Principles Of Government

All material on this site is for educational purposes only.
This site is designed to generate ideas for a supplementary section on think tank websites.

 

The goal of this site is to broaden understanding of how good governments and societies develop sound institutions and share fundamental operating principles and how the worst countries violate these principles. By exploring the material on, and links to, this site you can gain insights into what makes governments and societies successful or tragic, the major threats to their continued success, and the characteristics common to the various types of bad government.

Sites' Purpose

This site is designed as a model or demo from which think tanks and similar organizations might draw ideas to create a special section on their own websites structured along similar lines for purposes outlined herein. As envisioned, this special section would have three roles: Read More 

Characteristics of Government

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INTRODUCTION

Government is a requirement for the development and maintenance of civilization. A civilized society cannot develop without a government that can keep a reasonable level of order by providing and enforcing a legal system and providing for the common defense. Two of the most crucial characteristics of government are, 1) what does government see as...…

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SOCIALISM

“Everything lives or dies by politics because of its capacity when benign to allow all around it to flourish and when malign to make all around it wither.”  Krauthammer’s observation applies so appropriately to socialism because socialism is malign. It is malign because it relies on envy (the most dangerous of the social passions) for...…

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COMPETITION

People so often fail to realize why free-market capitalism is so much more productive than any system where economic decisions are made by top down decisions by the government. When the government makes all the decisions for any type of economic activity it does so in a monopolistic setting. Decisions made in a monopolistic framework...…

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DEMOCRACY AND VOTING

Americans are inclined to believe that democracy will solve any country’s problems. Democracy is fragile and if we are to continue to lead the world in our quality of government we need to understand how best to protect the institutions and traditions that have made democracy so successful in America. Democracy has only worked well...…

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SOCIAL POLICIES EFFECTS ON DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

Recently Progressives have managed to combine so many narrowly focused and diverse self-interested groups that they are on the cusp of achieving a working majority. What’s new is that government’s role in social policy and transfers has grown so large that a great many people who formerly took little interest in public affairs are now...…

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GOALS OF PROGRESSIVISM AND THE MODERN LEFT

Progressives believe that government run by experts should have a larger role in the economy and in running our lives than has historically been the case in free market economies. They believe government planners are altruistically motivated and can run an economy more successfully than a lightly regulated free market.  Progressives appear to put more...…

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EVOLVING IDEOLOGIES

One of the most corrupting influences of current elite culture is its success in popularizing a set of beliefs it defines as politically correct and in demonizing views that challenge those beliefs.  Political Correctness (PC) is both political propaganda and a belief system. Its use for political control in totalitarian systems is obvious, but how...…

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DEMOCRACIES AND NATIONAL DEFENSE

Most advanced social democracies cannot defend themselves because voters have become so addicted to government benefits that when politicians are faced with the challenge of reducing military spending or transfer payments, they will always reduce military spending.  The social democracies of Western Europe have largely abdicated responsibility for their defense and would not exist in...…

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Principles of Government

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  • Articles
  • Book Reviews
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  • Civic Education Web Resources
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    • Russia and Europe
    • Middle East
    • China and the Far East
    • Latin America
    •   Back
    • Education, Culture, Ideology
    • Politics, Political Parties, Election Regulations
    • Social Policy, Transfers and Entitlements
    • Immigration
    • Monetary Policy
    • Fiscal Policy
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    • Periodicals
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    • Miscellaneous

INTRODUCTION

If you Google principles of government you will see the seven basic principles of the U. S. Constitution; popular sovereignty, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, republicanism and individual rights; the fundamental principles of American government. They undergird, are the foundation for, the successful operation of the principles of government addressed on...…

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CITIZENSHIP

MARRIAGE and FAMILY, EDUCATION, WELFARE, IMMIGRATION – A good democracy must have a critical mass of intelligent, informed and responsible citizens who are interested in the public welfare. Several demographic trends are decreasing the proportion of such citizens in the United States. The average birth rate of less intelligent citizens is higher than that of...…

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BELIEF SYSTEM

RELIGION, MORALS, MORES AND CUSTOMS –  The moral character, religion, customs and mores of the citizenry are tremendously important factors in determining the quality of government in a democracy. Religious, civic, and political associations are crucial in thwarting the tendency of central government to involve itself in all areas of life.  The society should be...…

