The Articles of Confederation were pretty close (though obviously far from perfect) to what I’m describing as a model. The Constitution was a counter-revolution to plant the seeds of top-down imposition.

Most proponents of centralization that I have discussed these matters with usually have no clue as to what the state really is. They usually know nothing of the real history of U.S. imperialism or aggression overseas. They usually know nothing about how extensive the military-industrial complex really is. I once heard Robert Scheer say, “We don’t just have a military-industrial complex. We ARE a military-industrial complex.” Incidentally, I also heard Scheer, a lifelong leftist, say the US federal system is so corrupt and tyrannical that at this point he would prefer to take our chances with the states and private sector.

I’m not accusing FreeDem of this, but many liberals and leftists I’ve discussed this with act as if these things don’t matter. Hell, what’s killing a few million people in counterinsurgency programs in the Third World so long as we can have national health care? What’s the federal drug war so long as the Supreme Court upholds the right to have an abortion eight months into pregnancy and have gay sex in the men’s room at the airport? What’s the corporate state so long as the EPA is protecting spotted owls?

You can find out more about my perspective here:

http://attackthesystem.com/liberty-and-populism-building-an-effective-resistance-movement-for-north-america/

You’ll find my perspective is rather far removed from both conventional liberalism and conventional libertarianism in favor of a much more radical perspective.

Well, what I’m for is what might be called “cultural separatism”. Groups that are incompatible with one another should be politically autonomous from one another. On the race issue specifically, what I’m for is reparations for the creation of economically viable, culturally independent, politically sovereign black states, regions, and cantons in exchange for the dismantling of coercive integration, federal regulation of race relations, and affirmative action. The ultimate goal ought to be separation of race and state along the same lines as present day separation of church and state.

I’d apply to same principle to conflicts between the religious right and feminists/homosexuals, traditional families and counterculturalists, fascists and communists.

I wonder if you’re assuming too much similarities based on one’s location. I tend to agree that increasingly like minded people live together, but I also recognize that this isn’t a perfect correlation. Having grown up in the South, I know of many situations where a large black minority in a county can be repressed by the white majority.

Funny, my first instinct after reading the Maine example was to think of a way to disprove the France vs. England example. My argument is that the difference probably had a lot more to do with the difference between the two countries. As soon as France became centralized, they invented the concept of slave armies and went on a rampage across Europe. When you look at China versus Europe in the 15th-20th centuries, US pre-Civil War versus US today, Venice, Genoa, and Naples versus a united Italy, Prussia versus Germany, Soviet Union versus Eastern Europe today, etc. - it gets very hard to find examples where centralization has meant more freedom.

Complicating factors is that federally sponsored university professors tend to cherry pick the facts. The Civil War is used as an example of a strong centralized government creating freedom for blacks. However, had there not been a federal government in the first place, and had there been no Section 2 of Article IV of Constitution that required Northern states to return slaves, it’s likely slavery could not have survived in the South as long as it did.

Another complicating factor is that sometimes I want my local community to be authoritarian. For instance, my university had a rule banning freshman from owning cars and requiring them to live on campus. If a national government tried to do this it would be the height of tyranny. Yet the university is a community I belonged to by choice, and I was very much in favor of the regulation. The ban on owning cars made the community much tighter and made more people happy.

TGGP, and if the nation as a whole does not favor liberty and freedom, neither decentralization or centralization will work because those opposed to liberty and freedom, being in the national majority, will simply overwhelm whatever legal protections are in place to protect decentralization and regional majorities for liberty and freedom. At that point, what is the solution?

Good point. I don’t think the solution at that point is even political. At that point, you have to think very deeply about what is important to you and how you’re going to achieve it. But that’s good advice anyway, because you really can’t change others. Isn’t that what our politics comes down to, in the end?

I think it just comes down to preferences, which is great, because maybe libertarians can finally stop thinking that their principles are the end-all-be-all. The same for liberals. If decentralization is just a preference, perhaps I can be convinced that there are reasons to deemphasize it in favor of other values worth achieving.

Maybe there’s a way to empower individuals without making subservient to large, distant institutions. I’m open to it as a practical step forward towards a better world.

The basic idea is hundreds of Liechtensteins, organized as intentional states for those with a preferred cultural orientation. What Kevin Carson says about local manufacturing for local use, within a framework of stable extended families would be the economic half of what I’m talking about.

What you are proposing is that the optimal situation involves a balance, one that can probably only be identified by judgment calls rather than appeals to general philosophical principles. That sort of balancing act will go over poorly with libertarians because we tend to prefer arguments from principle over arguments from the particularities of a situation. And there are good reasons: If you don’t know the particulars of a situation, if you don’t insist on arguments from principle you’re sort of at the mercy of the person who insists that he has the facts of the situation and swears that this is a case that calls for a government intervention. Of course, while that approach has its merits, it also has obvious weaknesses, because sometimes the facts on the ground really DO merit some sort of policy response.

To aim some fire at the other side, liberals may pay lip service to the idea of a tension between central and local power, but they find it difficult to tolerate any system in which a local authority makes a bad decision and the central authority is unable to intervene. Implicit in any sort of tension between authorities in a balance of power is that sometimes the prevailing authority will make a bad decision, and you have to accept the occasional bad decision by that authority to prevent the other authority from having an absolute veto. However, a liberal is likely to insist that any failure of local authorities MUST be addressed by central authorities in ALL cases. This, of course, means that there is no real tension or balancing act, because the final say always goes to the central authorities.