re good neighbor political hypocrisy test in article qumqkinnq i senator bedfellow mit edu wdstarr athena mit edu william december starr writes ca politics omitted from the distribution line because my site s news posting software doesn t believe in it and refuses to try to post to it i sure hope that matt also reads either a f r l or t p m saw it in t p m thanks in article c qk t qk voder nsc com matt galaxy nsc com matt freivald x said i like to call the form of government that i advocate fractal federalism with fractal federalism there is a representative national government that has only certain limited powers to do what is absolutely necessary at that level next there are the state governments again with only absolutely necessary powers onward to counties cities townships districts and neighborhoods the lowest read most local levels are the ones that have the most power over individuals day to day lives which is good because that is the level where individuals have the most voice you know if you take all this to its logical conclusion doesn t it seem that the real lowest level the level where individuals have the most voice is that of the single individuals themselves why have you omitted that level from your model yes and the individual is not omitted i just didn t fully articulate the principles of fractal federalism all government powers derive from the people each level can receive a new power from the level below through the amendment process where a true consensus say a majority writes that power into the constitution of the level above in the case of the lowest level an amendement is passed by a majority vote in the case of higher levels it must be passed by of the legislatures we can of course haggle about the specifics of true consensus when we hold our constitutional convention once a power has been granted it may be exercised by the legislature powers not in the original constitutions must percolate upward starting from the individual the ratification process for the original constitutions should involve consensus and not simply a plurality or majority granting a right in a constitution is of course the same as empowering the government at that level to restrict the activities of the governments at the lower levels so it operates in the same way as the amendment process again that crazy resemblance to the supposed but not actual u s government structure this government structure is a very frustrating one for those people read liberals who would like to have concentrated power to use the government to force people to do good a difficult to define word and one that it is difficult to reach a consensus on it is also a frustrating structure for those who want to use the government to dictate personal behavior read big government conservatives i personally would rather see those types of people frustrated than the incredible erosion of liberty both civil and economic that is going on now this is imho a good government stucture for those who see the role of government as the protection of individual liberties while still recognizing that individuals need to have some influence in the type of community that they live in a free market works on government not just economics succesful ideas propogate unsuccessful ideas die what is your definition of a successful idea or a successful government one which maintains peace liberty and the opportunity for happiness for its people while working within the realities of human nature you do bring up the point intentional or not that a lasting idea is by no means necessarily a successful idea i believe that fractal federalism would at least bring many ideas to light and the people would have the opportunity to democratically choose between good ideas and bad ideas if the docialists er i mean democrats are right and government activism fosters a prosperous people they will have a plethora of local opportunities to check their thesis if libertopia is possible it will arise if a balanced conservative republic is democratically received as the best level of government activity it will become clear to the people that it is best as far as set the moral tone is concerned if a community does not collectively want to put up with prostitution going on in front of their kids why should they have to if a community does not want to see proliferation of drugs among their kids why should they have to for the same reason that they have to put up with a church operating right out in the open where their kids can see it and with the owner of the house across the street flying an american flag right out there in the open every day in front of their kids it s called freedom if they don t like the ideas to which their kids are exposed they can try to educate and persuade their kids as to why the things that they re seeing other people doing are wrong or bad right and people would not rescind any freedoms read empower the government except through the amendment process that is how the federal government is supposed to work now but the supreme soviet er i mean the supreme court put a stop to that republican government nonsense in my hypothetical government if there were a constitutional provision empowering the government to regulate churches the government whatever level we are talking about could indeed ban churches the constitutional provision would be invalid if a higher level had a constitutional provision protecting free exercise of religion the uppermost constitution is still the supreme law of the land i find it interesting that you applaud the idea of free market competition among various ideas and yet support the right of he majority in a community to suppress ideas which they don t like it is a matter of individuals being able to control their own associations and environment not a matter of suppression of ideas one dilemma of the human condition is that individuals need liberty and they also need to have some control over their environment in my fractal federalism government certain rights are protected by the constitutions other rights are protected simply because the government has not been empowered to infringe upon them when a consensus is reached that the government should have a certain power then freedom is infringed upon this cannot be avoided murder statutes infringe upon freedom but i think that the consensus of the american people is that murder statutes are a good idea i am sure that many parents believe that they have a right to control the environment that their children live in people feel that they have a right to sleep peacefully at night thus there are noise ordinances