Short of us sharing a military and state department, Chris almost had what he's asking for. The latter Clinton years and up through first few Bush II years had the states holding the their preeminence with a Congress that was loathe to step on states by way of preemption/supremacy clause. When the branches all flipped and the more liberal states starting feeling their oats the Courts shifted and were more eager to find in favor on Federal preemption in conflict cases. FCC actions upheld as they pertain to preempting state and local ISP regulations come to mind as the most egregious of recent flip-flops but I'm sure there are others.
We'll probably drop back to a more federalist state of affairs once the branches flip again.
It's obviously true that consolidation of power by empire-like nation states was always a stupid idea. Power should always be distributed, countries with too much power act as ass holes around the world and are not needed.
I've always thought the most efficient setup would be two levels of governance:
1) Global Governance. Sets regulations on trade, basic human rights (i.e locals can't hang gay people etc), environmental policy (region A can't send pollutants down stream to region B). Things of that sort.
2) City/County level governance. Mosques can only be 10 feet tall and motor vehicles are not allowed. Or whatever the cultural preferences are.
However, an argument for nation states might be, they allow some level of selection. If nation A becomes corrupt or refuses to embrace science, nation B overcomes it. But this does cause a lot of suffering and war.
I think you are underestimating just how "provincial" those sub-provincial governments could become. County level is where the professionalization gap between ruling ideas and opposing views is the largest.
Every county would send a delegate to the global governance, which would be the World Unity Council. So we would maximize democratic engagement locally (county), and have direct and equal influence in the global body.
As long as democracy is healthy in both places, it won't ever be perfect, but it'll be as good as it gets. Unless we unleash AI to run the world before that, and I think that's more likely to happen.
Half the population views direct democracy as some sort of distrustful evil. Just the way people seem to be, especially when democracy doesn't go their way. Conspiracy theories.
It's all about good management, with anything. It's never perfect or suits everyone all the time. That's just the human condition.
So as a result we're most likely going to be dominated by AI at some point in the near future. It's probably what humanity overall deserves since people don't want to be sensible and engage in democracy. Even though it's immensely fulfilling to become connected to your own destiny and relevant community- it's work, and people don't like that. I do think more people would do it, if they saw direct, near-immediate results from their engagement, which does not really exist as much today.
So after a couple billionaires have a nuclear war, we'll end up putting the robots in charge, unless the robots simply takeover first- and we'll be done with it.
I think you're on the money. Humanity would be best suited with global governance to ensure everyone gets treated with a moderate to high level of human dignity and protection.
We're already near a return to city-states anyway. Governance is best done at that level, and most cities occupy 1 county, and 1 county is also the appropriate size for rural area engagement. So this global<->county arrangement makes a lot of sense.
My country (USA) stands in the way of this because it's currently the top dog, but it's mostly just because of existing wealthy folks on top who have the current arrangement in their best interests. It's possible to spread the idea, have enough people demand this, and get global-county governance in place. It's very clear in the US today, that there's 2-4 nations existing within the US. We had a civil war between 2 nations already. Instead of churning matters and moving to 2-4 nations, just cut to the chase and go to global-county.
Local involvement improves everyone's life, and that's the best way to do it, ensure democracy is healthy in every county. It's when people disengage when things get ugly, despair, no control over their own situation and lives.
Unfortunately, global demand for this idea will probably require a major war or nuclear catastrophe. I don't see people doing it otherwise when things are working out even a little bit.
But once you surpass roughly 4,000 people per square mile, things inevitably turn blue. Any political heat map shows this. There's a heavy correlation. Surely, urban vs rural is related to red vs blue, no?
Absolutely, which is why breaking up the country geographically wouldn't work. And breaking up the country based on population density seems like a logistical nightmare.
My one reason for not agreeing with dividing the US is that most southern states (one of which I live in, happily) still have lots of black people who will lose federal protections from Jim Crow era laws that have not been enforced since the 60s. So the US staying together is a deterrent to, say, Alabama, enforcing some of its segregationist and racist laws that are just sitting there.
Now, I know the first answer to this is for black people to just pack it up and move somewhere else, and the guy in the interview glossed over it by saying people should "self sort". However large migrations almost always bring with them instability and sometimes war. I think of India and Pakistan as the most egregious example of what happens when populations are told to "self-sort" into separate countries that were once unified.
I would argue that basically all of the recent migrations are self-sorting: you're saying "I can't stay here out of fear for my safety" and doing something about it by removing yourself from that situation. "Self-sorting" is almost a disservice to the amount of effort it takes to remove yourself from a suddenly created situation past your control.
