COMMUNITARIANISM ADVANTAGES 74

SPECIFIC PROGRAMS OF COMMUNITARIANISM

Cultural Diversity. The greatest challenge to inclusion–indeed the most important problem for communitarian thought and policy–is the tension between universalist and particularist ideals. Universalist concepts of tolerance, impartiality, the rule of law, and human rights are by no means alien to the spirit of community. They reflect a quest for community that looks outward rather than inward. A crucial step is the embrace of strangers. As we move from the "we" of affinity to the "we" of humanity, more and more people are perceived as of the same kind, sharing a common identity and fate. In this way, the enlargement of community–in nation-building for example–offsets primordial ties of family, tribe, religion, and locality. This broader perspective is decisively reinforced by moral progress, that is, by the ability to understand and the competence to uphold soundly based conclusions of moral and social theory. Among these are universalist principles of equality, respect, and concern.

COMMUNITARIANISM SEEKS TO PROVIDE FULL EMPLOYMENT

Work. For most people of working age, the most important road to belonging and self-respect is a decent and steady job. Therefore full employment must be a lodestar of communitarian policy. A jobless underclass is wholly unacceptable, and the poor need more than money. They need effective participation in social life. They need jobs, education, and opportunities for service.

COMMUNITARIANISM WOULD PROMOTE DOMESTIC DISARMAMENT AS MOST DEMOCRACIES HAVE

INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITARIAN POLICY STUDIES, 2000; The Communitarian Platform,

There is little sense in gun registration. What we need to significantly enhance public safety is domestic disarmament of the kind that exists in practically all democracies. The National Rifle Association suggestion that criminals not guns kill people, ignores the fact that thousands are killed each year, many of them children, from accidental discharge of guns, and that people--whether criminal, insane, or temporarily carried away by impulse--kill and are much more likely to do so when armed then when disarmed. The Second Amendment, behind which NRA hides, is subject to a variety of interpretations, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, for over a hundred years, that it does not prevent laws that bar guns. We join with those who read the Second Amendment the way it was written, as a communitarian clause, calling for community militias, not individual gun slingers.

COMMUNITARIAN APPROACHES TO CRIME HAVE BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL

INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITARIAN POLICY STUDIES, 2000; Communitarian

     Thinking about criminal justice has undergone a major transformation over the past decade.  At the core of the shift has been a rediscovery of the importance of community.  "Community policing" has become the byword of police departments in numerous cities big and small. Many observers argue that these new police methods--which, among other things, emphasize the importance of order in public spaces and rely on stronger cooperation between police and neighborhood communities--bear at least part of the responsibility for the recent significant declines in crime.