A Vision of the Democratic Process: Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton talks about common good
[Excerpts from his speech at Georgetown University, 10/18/06]

In the context of late 1991, I defined the common good as a new covenant for equal opportunity, shared responsibility, an inclusive community and an aggressive approach to try to create those values throughout the world at the end of the Cold War. It was what I thought America should do to advance the common good, really just a restatement of what our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor to, to form a more perfect union…..

Given the nature of the political debate today, I think it's important to point out that that 18th-century construct in 21st- century language meant the following: we are not perfect, we never will be perfect, no one has the whole truth, but we can always do better. That's what a more perfect union meant. It is a permanent mission for America designed to make America a permanent work in progress....

Now, this sort of politics -- striving for the common good -- for me, stands in stark contrast to both the political and governing philosophy of the leadership in Washington today and for the last six years….We believe in mutual responsibility. They believe that in large measure people make or break their own lives, and you're on your own. We believe in striving, at least, to cooperate with others, because we think that there are very few problems in the world we can solve on our own. They favor unilateralism whenever possible and cooperation when it's unavoidable.

I think the central challenge to American politics today is that what I would call the "uncommon good" approach has been so successful. May not be in three weeks, but it has been. We believe in a politics -- us "common good" folks -- dominated by evidence and argument. There is a big difference between a philosophy and an ideology on the right or the left. If you have a philosophy, it generally pushes you in a certain direction or another. But like all philosophers, you want to engage in discussion and argument. You are open to evidence, to new learning. And you are certainly open to debate the practical applications of your philosophy. There are, you might wind up making a principled agreement with someone with a different philosophy.

I long for the day when Republicans and Democrats will sit around and have these raucous, exciting arguments and actually love learning from one another, and when we create the common good out of a dynamic center. It works. You can just look at the evidence and compare it to what went before and what happened after. Ideological, divisive, demonizing, distracting politics, they may be very good for an election, particularly when people feel unsettled and insecure, but they don't do much to advance the common good. So whatever your politics are, I hope that throughout your life, you will try to advance it, because that's what our Founders told us to do, and they turned out to be pretty smart. They figured it out more than two centuries before the scientists discovered that we are 99.9 percent the same.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Bill_Clinton_talks_about_common_good_1018.html

Former President Clinton's vision of the democratic process presents us with the ideal. However, Democrats and Republicans can argue, learn from one another, and arrive at the common good only when they agree that their common objective is a truly democratic nation. So long as the Republican Party is led and pushed by people pursuing authoritarian objectives, such dialogue is impossible. The goals of the two parties are then in conflict, and authoritarians do not believe in compromise. They will say you are either with them or against them.