This is also why I hold general antipathy towards the sentiment "move back to your country"- clearly they left because something was deeply, utterly fucked. And it's awkward/cognitively dissonant to watch my family, a product of exactly this sort of immigration (context: Hungary and Russia in '55/'56) exhibit that sentiment in the modern day when people are fleeing gang violence in Guatemala and civil war in Syria.
The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation.
By these, the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual". And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union".
It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?
...
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.
The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
...
The ordinance of secession...and all the acts of legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law.
We killed 620,000 american soldiers proving this point about 160 years ago. Let's not go relitigating that.
Obviously this is something that's impractical, would leave a lot of people in poverty and won't happen, but I've thought about this a number of times myself, and I've always wondered if it would rock regions so hard, their entire ideals would be shaken up. For example if a hyper individualistic population would slowly lose that trait because poverty forces them into a more empathetic, community focused view.
Honestly, I think the real underlying problem with America's politics is that the Federal government has grossly overstepped its intended scope. The federal government frequently tries (and many time succeeds) to impose laws on the entire nation (which of course is the result of any federal law), when many times such issues/laws should remain with the states. Doing this creates resentment and frustration. What's good for one area may not be good for another. Or, if we're talking about moral, hot-button issues - this becomes even more serious as it is viewed as the imposition of will of some group's morality upon some other group/region.
The scope of the federal government should be very limited. But all too often, the immediate response to any problem is to get the federal government to pass a law to solve it across the board for the whole country. Many times that just doesn't work. This approach also goes against the concept of the 50 state laboratory where we can see the outcome of certain laws and whether or not we want to adopt them based on the results they produced. Or maybe we don't care about the results because we are morally opposed to whatever the change is and therefore the economics are somewhat irrelevant because it's more of an issue of principle/value. Having federal laws in those instances removes the ability of a state to choose to be different, for better or worse.
It's much easier to live and let live when those you are letting live aren't actively trying to force rules upon you, which is exactly how most of the nation views the political climate right now - i.e. "the [dems/reps] are trying to force us to [x] by passing that new law!" When people view things like that, it pisses everyone off. Let the states be in charge of as much as they possibly can.
There are some issues that don't fall neatly into the "50 laboratories" theory. We tried that with slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights/desegregation, gay marriage, and a host of other things. California or New York banning housing discrimination based on race doesn't help me if I'm a poor black family living in Georgia and can't afford (or other reason) to move to one of those places. Hence, federal housing discrimination laws that apply everywhere.
The problem is identifying at the time which issues fall into that bucket. Sure, any of the ones I mentioned are obvious to contemporary sensibilities in hindsight. But at the time they were being argued, people were making the same argument you are making. That's why the phrase "state's rights" has lost meaning as anything other than a dog-whistle for "the right to discriminate against people we don't like." It used to mean what you are arguing.
I don't disagree with your point, I've just never seen heard a reasonable way to distinguish which issues fall into the "50 labs" bucket vs. the "federal responsibility" bucket without the benefit of decades of hindsight.
It's not easy. But a good starting point would be anything that falls within the bounds of the constitution is clearly a federal issue, essentially be definition. If it's an issue of basic human rights which are protected within the constitution or anything else covered within it, then it has to be a federal issue.
Once we are outside of that, I think the default should be to have it be a state decision unless a strong case can be made for things that affect others crossing state borders or a common good/service that federal taxes pay for (i.e. externalities related to dumping, environmental regulation, borders, immigration, interstate trade, roads/infrastructure, military, etc.)
That should cover the majority of cases and we can argue about the rest as they pop up. As for some of the examples you listed - I get your point but two of those ended up gaining enough support such that there were constitutional amendments put in place to make those even higher than federal law. So maybe if we gave the other two enough time we would have had a self-adjustment through legislation on the state level due to changing opinions or enough support to warrant the supermajority required for a constitutional change.
The other part of this is identifying and viciously pursuing laws that are at odds with each other within the legal system. For example, the bill of rights existed and supposedly protected all persons (citizens or not) within the US. And yet at the same time, those rights were ignored for nearly all of an entire race of people. For that to be consistent at the federal level, one would have had to argue in court that these were not human beings. They didn't do that - they merely declared them as property, but never actually stripped them of their human status, as far as I know.
Reading your comment over again, I realize the first paragraph effectively falls into the same category as the problem I am pointing out, in a way. The implication of "we tried that with slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights/desegregation, gay marriage, and a host of other things" to me reads as "a bunch of people were clearly doing the wrong thing and were given a chance to correct it but they didn't, so they obviously had to be forced to do the right thing." And that's precisely the issue I raised. If someone in Alabama was prevented the right to marry because they were homosexual, but no laws were actually being violated (the supreme court ruling changed that), then should I vote to try to force them into submission if it doesn't affect me or anyone in my state? I'm not sure the answer to that should be yes because it results in the kind of issues we face today. I do realize that "your rights are my responsibility" and all that, but I'm referring to the pre-USSC ruling where it wasn't a federally defined right that required protection.
