The big problem is to figure out how to restrict the harms the urban areas cause to those areas. That's where nearly all the problems are coming from, and yet they have just slightly more votes. A proper Federalism using the 50 states might not do it, as the urban areas can overawe the decent parts of their states. But a federalism that treats urban areas as states in themselves -- maybe. It would mean increasing the number of states by a few dozen, in return for having rural states that could really live according to traditional mores without the chaos caused by these urban areas.
I talked about Democrat fiefdoms years ago.
ReplyDeleteYou're arguing against history. The cities always win in the end, because that's where the people are.
ReplyDeleteLike Lenin said, "who, does what, to whom".
ReplyDeleteIt is no fun to govern those who believe in your goals, no, it is way more titillating to jam your ideas by force down the throats of your enemies. The left cannot and will not leave anyone alone, no matter how far they go, there is always another step, all the way to the gulag, because their goal is power.
The cities always win in the end, because that's where the people are.
ReplyDeleteThis actually vastly understates the degree to which that is the case. Over 80% of the American population lives in urban areas, just not in one of these several most populous counties.
Still, I read that Ireland recently lifted the ban on drunk driving in rural areas but not urban ones: they decided that the harm caused by the loss of pub culture in rural areas greatly outweighed the risk of a drunken driver or two on largely empty country roads.
So it's not impossible.
What has gone before may not repeat- a cities strength is also it's weakness. An example is the great population out-flow during the plague.
ReplyDeleteOne could argue the modern city is uniquely vulnerable to the leverage created by technology. I am speaking of course of the "continuation of politics by other means."
And Ireland has a population of what? That said, policing in the US has largely turned in to revenue collection. You might change that, but it ain't the way to bet.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right, that map does understate population density for most of the country. But you can't magic away the population centers and end up with some sort of virtuous, rural peasantry or yeomen or whatever. You are arguing for social engineering on a scale that you are against.
What I am arguing for is not social engineering at all, but a kind of Federalism that brackets regions with obviously different interests, cultures, and problems, and allows them to set different rules to address those differences.
ReplyDeleteThe 10th Amendment would be a good start (it being already on the books and all). You wouldn't have to do any engineering. You'd just have to be willing to raise barriers to outside influence.
By the same token, places like Chicago could stop worrying about the NRA using the Federal government to force them to accept rural standards on gun control. It's in everybody's interests, if you can swallow the pill of not being able to tell the other guys what to do.
You'd just have to be willing to raise barriers to outside influence.
ReplyDeleteSince when in the history of the Republic has that been the case?
As for Chicago, their gun control laws aren't working out very well for them are they? How would that change with your idea of Federalism.
It brings to mind the "wet" and "dry" counties across the South that fostered a culture of law-breaking that was basically celebrated in popular culture from Robert Mitchum movies to Steve Earle songs.
What the country really needs is less laws, not more, and not so different per locality that crap like the above happens.
Every law that is made is enforced if need be, by the business end of a gun.
I'd be very happy with fewer laws, and fewer policemen, sure. If you figure out how to get us there, let me know. In the meantime, I'd be happy to accept quarantine of the worst areas' effects to their city limits, rather than seeing their preferences enshrined in Federal laws.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, Chicago gun laws don't work. But it's a Chicago politician who now wants Congress to give him a very similar set of powers to restrict the Second Amendment everywhere. I don't like Chicago gun control one bit, but I like it better if it stays in Chicago.
The desire to make 318 million people live by the exact same laws and standards is a ridiculous over-reach, and is frankly completely at the hands of the abandonment of the Tenth Amendment. What works in South Carolina may not work in California. And Texas is not Vermont. Why try to make everyone live like that is not so? And more over, by forcing everyone to live under whatever standards are set by a national "consensus", you end up forcing those who cannot live under that standard into more and more desperate circumstances. Right now, it has not yet reached a point where the only recourse is civil war or peaceable secession, but the day will come. And it will come because one side will finally cross a line that the other simply will not abide.
ReplyDeleteIf, for example, a Hillary Clinton becomes President and gets a majority House and Senate, or simply uses Presidential fiat to severely restrict Second Amendment rights, you will see that line crossed. Or potentially if a Supreme Court decision comes down forbidding union only shops, in effect making the nation "right to work", you could see a revolt from the left. But the fact of the matter is, forcing people in one community to live by standards insufferable to another community, and removing the ability to simply move somewhere else that has standards matching your own has dire consequences. Ultimately, that is unavoidable, I fear.
People control often works. Gun control is a smoke screen the peasants are told to buy and they do as they are told.
ReplyDeleteGhenghis Khan and the Golden Horde had an interesting solution to communities that refused to live together. Alexander did as well.
ReplyDelete