Teddy Roosevelt said:
Baresark said:
archvile93 said:
But they tried a weak central government. It failed, the indiviual states were too busy fighting amongst themselves to do anything worthwhile. I think you need a balance when it comes to the strength of governments. Too strong, it turns into a dictatorship, or at least something close that stomps on basic rights. Too weak, a nation devolves into near anarchy and collapses from infighting.
Who tried a weak central government? When did it fail?
The Articles of the Confederation were the foundation of the US government before the ratification of the Constitution in 1793. Under the Articles of the Confederation, the US Federal government held only loose power, and each state ran itself fairly independently save some small jobs of the Federal government. This did not work well.
Central government is the only catalyst to modern Human society. Total anarchy is just a bad idea (for obvious reasons), and many small, localized governments with no centralization can be even more of a problem when you think about it, because now there can be all sorts of
organized infighting, and historically that is what happened in every civilization built on city-states.
The ideal government would have to be a global centralized government, because there are no nation-states with their stockpiles of arms and numbers of soldiers to do any large scale fighting. Huge, devastating wars, like World War Two, which was really made possible by the lack of unity throughout history until the UN was formed and enforced, will no longer be possible as long as that government holds power, because only lesser militant groups could ever serve as an enemy, and they would not have the capacity for large-scale insurrection before being beaten by the global enforcement. Of course, this is assuming the government is something akin to a republic, which is what the US and many other successful nations use. It is more efficient than a democracy, and the people have power to elect officials, so everybody's happy and sufficiently qualified people are put in charge. If the government is more totalitarian, things could get interesting.
Also, in this day and age distances are no longer a factor in the satisfaction of citizens with their say in government, since communications and transportation would serve to give everyone access to government affairs and thus the ability to submit votes and what ever else you need.
I thought some philosophical debate would come about here, and that is why I asked, haha. The truth is, the articles of confederation were temporary in their design, so they didn't really fail. There was failure of that particular charter because they thought they could extend it and keep it basically as it is, only it was a temporary measure from the start and existed under conditions that it could not work for an extended period of time.
The original founders had an aversion to a strong central government. That is a given, you can see they would not want anything coming about that was anything from what they departed from (monarchy of old world). They believed that a society like they tried to build is the only way one can be free. We know this from basic history books, now is where there are departures from what we all learned in school and different opinions come in.
First off, the roll of the central government was completely laid out in the constitution. The things that it can do include things like forming a continental army from all of it's constituent parts to defend in case of attack and to defend contracts. It was not allowed to tax interstate goods and it could make no law that dictating how a state is to be run. These are just a few examples of what the central government was formed for.
You cannot say that central government is the only catalyst for human progress based solely on the fact that there is literally no evidence to back that up. When you speak of anarchy, what exactly to do you speak of? There are literally two kinds of anarchy you can find. There is the wrong definition of anarchy that everyone seems to know which goes something like there being no rules and we all go around raping and killing one another. Then there is the actual definition of anarchy which literally means, "no rulers". I for one am all about the second, because you then return to one of the primary roles of our federal government, to uphold contracts. You have the rule of property rights which is basically all inclusive (but that is a whole other subject all together). State governments are superior in almost all ways. First, they are small and are limited by the size of the population. They also do not start wars all over the world because of their size. You say that state governments are failures but you are not actually basing that off of anything. The truth is, in the ancient city states, the majority of them worked together just fine. They basically followed the idea of mutual respect and trade, the few exceptions are the ones you speak of. Sure, it wasn't peaceful and serene and perfect, but it's no worse than life today.
For a modern example, we have the Swiss. They are a small central government made up to 26 Cantons with a central seat in Bern. But, in there case there is not a strong central government because each larger portion of government up the chain is reliant on decisions made from each step up the chain. So, in New Jersey where I live, we have our local government, then county government, then counties vote for and elect legislators and a Governor that make decisions based on our needs. Now there is a break and no real connect to federal government. We as a whole vote and elect a person who fills a federal seat to represent us in Congress. This is the first main flaw of our central government. And before anyone says so, this was not always the way it was. That didn't change till the 17th amendment. It was ratified on April 8, 1913 (the same year we got our first and only central bank). It used to be legislators voted for who was going to be our federal representative. That was perfect because it did two very important things. The first thing it did was make someone who you have direct control over, responsible to a degree, and if they did something you didn't like they literally had to answer to you. The second and lesser known thing it did was keep special interest groups out of politics.
Another almost completely unknown factor in a state government is it added another kind of voting, it's called a foot vote. This is actually very important, and here is why: If you don't like the particular set of laws where you live, you can relocate to another state that is more in line with your perspective. As an example, you live in Chicago where gun ownership is completely prohibited within city limits. You have been robbed at gunpoint on four separate occasions, so you decide that perhaps a place where you are not allowed to defend yourself isn't for you, so you move to a place where you are allowed to own a gun and protect yourself and your family.
I noticed another comment sighting the Civil War as another failure of state government and why Federal government is better. First, we should dispel the myth that it was actually a civil war. A civil war is when two or more parties fight for power over a central government. This was not at all the situation America had. This is however the situation with the Communist Revolution in Cuba. The war was fought because the southern states wanted to secede from the central government that was dictating laws that destroyed the southern economy while at the same time not bringing those laws against all the northern states. It was the overly strong central government that was responsible for the so called "Civil War".
Now, onto your allegations as to why WW2 happened. A lot of historians, such as Thomas Woods Jr., say the reasons for WW2 was in reality the unfair treatment of Germany due to the Treaty of Versailles. This can further be traced back to America intervention in WW1. Basically, if America did not enter the war, neither side would have won. No one side had the ability to defeat the other till America entered the war. They would have been forced to find a peaceful diplomatic solution, and there would have been no Treaty, and then there wouldn't have been such a massive depression in Germany, then Hitler would not have been able to take power and using his strong central government, invade and conquer his neighbors.
Sure, if we were all one people it wouldn't have happened, but a one world government isn't possible for the simple reason we are all so different. The reality is, no one wants to be told how to live. No Christian wants to be told by a Muslim how to live and vice versa. No atheist wants to be told by any religion how to live and what they are and are not allowed to do. This is why a one world government isn't possible. As it stands now, if your Muslim and want live like a Muslim, you are allowed to, and the same goes for Christians and Jews and Catholics, etc. But you cannot dictate how a culture on the other side of the world is allowed to live, and thank god for that. This further drives home why state governments are superior. If we only had a central government, everything would be the same as everywhere else here. As it stands, people in Chicago can move to Easton PA and buy a gun to defend themselves. In the "Civil War" era, if you didn't like slavery, you could move to a place that didn't have it.
There is so much to talk about in regards to this.. but I'm stopping myself here.