If it's an issue of basic human rights which are protected within the constitution or anything else covered within it, then it has to be a federal issue.
Once we are outside of that, I think the default should be to have it be a state decision
I don't think anyone who understands and appreciates federalism disagrees with this. The problem is that we all disagree on what those terms mean (read: most of us agree most of the time, some people have legitimate disagreements, and others disagree in bad faith and stir up populist movements against consensus).
Who is this guy and why is this website spreading his opinions. Nothing he says is based in facts or data. All of his conclusions begin with "I feel" not "The data indicate."
He says, "I’m sure the British Empire in the 1700s and 1800s always thought they would have a toehold in different parts of the world." How is he sure? Is there data to support this claim? He doesn't even cite a primary source. What is "the British Empire" even? The common citizens? The intellectual class? The monarchy? He's just saying things.
"The U.S. has always been, I would say, on the right side of the bell curve when it comes to jingoism — a little bit more patriotic than most countries." Is there data to substantiate this claim?
"I feel like the U.S. peaked in the ’90s." How is this defined? The US economy is bigger; the military is stronger; its foreign interests are more secure. It just happens to be this guy's childhood when America peaked. This is just some guy inventing some narrative rooted in his own nostalgia.
This is just some guy blathering. He should rightfully be afraid to share these beliefs, because they are completely unsubstantiated and not based in reality. It's just what he "feels," which should be uninteresting to anyone else. It is journalistically irresponsible to spread such misinformation without at least some fact-checking.
29 comments
[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 21.8 ms ] threadWe'll probably drop back to a more federalist state of affairs once the branches flip again.
1) Global Governance. Sets regulations on trade, basic human rights (i.e locals can't hang gay people etc), environmental policy (region A can't send pollutants down stream to region B). Things of that sort.
2) City/County level governance. Mosques can only be 10 feet tall and motor vehicles are not allowed. Or whatever the cultural preferences are.
However, an argument for nation states might be, they allow some level of selection. If nation A becomes corrupt or refuses to embrace science, nation B overcomes it. But this does cause a lot of suffering and war.
As long as democracy is healthy in both places, it won't ever be perfect, but it'll be as good as it gets. Unless we unleash AI to run the world before that, and I think that's more likely to happen.
Half the population views direct democracy as some sort of distrustful evil. Just the way people seem to be, especially when democracy doesn't go their way. Conspiracy theories. It's all about good management, with anything. It's never perfect or suits everyone all the time. That's just the human condition.
So as a result we're most likely going to be dominated by AI at some point in the near future. It's probably what humanity overall deserves since people don't want to be sensible and engage in democracy. Even though it's immensely fulfilling to become connected to your own destiny and relevant community- it's work, and people don't like that. I do think more people would do it, if they saw direct, near-immediate results from their engagement, which does not really exist as much today.
So after a couple billionaires have a nuclear war, we'll end up putting the robots in charge, unless the robots simply takeover first- and we'll be done with it.
We're already near a return to city-states anyway. Governance is best done at that level, and most cities occupy 1 county, and 1 county is also the appropriate size for rural area engagement. So this global<->county arrangement makes a lot of sense.
My country (USA) stands in the way of this because it's currently the top dog, but it's mostly just because of existing wealthy folks on top who have the current arrangement in their best interests. It's possible to spread the idea, have enough people demand this, and get global-county governance in place. It's very clear in the US today, that there's 2-4 nations existing within the US. We had a civil war between 2 nations already. Instead of churning matters and moving to 2-4 nations, just cut to the chase and go to global-county.
Local involvement improves everyone's life, and that's the best way to do it, ensure democracy is healthy in every county. It's when people disengage when things get ugly, despair, no control over their own situation and lives.
Unfortunately, global demand for this idea will probably require a major war or nuclear catastrophe. I don't see people doing it otherwise when things are working out even a little bit.
I'm in Atlanta, and most of us here wouldn't be happy at all living in a "deep south" country.
Now, I know the first answer to this is for black people to just pack it up and move somewhere else, and the guy in the interview glossed over it by saying people should "self sort". However large migrations almost always bring with them instability and sometimes war. I think of India and Pakistan as the most egregious example of what happens when populations are told to "self-sort" into separate countries that were once unified.
This is also why I hold general antipathy towards the sentiment "move back to your country"- clearly they left because something was deeply, utterly fucked. And it's awkward/cognitively dissonant to watch my family, a product of exactly this sort of immigration (context: Hungary and Russia in '55/'56) exhibit that sentiment in the modern day when people are fleeing gang violence in Guatemala and civil war in Syria.
The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation.
By these, the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual". And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union".
