so much history in that discussion that is well above the pay grade of this thread. Long and short of it is how we apply it today shouldn't be based on original language nor even original intent. Neither exist anymore in a form that makes sense in the 21st century US. And frankly the regional expressions of civil society in regards to this are mutated by politics in a way that I don't think serves society well. Three nine year old kids were killed yesterday while in school and the debate immediately turns to avoiding politicizing it to enact gun control...that's insanity, in my opinion. Dealing with people killing people is exactly why we organize as human beings and have government, and thus why we have politics. If anything should be politicized in order to find solutions that prevent it going forward, its kids being killed. That's where I think civil society should interface with the sphere of government and confirm to government that something needs done to protect the value of human life.
Would it include the right to free speech at institutions of higher learning? If not, why
Again, chocolate and peanut butter may be two great tastes that taste great together, but they aren't the same thing. Rights sit squarely in the government sphere. How we treat people who have differing views from our own is influenced by the contours of societal values and identity. So I do think that there is overreaction among people who wish to see college authorities enforce individual perspectives rather than welcome debate. But I also think it works the same way when folks shut down or eliminate their exposure to alternative views, give license to their biases to reject evidence that calls their own beliefs into question, and effectively demands conformity. So.
I think definitions are going to vary on what a civil society entails.
Yep. By definition. What gets out of whack is when one makes religious views = civil society = government.
!) and the start of MLB, here is Brockmire v. The Air Dancer: 
