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Anti Federalist
05-14-2018, 12:34 PM
One of the sure signs of a weak premise or article, is when the headline is phrased in the form of a question.

The answer, never really given in the following piece is, of course it is.

The solution, also not given, is to dissolve, to create smaller blocs that address and respect the citizen's desires to create a society in which they want to live:

in the absence of cultural and institutional supports, heterogeneity and trust are frequently in tension, as different ways of life give rise to suspicion and animosity. Without at least a veneer of trust among diverse social groups, politics spirals downward.

The author then goes on to state, after asking the question, that nothing can change other than demanding people accept more "democracy".



Is the United States Too Big to Govern?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/opinion/sunday/united-states-too-big.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopi nion

By Neil Gross

Mr. Gross is a professor of sociology.

May 11, 2018

Last month the Pew Research Center released a poll showing that Americans are losing faith in their system of government. Only one-fifth of adults surveyed believe democracy is working “very well” in the United States, while two-thirds say “significant changes” are needed to governmental “design and structure.”

The 2016 election is one explanation for these findings. Something is not right in a country where Donald Trump is able to win the presidency.

But here’s another possibility: What if trust in American democracy is eroding because the nation has become too big to be effectively governed through traditional means? With a population of more than 325 million and an enormously complex society, perhaps this country has passed a point where — no matter whom we elect — it risks becoming permanently dissatisfied with legislative and governmental performance.

Political thinkers, worried about the problem of size, have long advocated small republics. Plato and Aristotle admired the city-state because they thought reason and virtue could prevail only when a polis was small enough that citizens could be acquaintances. Montesquieu, the 18th-century French political philosopher, picked up where the ancient Greeks left off, arguing for the benefits of small territories. “In a large republic,” he wrote, “the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations,” whereas in a smaller one the common good “is more strongly felt, better known, and closer to each citizen.”

The framers of the United States Constitution were keenly aware of these arguments. As the political scientists Robert Dahl and Edward Tufte noted in their 1973 book, “Size and Democracy,” the framers embraced federalism partly because they thought that states were closer in scale to the classical ideal. Ultimately, however, a counterargument advanced by James Madison won the day: Larger republics better protected democracy, he claimed, because their natural political diversity made it difficult for any supersized faction to form and dominate.

Two and a half centuries later, the accumulated social science suggests that Madison’s optimism was misplaced. Smaller, it seems, is better.

There are clear economic and military advantages to being a large country. But when it comes to democracy, the benefits of largeness — defined by population or geographic area — are hard to find. Examining data on the world’s nations from the 19th century until today, the political scientists John Gerring and Wouter Veenendaal recently discovered that although size is correlated with electoral competition (in line with the Madisonian argument), there is no association between size and many other standard measures of democratic functioning, such as limits on executive power or the provision of human rights.

In fact, large nations turn out to have what the political scientist Pippa Norris has called “democratic deficits”: They don’t fully satisfy their citizens’ demands for democracy. For one thing, citizens in large nations are generally less involved in politics and feel they have less of a voice. Voter turnout is lower. According to the political scientist Karen Remmer, smaller-scale political entities encourage voting in ways large ones can’t by “creating a sense of community” and “enforcing norms of citizenship responsibility.” In addition, small countries promote political involvement by leaning heavily on forms of direct democracy, like referendums or citizen assemblies.

A second problem is political responsiveness: The policies of large nations can be slow to change, even if change is needed and desired. In a book published last year, the sociologists John Campbell and John Hall compared the reactions to the 2007-2008 financial crisis in Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland. These three small countries didn’t cause the crisis; a homegrown Irish housing bubble notwithstanding, the shock wave they dealt with came from America. But though the countries were economically vulnerable, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Hall observed, this vulnerability fostered unexpected resilience and creativity, generating in each nation “a sense of solidarity or ‘we-ness’” that brought together politicians, regulators and bankers eager to do whatever was necessary to calm markets.

With the United States lacking the same sense of shared fate and vulnerability, American policymakers could organize only a tepid response, which helps explain why the recovery here was so slow. This theory sheds light as well on developments in environmental and social welfare policy, where it is increasingly common to find a complacent America lagging behind its smaller, more innovative peers.

Finally, largeness can take a toll on citizen trust. The presence of a wide variety of social groups and cultures is the primary reason for this. Nearly all scholars who study country size recognize, as Madison did, that large nations are more socially heterogeneous, whether because they represent an amalgamation of different regions, each with its own ethnolinguistic, religious or cultural heritage; or because their economic vitality encourages immigration; or because population size and geographic spread promote the growth of distinctive subcultures; or because they have more differentiated class structures.