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GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE AND POLITICAL SYSTEM

A successful democracy will have a well-designed government structure and a sound political system for the election of its leaders and legislators.  A – The US Government structure, with a president, two houses of Congress, and a Supreme Court, with carefully balanced powers between them; with the further checks on centralized power by our system...…

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DEFENSE AND FOREIGN POLICY

An effective defense and foreign policy and the ability to keep internal order without infringing on individual freedoms are prerequisites for any successful government.  World order and stability is dependent on US defense and alliance strategies and its ability to maintain open sea lanes, use of space, etc. Nothing is more important than the US...…

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FISCAL POLICIES

BUDGET AND TAX POLICIES A – Budgeting and expenditures must be carried out on a sound long term basis for government to be successful in the long run. Short of war or inability to keep internal order the surest way for a democracy to get in trouble is to overspend and particularly to overspend in...…

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SOCIAL POLICIES

Entitlements, welfare, tax policy and education can all have enormous effects on the quality of life and the strength of an economy. Getting incentives right in these areas is one of government’s most important roles.  Government should aim for social policies that assist people in facing unusual adversity and act as stabilizers in times of...…

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FREE MARKETS AND REGULATION

Reasonably free markets with transparent financial information, where government regulation is sensibly designed and impartially administered (without political favoritism), are necessary for a country to achieve its economic potential and compete successfully in the world economy. Ill advised, excessive and overly complex regulation can cripple an economy as easily as corruption and can also foster...…

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SOUND MONEY

Maintaining a stable value of money is one of government’s most important roles. The dual mandate of the Federal Reserve is probably a mistake, as the goals of maintaining full employment and a stable currency are often in conflict.  Inflation is similar to taxes in that it distorts economic decision making and thus is a...…

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THE RULE OF LAW

Good government requires a sound and fair legal system that protects private property rights and individual freedoms, that treats people equally and in so doing counterbalances political power, that operates along clear guidelines and is understandable and predictable; and that has an effective and fair criminal justice system.   It is extremely important in the application...…

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Conservation and Environment

We are wholly dependent on the natural environment. Designing policies to protect it and regulate activities that impact it is one of government’s most difficult and important tasks.  It is difficult because the science required to understand how various human activities affect the environment is so complex, because the interpretation of the science is subject...…

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Article Categories

Culture, Ideology

Education

Social Policy, Transfers and Entitlements, Immigration

Politics, Political Parties, Election Regulations

National Defense and Foreign Policy

Fiscal Policy

Monetary Policy

Constitutional Issues, Federalism, Federal Agencies and Administrative Law

Science, Technology and Innovation

Energy and Environmental Policy

Resources

Book Reviews

Books

Major Think Tanks

Civic Education Resources

Important Conservative Organizations

Conservative Colleges And Universities

Print Resources

Commentary

Appendix

Featured Articles

A New American Grand Strategy to Counter Russia and China

By John Bolton – First, Washington and its allies must immediately increase defense budgets to Reagan-era levels relative to gross domestic product and sustain such spending for the foreseeable future. Federal budgets need substantial reductions to eliminate deficits and shrink the national debt, so higher military spending necessitates even greater reductions domestically. So be it. Neither the obese welfare state nor massive income-redistribution schemes protect us from foreign adversaries. Higher levels of economic growth, freed from crushing tax and regulatory burdens, will underlie the necessary military buildup. Read More

For Saner Politics Try Strong Parties

By Gerald F. Seib – Today, the movement to weaken the national party structures that began in 1968 has reached its logical result: The power of the two national party organizations has declined so dramatically that they sometimes appear to be bystanders to a political system in which they were once central actors. This trend… is now contributing to the polarization and dysfunction of America’s political system. The decline of party organizations has opened the way for the rise of more extreme voices and, crucially, turned much of the financing of campaigns over to less-accountable players. The extremes of left and right have been strengthened … Read More

Be Afraid of Nuclear War, Not Climate Change

By Bjorn Lomborg – … the global elite has an unhealthy obsession with climate change…. First, it has distracted the Western world from real geopolitical threats. …the United Nations…whose main purpose is ensuring world peace—was focused instead on “climate catastrophe,” … This at a time when nuclear weapons are posing the biggest risk of literal mutually assured destruction in half a century….Second, the narrow focus on immediate climate objectives undermines future prosperity…the best economic estimates … all show that the total impact of unmitigated climate change—would be … less than a 4% hit to global GDP by the end of the century. Read More

