@Tucker- I have considered a more states' power type of government with a weaker central government. My only concern is that it would not unite the states and that the country would seem more like a federation of independent countries under a federal government.
You say that like it's a bad thing. I think that greater legislative diversity would lead to a decrease in disenfranchisment and thus, greater overall contentedness with government.
I think some things should be uniform throughout the US as a country, like uniform standards, policies, and other things. I do support states' rights and I personally believe that when it comes to social issues the states should be the ones that have power over those and not the federal government. However, I do think things like socialized healthcare should be uniform and equal throughout the states and that certain policies and programs should be available to every American in every state.
I think uniformity is detrimental to the long-term survival of a large nation. There is too much philosophical diversity for uniformity over great expanses to be sustained. Things will always return to the more natural level of non-uniformity.
This can happen two ways:
1. The collapse and disbanding of the nation/empire.
2. Allowing and encouraging non-uniformity through legislative diversity and localized authority.
My stance is that this state of non-uniformity is inevitable.
By trying to encourage uniformity (with the uninteded consequence of national polarization), we are setting the tone for option 1 to be the way that this non-uniformity will occur.
Things regress towards the mean. Throughout human history, the "average" was that countries were smaller autonomous entities. Diversity was the norm. Also throughout history, empires were created where a single entity took power over a large geographical area. They would always break up eventually and things returned to "normal".
I believe the basis for this is in Evolution.
Humans are not meant to be a hive or a herd animal. We are a pack animal by nature. Our ancestral survival depended on
small hunting and gathering groups. Within a smaller group, uniformity of philosophy becomes sustainable in because we are naturally inclined to have similar worldviews of a small group that we are very closely associated with. This is not to say their is uniformity in thought, even in small groups there will be diversity of thought. What I'm talking about is a shared approach in the
way that we think. There will be a syncronization in the foundational views that guide our thoughts. There is a limitted range of this foundational syncronization.
This phenomenon can be directly observed in modern society by noting the geographic deliniation of many political views.
But with modern society, we have basically tried to turn ourselves into hive animals. But our natural inclinations haven't changed. We are only capable of gaining that foundational syncronicity with a small group of people. Sicne the "groups" we are encoutnering are varied from person to person and there is a lot of overlap (instead of being focussed on a single "tribe" as it was during hunting and gathering days), that foudnational syncronization will extend further out than the "tribal" level, thus causing the geographic delineations we observe today.
But the expanse of the nation is greater than the range of this syncronization. What we then have is competition between two or more foundational belief systems. Although there may be commonalities in these belief systems, they often have major differences that make them incompatible with each other.
No legislation can exist that doesn't contain these foundational beliefs. For those who are in sync with these beliefs, the legislation will be viewed positively. For those who are not in sync with it, it will be viewed negatively. No matter what legislation is enacted at teh federal level, it will breed discontent and disenfranchisement within a significant portion of the nation's population. Often it is the majority that is discontent.
I think that the best aproach to governance is to embrace these natural tendencies instead of trying to combat them. Because in the end, these natural tendencies will win out, whether we want them to or not.
That's the end of my short novel on the merits of decentralization. :2razz:
) What am I? Anyone want to offer help to a confused person?
