Will we be a free people, warts and all, or will we empower an over-class to force those who disagree with us to behave as we want?
A friend of mine commented on my recent abortion posting, saying, in part:
So much of this is opposite my entire philosophy of government! On the one hand, my friend says "Do I want politicians… decid[ing] such an important question? No[.]" But, paradoxically, he says this in support of an argument that the distant federal government should, in fact, decide such an important question!
For me, if government is going to decide an important and controversial issue, then the government deciding said issue should be the most responsive and most accessible to me. By every metric, this means local government. The proportional value of my vote, my contribution dollars, my time, and my actual voice are all orders of magnitude more important and influential in a local election than in even a state election.
We sometimes miss this point, that we truly have influence in local elections, because our media is almost entirely focused on national politics. Often we do not even know the names of our local politicians. But even today, they have immense influence on our everyday lives, and, by the way, they live in our very own communities and neighborhoods. Unlike national- or even state-level politicians, we can actually talk with our local politicians.
Beyond this, note how my friend seeks to use government: to "even out" extremes. Do you understand what that means? The idea is to use central control to achieve some kind of normalized universal outcome, and enforce that across the entire populace. Such a result minimizes individual liberty, and maximizes government power and control by setting up some kind of arbiter, I assume majoritarianism (pure democracy), interpreted, presumably, by some all powerful professional bureaucracy. This bureaucracy would necessarily be distant and deaf to anything I (or you) would have to say, and would be held in thrall (as national politics is today) to the large, organized special interests (labor, corporations, etc.).
In contrast, I hold as ideal a place where the patchwork of local personalities results in a patchwork of local law and conditions. This maximizes individual freedom, ensuring that the most people possible would live under the policy they agreed with, and, most importantly, maximizing the influence and importance of individual citizens (you and me) in determining policy.
This difference is easily examined! The central control vision seeks something akin to a strong centralized EU, where a patchwork of nations is subsumed into a bland and culture-less whole. My friend, I must admit, argues this, in part from personal experience, as he has seen how allowing localities to do as they please can result in terrible outcomes for people locked in repressive enclaves. But there is the crux of it. In my ideal federal nation, ones ability to move and shift between localities is unfettered. Unlike the Europe of old where national boundaries not only marked huge differences in policy, but also represented almost insurmountable barriers for the average citizen to move across, I envision a world in which a move to the next locality over would be trivial and common place.
Where as advocates of central control seek an authority to achieve normalized outcomes by fiat or dictate (on the basis of majoritarianism or not), I seek to allow free people to achieve normalized outcomes by free choice. It's like gas stations. Why don't you see individual gas stations charging crazy prices? Because they know you can just go down the street to another gas station. The same would be true of laws. Would there be variation? Yes. Variation to things that you or I would find unacceptable? Sure. But this would be a good thing… because then both you and I, and those whom we disagree with on various issues could all live in maximum freedom--they under laws we cannot accept, and we under other laws.
This is not some utopian vision. It is a real and present vision that has been operative in this country for generations. True, since the founding, the lazy expedient of surrendering local control (and therefore local responsibility) to increasingly distant and faceless higher government has eviscerated entire swaths of federalism, we know that it works. We live it (still) every day.
On the issue of abortion, we will never all agree. Any "normalized national outcome" will always be anathema to half (or more) of the population. There is a better, freer way. Stop trying to dictate the un-agreeable from distant and unresponsive Washington. End the vitriol, and oppression by handing control back to people who you see in church or at the grocery store or the gym.
As for segregation, the suggestion is that "we" would still have it, if left to local communities. I think this is probably true, official segregation would likely still exist in bigoted enclaves. But any community left in the US that would support official segregationist policies is already a community few would choose to live in. That is, if a community would support official segregation, they're surely already bigots. As things stand, it's just that there isn't a obvious public way to identify these communities.
But I don't think that quite addresses the point that was being made. The point is that segregation is "bad". But is democracy, then, just a tool for us to enforce our "enlightened" will on others? I reject this…. and have written at length about this idea of using the power of government and democracy to enforce morality. Here's the key passage--and note, the question of federalism itself is just a re-casting of this same question:
[Return control of abortion policy to s]tates and local communities? That would be the worst. At the federal level there is a much better chance that the extremes even out. The smaller the unit, the larger the outliers can get. Do I want politicians, such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun, or worse, the people who elect them, decide such important questions? No, thanks... We would still have segragation if it was up to some "local communities"…
So much of this is opposite my entire philosophy of government! On the one hand, my friend says "Do I want politicians… decid[ing] such an important question? No[.]" But, paradoxically, he says this in support of an argument that the distant federal government should, in fact, decide such an important question!
