Resurrect The Republic

[Aloysius]

"you disagree that a state without wages is incompetent."

not necessarily. depends on the local governments of that state, and the situation of that state. if people are being paid sub-standard wages, and the unions are unable to resolve it, and the local government isn't stepping in, and the state government isn't stepping in, then maybe the fed government can step in. not by making a nation-wide minimum wage, but by dealing with that particular state.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1396930' date='Oct 2 2007, 10:39 PM']I seems you are essentially arguing for a type of fascism (and those familiar with me will know that I am not a liberal who casually uses the word "fascist" to refer to whoever disagrees with me).

The problem in modern American government (and most other modern governments) is not too little federal government power, but too much. The federal government has grown rapidly in both size and power over the past 150 or so years. And this has done nothing to make it more virtuous, but rather more corrupt and bloated.

While the U.S. may have in practice become an empire, this says nothing about whether an empire is an ideal system. Roman imperialism went hand-in-hand with corruption, and its eventual collapse under the weight of its own over-expansion, as have most empires through history.

I am a strong believer in local autonomy and things being decided at the local level where possible.
That is subsidiarity - putting the local first, not relying on federal government to dictate every decision.

You claim strong central government is morally necessary (using an example of outlawing abortion), but this is not how it works in practice. It was in fact a violation of federalism and states' rights that brought us such judicial monstrosities as Roe v. Wade, which made abortion-on-demand the law of the land, ruling that individual states could not restrict abortion.
This is the same mentality found in Federal Court decisions banning the Ten Commandments from state courtrooms, and which some liberals now want to use to declare homosexual "marriage" a "constitutional right" which cannot be banned by states.

An all-powerful central government is a dangerous two-edged sword, and more often leads to godless tyranny than just and moral rule. It should be kept in check, not given more power, in the hope that it will somehow act for the good.
I think practically, we will sooner have anti-abortion laws, etc. in individual states than in the federal government.
Federalism and states' rights will allow for more moral government in states that choose it. Why should the people of, say, South Carolina, be ruled by the opinion of the politically correct in New York and California?[/quote]
This has been the debate in the US since the Constitution was adopted, and which of course had its ultimate expression in the Civil War, in which the matter was decided.

An "all-powerful central government" is morally neutral. Government authority can be used for good, or for evil. It is men, of course, who as the agents of that central government, act in morally good or morally evil ways.

From a pragmatic perspective, it would have been better for the Supreme Court to allow the political debate regarding abortion on demand to continue. However, it acted in accordance with its role as set out in the Constitution. As for the people in SC being ruled by the opinion of those in NY and CA, that's called "Democracy."

[kenrockthefirst]

[url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_re_us/bush_congress_ap_poll"]
Approval of Bush, Congress hits new low
[/url]
Personally, I'd be happier if we could just revert to a "village in the woods" type governance. At least in our local "town hall" meetings, I can actually have some influence, and our representatives actually respond to the "people."

[Aloysius]

according to Catholic Social Justice, powerful centralized power over local issues is, in fact, immoral. why? because it is contrary to the dignity of man. a man should not be ruled over in laws regarding his everyday life by an invisible entity that is not clearly present to him. man ought to be on a more level playing field with those who govern over him (extrapolating a theme from Rerum Novarum about how the classes need not be abolished, just brought closer together in terms of accessibility).

a man ought to be able to go complain to his town council about matters which are of importane, because a man ought to have the dignity to have a say in matters of importance in his locality.

a federal government should not be formed to govern over individuals; a federal government ought to govern over STATES, and states ought to govern over local governments, and then local governments ought to govern over individuals. When you cut out the two middle men in that formula, you act contrary to Social Justice, Subsidarity, and the dignity of man. Why? Because no man or family really has a chance of dealing with the Federal Government. A state has a chance of dealing with the federal government on an even playing field; and a local government has a chance of dealing with a state government on an even playing field, and an individual has a chance of dealing with a local government on an even playing field...