It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?
...
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.
The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
...
The ordinance of secession...and all the acts of legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law.
We killed 620,000 american soldiers proving this point about 160 years ago. Let's not go relitigating that.
I think this idea is best captured in the following chart of the "mitosis" of the congress:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stu...
The scope of the federal government should be very limited. But all too often, the immediate response to any problem is to get the federal government to pass a law to solve it across the board for the whole country. Many times that just doesn't work. This approach also goes against the concept of the 50 state laboratory where we can see the outcome of certain laws and whether or not we want to adopt them based on the results they produced. Or maybe we don't care about the results because we are morally opposed to whatever the change is and therefore the economics are somewhat irrelevant because it's more of an issue of principle/value. Having federal laws in those instances removes the ability of a state to choose to be different, for better or worse.
It's much easier to live and let live when those you are letting live aren't actively trying to force rules upon you, which is exactly how most of the nation views the political climate right now - i.e. "the [dems/reps] are trying to force us to [x] by passing that new law!" When people view things like that, it pisses everyone off. Let the states be in charge of as much as they possibly can.
The problem is identifying at the time which issues fall into that bucket. Sure, any of the ones I mentioned are obvious to contemporary sensibilities in hindsight. But at the time they were being argued, people were making the same argument you are making. That's why the phrase "state's rights" has lost meaning as anything other than a dog-whistle for "the right to discriminate against people we don't like." It used to mean what you are arguing.
I don't disagree with your point, I've just never seen heard a reasonable way to distinguish which issues fall into the "50 labs" bucket vs. the "federal responsibility" bucket without the benefit of decades of hindsight.
Once we are outside of that, I think the default should be to have it be a state decision unless a strong case can be made for things that affect others crossing state borders or a common good/service that federal taxes pay for (i.e. externalities related to dumping, environmental regulation, borders, immigration, interstate trade, roads/infrastructure, military, etc.)
That should cover the majority of cases and we can argue about the rest as they pop up. As for some of the examples you listed - I get your point but two of those ended up gaining enough support such that there were constitutional amendments put in place to make those even higher than federal law. So maybe if we gave the other two enough time we would have had a self-adjustment through legislation on the state level due to changing opinions or enough support to warrant the supermajority required for a constitutional change.
The other part of this is identifying and viciously pursuing laws that are at odds with each other within the legal system. For example, the bill of rights existed and supposedly protected all persons (citizens or not) within the US. And yet at the same time, those rights were ignored for nearly all of an entire race of people. For that to be consistent at the federal level, one would have had to argue in court that these were not human beings. They didn't do that - they merely declared them as property, but never actually stripped them of their human status, as far as I know.
Reading your comment over again, I realize the first paragraph effectively falls into the same category as the problem I am pointing out, in a way. The implication of "we tried that with slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights/desegregation, gay marriage, and a host of other things" to me reads as "a bunch of people were clearly doing the wrong thing and were given a chance to correct it but they didn't, so they obviously had to be forced to do the right thing." And that's precisely the issue I raised. If someone in Alabama was prevented the right to marry because they were homosexual, but no laws were actually being violated (the supreme court ruling changed that), then should I vote to try to force them into submission if it doesn't affect me or anyone in my state? I'm not sure the answer to that should be yes because it results in the kind of issues we face today. I do realize that "your rights are my responsibility" and all that, but I'm referring to the pre-USSC ruling where it wasn't a federally defined right that required protection.
Once we are outside of that, I think the default should be to have it be a state decision
I don't think anyone who understands and appreciates federalism disagrees with this. The problem is that we all disagree on what those terms mean (read: most of us agree most of the time, some people have legitimate disagreements, and others disagree in bad faith and stir up populist movements against consensus).
He says, "I’m sure the British Empire in the 1700s and 1800s always thought they would have a toehold in different parts of the world." How is he sure? Is there data to support this claim? He doesn't even cite a primary source. What is "the British Empire" even? The common citizens? The intellectual class? The monarchy? He's just saying things.
"The U.S. has always been, I would say, on the right side of the bell curve when it comes to jingoism — a little bit more patriotic than most countries." Is there data to substantiate this claim?
"I feel like the U.S. peaked in the ’90s." How is this defined? The US economy is bigger; the military is stronger; its foreign interests are more secure. It just happens to be this guy's childhood when America peaked. This is just some guy inventing some narrative rooted in his own nostalgia.
This is just some guy blathering. He should rightfully be afraid to share these beliefs, because they are completely unsubstantiated and not based in reality. It's just what he "feels," which should be uninteresting to anyone else. It is journalistically irresponsible to spread such misinformation without at least some fact-checking.
It'd be weird to break urban vs. rural areas into different countries.
The same divide exists in other countries like England.