For me, if government is going to decide an important and controversial issue, then the government deciding said issue should be the most responsive and most accessible to me. By every metric, this means local government. The proportional value of my vote, my contribution dollars, my time, and my actual voice are all orders of magnitude more important and influential in a local election than in even a state election.
We sometimes miss this point, that we truly have influence in local elections, because our media is almost entirely focused on national politics. Often we do not even know the names of our local politicians. But even today, they have immense influence on our everyday lives, and, by the way, they live in our very own communities and neighborhoods. Unlike national- or even state-level politicians, we can actually talk with our local politicians.
Beyond this, note how my friend seeks to use government: to "even out" extremes. Do you understand what that means? The idea is to use central control to achieve some kind of normalized universal outcome, and enforce that across the entire populace. Such a result minimizes individual liberty, and maximizes government power and control by setting up some kind of arbiter, I assume majoritarianism (pure democracy), interpreted, presumably, by some all powerful professional bureaucracy. This bureaucracy would necessarily be distant and deaf to anything I (or you) would have to say, and would be held in thrall (as national politics is today) to the large, organized special interests (labor, corporations, etc.).
In contrast, I hold as ideal a place where the patchwork of local personalities results in a patchwork of local law and conditions. This maximizes individual freedom, ensuring that the most people possible would live under the policy they agreed with, and, most importantly, maximizing the influence and importance of individual citizens (you and me) in determining policy.
This difference is easily examined! The central control vision seeks something akin to a strong centralized EU, where a patchwork of nations is subsumed into a bland and culture-less whole. My friend, I must admit, argues this, in part from personal experience, as he has seen how allowing localities to do as they please can result in terrible outcomes for people locked in repressive enclaves. But there is the crux of it. In my ideal federal nation, ones ability to move and shift between localities is unfettered. Unlike the Europe of old where national boundaries not only marked huge differences in policy, but also represented almost insurmountable barriers for the average citizen to move across, I envision a world in which a move to the next locality over would be trivial and common place.
Where as advocates of central control seek an authority to achieve normalized outcomes by fiat or dictate (on the basis of majoritarianism or not), I seek to allow free people to achieve normalized outcomes by free choice. It's like gas stations. Why don't you see individual gas stations charging crazy prices? Because they know you can just go down the street to another gas station. The same would be true of laws. Would there be variation? Yes. Variation to things that you or I would find unacceptable? Sure. But this would be a good thing… because then both you and I, and those whom we disagree with on various issues could all live in maximum freedom--they under laws we cannot accept, and we under other laws.
This is not some utopian vision. It is a real and present vision that has been operative in this country for generations. True, since the founding, the lazy expedient of surrendering local control (and therefore local responsibility) to increasingly distant and faceless higher government has eviscerated entire swaths of federalism, we know that it works. We live it (still) every day.
On the issue of abortion, we will never all agree. Any "normalized national outcome" will always be anathema to half (or more) of the population. There is a better, freer way. Stop trying to dictate the un-agreeable from distant and unresponsive Washington. End the vitriol, and oppression by handing control back to people who you see in church or at the grocery store or the gym.
As for segregation, the suggestion is that "we" would still have it, if left to local communities. I think this is probably true, official segregation would likely still exist in bigoted enclaves. But any community left in the US that would support official segregationist policies is already a community few would choose to live in. That is, if a community would support official segregation, they're surely already bigots. As things stand, it's just that there isn't a obvious public way to identify these communities.
But I don't think that quite addresses the point that was being made. The point is that segregation is "bad". But is democracy, then, just a tool for us to enforce our "enlightened" will on others? I reject this…. and have written at length about this idea of using the power of government and democracy to enforce morality. Here's the key passage--and note, the question of federalism itself is just a re-casting of this same question:
In truth, all of this reduces to a stark philosophical question: will we be a free people, warts and all, or will we empower an over-class to force those who disagree with us to behave as we want? This is not a new fight... it's an extension of all humanities struggle to wrest civilization from our world. It was the founders fight against England and amongst themselves. In Obama and the policy questions of today we only come to a kind of culmination... never in recent history has the division been so stark. I know my choice, and you can trace all of my policy positions directly to it... but have you made your choice? Have you considered the relation of your individual policy positions to this fundamental question?
But then where do you stop? Let's just throw out the Constitution, I am sure the TN state legislature can do much better than that. Right. Or do we really need to teach evolution in public schools? No, Dr. Broun, Republican member of the House Science Committee, already explained that it is a lie straight from the pit of hell. Let's have compulsory prayers instead!
ReplyDeleteNo, the really important questions need to be settled at the federal level. I find it pretty naive to think that any individual have any kind of influence on State of even county level politics. Your only hope is that at the federal level, where the entire nation is represented, a common sense middle ground wins out. It happens less and less, but in some states, extreme views are dominant.