The Liberal Backbone of America :: essays research papers

The Liberal vertebral column of AmericaWithin the framework of democratic capitalism, the American Constitution and brass structure have a fundamentally liberal backbone. Viewed as a social contract, the relationship among the call forth and the individual is expressed in the Constitution which dictates the liberal values intrinsically woven into American history. have with the Bill of Rights, the Constitution tie downs the representative government accountable for its actions and sets finite narrow downs on the antecedent it wields over the individual. A capitalist society such as that of the United States uses taxation and wealth distribution as a dick for controlling social equality, an unavoidable hypocrisy of liberal values in a democratic welfare state. Classical liberal values that hold the individuals rights as paramount have been modernised to gentle a mildly paternalistic social welfare system. Classical liberalism suggests that the state and society can be viewed as an immense social contract. In a liberal democratic country such as America, the physical composition is the fundamental part of that social contract it is a contract mingled with the state and the civil society. The American constitution is a guide to order and its interpretation. An essentially liberal contract, the constitution binds not only the government, but overly the people. Through the constitution, the people collectively commit to certain institutional procedures for managing humanitykind affairs and resolving social conflicts. The constitution not only limits the coercive power of the government, it also prevents public administration from being poisoned by peoples short tempers and passions. Through the constitution, the people collectively commit to certain checks against those capricious human sentiments. A central liberal principle which the American constitution serves, is to limit and separate governmental power. The classically liberal distrust of majo ritarian tyranny has move into present-day American politics through its role in the Constitution. In a liberal constitutional system, there is an important difference between the constitution and ordinary laws. While ordinary laws can be modify or repealed to protect civil liberties by the national legislature, or be concordd illegal or unconstitutional by the process of juridic review (Burns et al, 1993, p.21), the national legislature usually has no unilateral power to modify or repeal the constitution, and the judiciary has no power to declare the constitution illegal. For example, in the United States, the constitution can only be modified after the legislatures (or constitutional conventions) of two-thirds of the states approve, or by a two-thirds suffrage of both houses of Congress, followed by ratification from three-quarters of the states or their ratification conventions (Burns et al, 1993, p.