by Leigh Wingfeld<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Overton Window is a model for understanding what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, acceptable in politics. Inside the Overton Window sits what is considered \u201csocially acceptable\u201d, with the centre being what is made into policy. Outside of the window sits what are considered radical and unthinkable ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is contained in the Overton Window shifts over time. A historical example of this is racial segregation in the United States. After the Pleasy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision in 1896, the decision allowed for separate but equal accommodations of colored and white individuals. To many at the time, and for the following decades, the idea of desegregating was far outside the Overton Window. On May 17th, 1954, the Pleasey V. Ferguson decision was ruled unconstitutional, leading to desegregation across the country. Half a century from the original decision, many, mostly white, people thought desegregation was too radical to be policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, the Overton Window in the U.S. has shifted toward authoritarian policy, but this is not the fault of one administration or policy, but many. In the early 2000\u2019s, if you told someone Roe V. Wade had been overturned and various states had abortion bans, they would probably be surprised. At this point in U.S. history, the idea of abortion not being a constitutional right was an idea many were aware of, but did not view as a legitimate policy option. Now, many women don\u2019t have access to abortion, even in emergency medical situations. This is a representation of a shift to more authoritarian policy. The government can now decide what medical decisions you can or cannot make. Now that an authoritarian policy is mainstream, this pulls more <\/em>authoritarian ideas into the Overton Window. Ideas of restricting voting rights, transgender health care bans, stricter immigration policy, and book bans are examples of authoritarian policy that have floated into the Overton Window.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally, I don’t want the government up in my, or anyone else’s, business. So how do we return the Overton Window to a more neutral point? We can use the same principle in the direction of more Libertarian values. The functioning definition of Libertarian for this article is a belief in individual liberty and minimal government involvement. Such policies can look like stricter legislation on government censorship, legislation guaranteeing the rights to medical decisions, legislation for a less militaristic immigration enforcement, and stricter legal protections for the bill of rights. By proposing more Libertarian based policies, we shift the Overton Window to exclude more of these authoritarian policies. Regardless of one’s political alliance, I think most people would agree authoritarianism is in direct opposition to the values of the United States Constitution. Shifting the Overton window could be a matter of all of our rights, so keep this in mind in upcoming elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Leigh Wingfeld The Overton Window is a model for understanding what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, acceptable in politics. Inside the Overton Window sits what is considered \u201csocially acceptable\u201d, with the centre being what is made into policy. Outside of the window sits what are considered radical and unthinkable ideas. What is contained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9331,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9328\/revisions\/9331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}