It isn’t inevitable that a large amount of social variation would undermine trust. Well-governed societies like Canada address the issue by stitching diversity and multiculturalism into their national identities. Yet in the absence of cultural and institutional supports, heterogeneity and trust are frequently in tension, as different ways of life give rise to suspicion and animosity. Without at least a veneer of trust among diverse social groups, politics spirals downward.

The challenges of American largeness are here to stay. The task now is for individuals, civic organizations and institutions to commit themselves to building stronger communities and a renewed sense of shared responsibility and trust among different groups. Within the constraints of our nation’s size, we can create conditions for as much democracy as possible.

r3volution 3.0
05-14-2018, 04:45 PM
The appeal of federalism is largely based on an illusion. The states are indeed relatively benign compared to the federal government, but this isn't because they're smaller or more homogeneous; it's because they're not sovereign. The federal government prevents the states from doing certain things, either by law or by crowding-out. Eliminate the federal government, and the newly sovereign states will assume many of its functions and come to resemble it.

euphemia
05-14-2018, 04:57 PM
It is not too big to govern. What it is too big to do is have all law enforced at the federal level. The Constitutional limitation on government should reduce that role to national defense and the judicial system and prisons. States and municipalities should bear the responsibility for governing the people who live there.

In my opinion, there should be almost nothing happening between the individual and the federal government. There shouldn't be much between Tennessee and me, and only a little between Davidson county and me.

Swordsmyth
05-14-2018, 05:00 PM
The appeal of federalism is largely based on an illusion. The states are indeed relatively benign compared to the federal government, but this isn't because they're smaller or more homogeneous; it's because they're not sovereign. The federal government prevents the states from doing certain things, either by law or by crowding-out. Eliminate the federal government, and the newly sovereign states will assume many of its functions and come to resemble it.

Which is why I don't want any of the better states to leave the union, if they chose to I would say they had the right but losing the Constitution rather than improving it isn't a good idea.

Krugminator2
05-14-2018, 05:07 PM
The appeal of federalism is largely based on an illusion. The states are indeed relatively benign compared to the federal government, but this isn't because they're smaller or more homogeneous; it's because they're not sovereign. The federal government prevents the states from doing certain things, either by law or by crowding-out. Eliminate the federal government, and the newly sovereign states will assume many of its functions and come to resemble it.


You could make the country libertarian on domestic issues overnight through the judiciary and there would be nothing the legislature or states could do about it. Just reassert the 14th Amendment and almost everything becomes unconstitutional. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/17/7628543/rand-paul-lochner

You would eliminate any law that infringed on freedom of contract which would eliminate drug laws, work regulations, and pretty much anything where you have people voluntarily consenting. Liberal judges used that aspect of the 14th Amendment to make abortion and contraception legal. All you would need are a few Andrew Napolitano's on the court to make the laws consistent and allow the same 15 year old girl the right of abortion the right work for $5 an hour.

r3volution 3.0
05-14-2018, 05:10 PM
You could make the country libertarian on domestic issues overnight through the judiciary and there would be nothing the legislature or states could do about it. Just reassert the 14th Amendment and almost everything becomes unconstitutional. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/17/7628543/rand-paul-lochner

You would eliminate any law that infringed on freedom of contract which would eliminate drug laws, work regulations, and pretty much anything where you have people voluntarily consenting. Liberal judges used that aspect of the 14th Amendment to make abortion and contraception legal. All you would need are a few Andrew Napolitano's on the court to make the laws consistent and allow the same 15 year old girl the right of abortion the right work for $5 an hour.

That's true, but it's a double-edged sword.

phill4paul
05-14-2018, 05:21 PM
The country, as a whole, was never meant to be governed. It was to be made of individual states that, acting with each other, formed a Confederation for mutual defense. Of course, that shit went out the window as soon as the CONstitution was formed. Then men, who didn't want to do physical work for a living, perverted it to the point we now stand. So, fuck 'em.

Henry Rogue
05-14-2018, 06:19 PM
Dunbar Number

The Rule of 150 was coined by British Anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, and is defined as the “suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships and thus numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group.

Occam's Banana
05-14-2018, 08:10 PM
And this goes here ...

Is America Too Big?
Is America too big for democracy? Too big for its traditional republican form? What does it mean if the answer is yes? This video series proposes that the source of our biggest social and political problems is our SIZE. Like the, obese, 600 pound man who experiences heart failure, diabetes, and dozens of other ailments, so too does America, only its diseases go by the names Debt, War, Entitlements, Gridlock, and Corruption. Our problems cannot be fixed through any change in ideology or bi-partisan agreement in Congress, because those are not the root of our problems. The source is our size. As America's population increases, the level of representation and control each voter has must inexorably decrease. As power centralizes in a federal government, literally out of the hands of its citizens, conflicts and problems mount. What can be done? Please watch and join the conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCNd7h0fsdE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCNd7h0fsdE

euphemia
05-14-2018, 08:14 PM
The country, as a whole, was never meant to be governed. It was to be made of individual states that, acting with each other, formed a Confederation for mutual defense. Of course, that $#@! went out the window as soon as the CONstitution was formed. Then men, who didn't want to do physical work for a living, perverted it to the point we now stand. So, $#@! 'em.

