How local government will save American democracy (and society)

The Prometheus Institute ^ | 06/04/2007 | M. Harrison

[tang0r]

It's quite unfortunate that American national elections are perceived as a Partisan Death Match through which 51% of the nation gets to impose its personal beliefs on the hapless 49% minority. (Kulturkampf for you Germans out there) is still raging, and is increasingly being fought over national social policy. The federal government recently has been arrogating even more authority to dictate our social and economic affairs, whether in defining marriage, inhibiting free speech, or restricting various other forms of free expression. As a result, the livelihoods and interests of every American are increasingly at stake - and are increasingly disregarded in favor of the preferences of powerful special interests. National policy is becoming even more contentious, fractured, and overflowing with candidates promising that they will do everything for everyone - and then proceeding to do nothing for anyone. The libertarian, however, knows there is a better way.

The United States, according to the Constitution, was never intended to allow such majoritarian domination. Instead, our federal system is intended to allow states to experiment with different policies, effectively serving as a laboratory through which new social or economic policies can be tested for the benefit of those who want them. The Constitution's 10th Amendment guarantees this. It says, "Powers not delegated to the federal government...are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people."

[Brilliant]

Maybe that’s the way it was intended, but that’s not the way it works.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

“Progressives like George Lakoff, I believe, retain a shred of legitimacy only because their benighted economic policies have no chance of being implemented, and thus they can't be proven wrong.”

Boy, now there’s your classic example of: pot, kettle, black.

[jackieaxe]

With Click-it-or-Ticket and No Child Left Behind, how long does local government have? And this is with a so-called Republican president.

[traviskicks]

Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[GATOR NAVY]

Boy, now there’s your classic example of: pot, kettle, black.

LMAO-I'm sure that went right over his head.

[Clinging Bitterly]

I don’t know about this outfit in general, but this piece has trouble right out of the chute. That 7th word in the title leaves me just a bit chapped every time I hear it misused as a description our our system of government.

And then the idea, that we would benefit from a patchwork of local economic systems and varying degrees and kinds of infringements of individual rights from one town to the next, is simply absurd.