DEI Spells Death for the Idea of a University

By Matthew Spalding – Wherever this agenda is allowed to take root, free expression and academic integrity are doomed…The first object of government, Madison tells us,…is the protection of diversity in … different opinions, to be encouraged to preserve liberty. Equity is an ancient legal concept of justice …, developed over centuries of English common-law practice. …. Yet in true Orwellian fashion, they have been redefined.…Diversity is no longer a term to describe the breadth of our differences but a demand to grant privileges to purportedly oppressed identity groups. Equity assigns desirable positions based on race, sex and sexual orientation rather than character, competence and merit.  Read More

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead

By David Satter – The Bolshevik coup had two consequences. In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors….The Bolshevik plague that began in Russia was the greatest catastrophe in human history.… it …would kill millions and inflict a near-fatal wound on Western civilization.… it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.… In the West, communism inverted society’s understanding of the source of its values, creating political confusion that persists to this day.,… Read More

Is Lincoln Speaking to us?

By John Walters – By and large, we do not believe that there are individuals with great ruling talent who “thirst and burn” to shatter the existing order for the sake of dominating others … a fundamentally different type of human being: animals of prey, a profoundly different human type from the rest of us. …Is Lincoln’s warning grounded in a timeless truth?… We need only think of Stalin, Mao, and, of course, Hitler. Can we learn from this terrible history?…Specifically, are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping just such individuals?….they now largely control the levers of power and use that power in a brutal and unified manner. …they seek to shatter the existing order and bring the world around them under their domination. Read More

Income Equality, Not Inequality, Is the Problem

By Phil Gramm and John Early – Real government transfer payments to the bottom 20% of household earners surged by 269% between 1967 and 2017, while middle-income households saw their real earnings after taxes rise by only 154% during the same period. That has largely equalized the income of the bottom 60% of Americans. This government-created equality has caused the labor-force participation rate to collapse among working-age people in low-income households and unleashed a populist realignment that is unraveling the coalition that has dominated American politics since the 1930s. Read More

Can Politics Get Better When Higher Education Keeps Getting Worse?

By John Ellis – Only a few years ago, several well-established features of the current political landscape were too absurd to be taken seriously. Defunding the police was a ridiculous idea; critical race theory would be a giant step backward in in race relations; leftist radicalism was a fringe element of the Democratic Party. Suddenly all have gone mainstream….Only a short while ago most Americans would have been appalled to find that almost half of voters were foolish enough to want a lawless society, accept the teaching of racial hatred to children, and embrace radical leftist ideology.
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The Democrats’ Refounding of America

By Christopher Caldwell – …In this view, the civil rights movement wasn’t just a reform but a refounding….The real political legacy of the 1960s comes from the Civil Rights Act of 1964….…The new law cut constitutional corners, constraining freedom of association, … drawing the federal government into the running of local elections. It opened the door to new kinds of lawsuits: The U.S. attorney general, for instance, could now file discrimination suits against local school districts. It imposed a degree of federal management on all institutions that received federal money. And it created a vast investigative infrastructure through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission… Read More

Preventing Suicide by Higher Education

By Arthur Milikh – Summer 2021 Issue, National Affairs – From the birth of the modern conservative movement, dissidents concerned with civic and liberal education have tried almost everything to reshape America’s universities: … This article outlines the many grave problems of American higher education (with suggestions about how to correct them) and explains how its domination by the left is changing our culture, our politics, and our society in ways that threaten our future…  Read More

The Partisan Bureaucracy

By Kimberly A, Strassel – May 11, 2021- Would the IRS violate your privacy to further Democratic policy objectives?….The lesson is that Republicans must realize that Democrats are no longer their only political foe. They face an equally potent and dangerous federal bureaucracy—committed to destroying GOP officials and propelling a liberal agenda. Read More

Defend America’s History—and Retake Its Institutions

By Gerard Baker – Jul 6, 2020- At the end of the 20th century, the U.S. had won World War II and the Cold War, liberated half the planet from history’s most dehumanizing ideologies, advanced a free-market capitalism that had led more humans out of poverty than any economic system ever devised, and given the world the richest bounty of… This article warns of how the effort to distort our history and the domination of the left in higher education…. Read More