there are zoning laws that keep businesses from overrunning residential neighborhoods i do not view these as bad things certainly some individual instances are bad but the concept is not necessarily bad i view them as the people in a community having some control over the type of community that they live in i see the alternative as near anarchy like i said in another post if you can come up with a scenario where an individual can do something truly autonomously with absolutely zero effect on anyone else then no individual or government has the right to restrict that activity there are simply not very many behaviors that fit into the category of the truly autonomous so the whole thing becomes an issue of one individual or group having power over another individual or group i think that the fractal federalism approach is a sound if not ideal approach to limiting this restrictive power the libertarian scenario degenerates to might makes right and the system we have right now is one of lawyers abusing natural rights philosophy to decide what powers the government should have by subverting the democratic process though the supreme court the problem with the egalitarian view is that it tries to deny the fundamental dilemma of democratic government the people have a right to exercise a voice in their community yet individuals have the right to be left to themselves this is a serious dilemma precisely because there is not much that takes place in a vacuum oddly enough if what you say is taken literally there is little or no conflict the people do indeed have a right to exercise a voice where voice equals persuasive speech in their communities it s only when they somehow get the idea into their heads that they also have a right to dictate behavior in their communities that the trouble begins i think i answered this above already but let me expand a little more with an example if i stand naked in front of your house and masturbate in front of your children while they play in your libertarian small l scenario the only recourse you have is to yell at me autonomous is a value judgement of the time it is not a scientific reality with a clear definition exactly who would you empower to make that value judgement stuff deleted certainly not the only cause mike but people in a local neighborhood should have a voice in what goes on in that neighborhood to deny this is to create another concentrated centralized power to keep the locality from abusing its power in essence using a pit bull to keep a toy poodle from biting your leg chances are the pit bull is going to turn on you some day and you have much less defense against it than you do against the toy poodle the argument here appears to be that tyranny of the individual by the local majority is superior to having the federal government have and exercise the power to protect the individual from his neighbors because that federal government will eventually and inevitably become corrupt and use its power to tyrannize everyone okay there s a lot of truth in that certainly we re seeing something like that happening in the united states today though it s unclear that he progression here matches the model since our beloved and benign federal government hasn t ever shown much enthusiasm for the idea of protecting any individuals lots of people are long on complaints and short on practical solutions although i am pessimistic that my idea will ever bear fruit i am at least trying to be long on solutions also i am truly interested if you have any improvements to make on my ideas i call them my ideas but they all come from an average guy reading of the u s constitution without benefit of the indoctrination of constitutional law academia but i have to say that i think that your solution is at least just as bad trading the yoke of federal tyranny for the yoke of local tyranny doesn t cheer me up much i think i d prefer to put my faith in a larger government that at least might protect the individual from time to time rather than place it in local mob rule admittedly it s the lesser of two evils and it s not less by very much and they re both pretty damn evil sorry the confusion was my fault when i said that fractal federalism resembles the u s constitution i meant it and thought it was pretty clear i should have more clearly explained that the ultimate derivation of government power is from the consensus of the people although not the consent of every individual a practical observation not a moral judgement it is certainly better than having all government power derive from nine lawyers which is the situation we have now that is why i think the supreme court should be a jury court with a different jury for each case it is certainly not perfect no philosophy of government is but do you still find it a repugnant idea if so what is your solution ideally everyone would leave everyone else alone and no government coercive power of any kind would be necessary this will never work because people are different and by their nature they will always want to force their views on others if this were not the case nobody would try to force their view that murder is wrong on anyone else this is true the question is what we you going to do about it your proposed solution seems to actually encourage these bozos to lord it over their victims i think that you misunderstood the structure of the form of government i advocate and it was my fault for not being more clear oh and by the way liborgalism thinking is irrelevant integrity is irrelevant free speech is irrelevant private property is irrelevant personal responsibility is irrelevant conservativism is futile you will be assimilated how much would freedom of speech or private property rights be respected in a community in which the majority was allowed to make all the rules that man s saying things in public that i don t want my children exposed to let s shut him up those homos are living together and fornicating in that house over there let s run em outta town the majority does not make the rules the majority or possibly a plurality simply elects representatives to exercise limited government powers those limited government powers derive from a large consensus not a simple majority and the federal government in my scenario still has the power to protect freedoms william december starr wdstarr athena mit edu matt freivald liborgalism thinking is irrelevant integrity is irrelevant free speech is irrelevant private property is irrelevant personal responsibility is irrelevant conservativism is futile you will be assimilated these are my opinions only and not those of my employer