That's what I meant. You said it way better.

TheTexan
05-14-2018, 09:17 PM
The government may be starting to be too big to govern by ourselves.

We might have to start giving the UN more power, to make it easier for us

Ender
05-14-2018, 09:25 PM
The country, as a whole, was never meant to be governed. It was to be made of individual states that, acting with each other, formed a Confederation for mutual defense. Of course, that $#@! went out the window as soon as the CONstitution was formed. Then men, who didn't want to do physical work for a living, perverted it to the point we now stand. So, $#@! 'em.

^^^THIS^^^

And Lincoln finished off the power grab that the CONstitutional coup started.

oyarde
05-14-2018, 09:46 PM
I feel no great need to be governed . Those that want to be should be sent away .

Raginfridus
05-14-2018, 09:47 PM
The government may be starting to be too big to govern by ourselves.

We might have to start giving the UN more power, to make it easier for us

No job is too big for Texas.

heavenlyboy34
05-14-2018, 11:51 PM
The country, as a whole, was never meant to be governed. It was to be made of individual states that, acting with each other, formed a Confederation for mutual defense. Of course, that shit went out the window as soon as the CONstitution was formed. Then men, who didn't want to do physical work for a living, perverted it to the point we now stand. So, fuck 'em.

+rep thread winner. :D :cool:

Danke
05-15-2018, 12:14 AM
I feel no great need to be governed .


That is why civilized society was forced to create reservations.

nobody's_hero
05-15-2018, 12:57 AM
The appeal of federalism is largely based on an illusion. The states are indeed relatively benign compared to the federal government, but this isn't because they're smaller or more homogeneous; it's because they're not sovereign. The federal government prevents the states from doing certain things, either by law or by crowding-out. Eliminate the federal government, and the newly sovereign states will assume many of its functions and come to resemble it.

But you'll have options, so goes the argument. If I live in Chattanooga and Tennessee becomes too tyrannical, I can get in my car and drive for 15 minutes and be free(r) in Georgia. Provided of course, I could make it through Tennessee's road blocks. Whereas if the federal government turns into the 4th Reich, we're all fk'd, together.

Raginfridus
05-15-2018, 01:13 AM
Israel is 4th Reich. We're at best a 6 or 7. Would not bang.

shakey1
05-15-2018, 07:46 AM
Is the United States Too Big to Govern?

The government is too big for the US.:cool:

euphemia
05-15-2018, 07:57 AM
The government is too big for the US.:cool:

This ^^^^

Occam's Banana
05-15-2018, 08:21 AM
A big country requires a big government ...

donnay
05-15-2018, 08:23 AM
The government is too big for the US.:cool:

+rep


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IlcDvXaUCw

pcosmar
05-15-2018, 08:49 AM
I feel no great need to be governed . Those that want to be should be sent away .

We are few.

I live among them.. slaves begging for a Master.

and I don't even want to rule them

Madison320
05-15-2018, 08:59 AM
I think there's an optimal range for the size of a government. Too small and most of the interactions are with other countries. Also you can't defend yourself. Too big and it gets out of hand and sort of grows on autopilot. I think the US is too big. There are examples of smaller countries reversing course and shrinking government without a revolution, like New Zealand and some of the Scandinavian countries for example.

r3volution 3.0
05-15-2018, 10:02 AM
But you'll have options, so goes the argument. If I live in Chattanooga and Tennessee becomes too tyrannical, I can get in my car and drive for 15 minutes and be free(r) in Georgia. Provided of course, I could make it through Tennessee's road blocks. Whereas if the federal government turns into the 4th Reich, we're all fk'd, together.

Do my eyes deceive me, or are you making an argument for free immigration?

TheCount
05-15-2018, 11:16 AM
You could make the country libertarian on domestic issues overnight through the judiciary and there would be nothing the legislature or states could do about it. Just reassert the 14th Amendment and almost everything becomes unconstitutional.

You're reinforcing his point.

Yes, states could be held to a libertarian standard by a libertarian federal government. But who, then, holds the federal government to a libertarian standard?

If the whole country were to be libertarian enough for long enough to produce a libertarian majority on the supreme court, how necessary would that enforcement be? If the people ceased being/voting libertarian, for how long would the libertarian standard be maintained by the judiciary?

enhanced_deficit
05-15-2018, 11:21 AM
What is 'governance' ... but for centralized profiteers bigger country is better to have a freedom packed, high powered police state at home and military centric freedom spreading empire around the globe. You can't do that if you're the size of Sweden.

r3volution 3.0
05-15-2018, 11:52 AM
I think there's an optimal range for the size of a government. Too small and most of the interactions are with other countries. Also you can't defend yourself. Too big and it gets out of hand and sort of grows on autopilot. I think the US is too big. There are examples of smaller countries reversing course and shrinking government without a revolution, like New Zealand and some of the Scandinavian countries for example.

When an organization grows beyond the ability of the managers to manage, there's a disconnect between the goals of the managers and the actual behavior of the organization. What this means in detail depends on the goals of the managers in the first place. In business, owners losing control means that the business loses the profit motive (the owners still have it, but they aren't really directing the business), with resulting inefficiencies (always a bad thing). In politics, it's not so clear. The rulers will be less able to carry out their goals as the state gets larger, but that's only bad if their goals are good. If the rulers are libertarians, you want the state apparatus to efficiently carry out their orders; if the rulers are the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, you want the state to be as inefficient as possible. The size of the state doesn't itself determine how libertarian/unlibertarian the state will be.

Swordsmyth
05-15-2018, 01:56 PM
A big country requires a big government ...

Not true, the bigger the country the smaller the government must be.

heavenlyboy34
05-15-2018, 02:31 PM
Not true, the bigger the country the smaller the government must be.

Your beloved CONstitution spells out how the government is *supposed* to grow in accordance with population size in Article I, Section 2. Big government document is big government. If the rules were actually followed, there would be 30,000 people in the House.

Swordsmyth
05-15-2018, 02:40 PM
Your beloved CONstitution spells out how the government is *supposed* to grow in accordance with population size in Article I, Section 2. Big government document is big government.

The Constitution is far from perfect but having more representatives for more people is hardly what is usually meant by "big government", government is "big" when it controls more things or has more power.

If you have been paying attention you would know that I support a system where each representative may hold multiple "seats" based on his share of the vote, this would have given Dr. Ron many votes and would reduce the number of representatives while keeping the minimum threshold size of a constituency small enough to hold representatives responsible.

Why not give each Rep. multiple votes? (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?504767-Why-not-give-each-Rep-multiple-votes&highlight=multiple+votes)

Krugminator2
05-15-2018, 03:44 PM
You're reinforcing his point.

Yes, states could be held to a libertarian standard by a libertarian federal government. But who, then, holds the federal government to a libertarian standard?

If the whole country were to be libertarian enough for long enough to produce a libertarian majority on the supreme court, how necessary would that enforcement be? If the people ceased being/voting libertarian, for how long would the libertarian standard be maintained by the judiciary?

That makes sense, because I basically agreed with it. My point is the judiciary is the most likely place to result in libertarianism because it is the least accountable to voters.

Champ
05-15-2018, 04:50 PM
To even hint at the idea that we need a reduction in the size of government. Blasphemy. Who would build the roads?

Occam's Banana
05-15-2018, 08:54 PM
Not true, the bigger the country the smaller the government must be.

Yeah, sure, okay.

How's that working out for you?

Swordsmyth
05-15-2018, 09:00 PM
Yeah, sure, okay.

How's that working out for you?
Poorly, people aren't following that rule it makes things terrible.

Occam's Banana
05-15-2018, 09:09 PM
Poorly, people aren't following that rule it makes things terrible.

QED

Swordsmyth
05-15-2018, 09:11 PM
QED
If you like to think so you may.

nobody's_hero
05-17-2018, 01:46 PM
Do my eyes deceive me, or are you making an argument for free immigration?

I'm making an argument for borders and jurisdictions, and separation thereof. Every day I wake up and thank heavens that California's border is some 2,000 miles away from Georgia. Whereas If California controlled everything, we'd be fk'd.

r3volution 3.0
05-17-2018, 05:16 PM
I'm making an argument for borders and jurisdictions, and separation thereof. Every day I wake up and thank heavens that California's border is some 2,000 miles away from Georgia. Whereas If California controlled everything, we'd be fk'd.

But a variety of jurisdictions wouldn't be useful in the way you suggest if people weren't able to actually travel between them, no?

Raginfridus
05-17-2018, 05:21 PM
Poorly, people aren't following that rule it makes things terrible.What rule?

Swordsmyth
05-17-2018, 06:52 PM
What rule?


http://www.ronpaulforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Swordsmyth http://www.ronpaulforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?p=6629559#post6629559)

Not true, the bigger the country the smaller the government must be.



...

Weston White
05-18-2018, 04:59 AM
Our federal government is not coextensive to enduring a national government. The several states are of a strong form of governance, existing as distinctly sovereign, excepting only that which is enumerated under the authority of our federal government. We are only democratic so far as our system of voting to elect accountable representatives and in certain respects goes beyond mere majority voting for things such as constitutional amendments, treaties, and tax increases; while, in all other political matters we are a constitutional republic, being of strictly defined powers.