but interactions between the federal government and individuals starts to become inherently immoral (when it is not in the federal government's proper competancy to restore moral order when all more local governments have failed) because the federal government is the bully, it has all the power, the individual has less than no power, completely subject. what's he going to do? go vote for a third party candidate? wow, a lot of good that'll do him if the Federal Government decides it wants his land or something.

no, centralized power over local issues is not morally neutral, it's morally evil by nature. large and distant governments have no right to claim authority over smaller local matters; just as international bodies like the UN have no right to interfere with national sovereignty. It's Social Justice, it's Subsidarity, and our current model of strong-handed big federal central government breaks it.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1397465' date='Oct 4 2007, 01:44 PM'][url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_re_us/bush_congress_ap_poll"]
Approval of Bush, Congress hits new low
[/url]
Personally, I'd be happier if we could just revert to a "village in the woods" type governance. At least in our local "town hall" meetings, I can actually have some influence, and our representatives actually respond to the "people."[/quote]
precisely the point of the principal of subsidarity: the dignity of man is exalted, he has a real substantial influence in his local community that he does not have in large-scale abstractions of nation-states and the like.

now, subsidarity can work with non-democratic governments as well, and it is still more in keeping with man's dignity because, instead of the town hall ability to vote people out of office and be heard in your local community democratic idea, any king over a locality must live as a neighbor to those people... if he wrongs them greatly he has to live next to that mess; whereas a king over a large nation-state or an emporer, if he were to wrong a locality with some attempt at micromanaging that place, would not have to live with it.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1397467' date='Oct 4 2007, 11:45 AM']according to Catholic Social Justice, powerful centralized power over local issues is, in fact, immoral. why? because it is contrary to the dignity of man. a man should not be ruled over in laws regarding his everyday life by an invisible entity that is not clearly present to him. man ought to be on a more level playing field with those who govern over him (extrapolating a theme from Rerum Novarum about how the classes need not be abolished, just brought closer together in terms of accessibility).

a man ought to be able to go complain to his town council about matters which are of importane, because a man ought to have the dignity to have a say in matters of importance in his locality.[/quote]
Absolutely. See my post on this very matter.

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1397467' date='Oct 4 2007, 11:45 AM']a federal government should not be formed to govern over individuals; a federal government ought to govern over STATES, and states ought to govern over local governments, and then local governments ought to govern over individuals. When you cut out the two middle men in that formula, you act contrary to Social Justice, Subsidarity, and the dignity of man. Why? Because no man or family really has a chance of dealing with the Federal Government. A state has a chance of dealing with the federal government on an even playing field; and a local government has a chance of dealing with a state government on an even playing field, and an individual has a chance of dealing with a local government on an even playing field...

but interactions between the federal government and individuals starts to become inherently immoral (when it is not in the federal government's proper competancy to restore moral order when all more local governments have failed) because the federal government is the bully, it has all the power, the individual has less than no power, completely subject. what's he going to do? go vote for a third party candidate? wow, a lot of good that'll do him if the Federal Government decides it wants his land or something.

no, centralized power over local issues is not morally neutral, it's morally evil by nature. large and distant governments have no right to claim authority over smaller local matters; just as international bodies like the UN have no right to interfere with national sovereignty. It's Social Justice, it's Subsidarity, and our current model of strong-handed big federal central government breaks it.[/quote]
One word: desegregation. There's no way that the Southern states would have desegregated their schools voluntarily without the imposition from the Federal Government. It's the Federal Government's job to secure our individual rights - not necessarily govern, but make sure that it gets done - as set forth in the Bill of Rights and, in this case, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1397471' date='Oct 4 2007, 11:49 AM']precisely the point of the principal of subsidarity: the dignity of man is exalted, he has a real substantial influence in his local community that he does not have in large-scale abstractions of nation-states and the like.

now, subsidarity can work with non-democratic governments as well, and it is still more in keeping with man's dignity because, instead of the town hall ability to vote people out of office and be heard in your local community democratic idea, any king over a locality must live as a neighbor to those people... if he wrongs them greatly he has to live next to that mess; whereas a king over a large nation-state or an emporer, if he were to wrong a locality with some attempt at micromanaging that place, would not have to live with it.[/quote]
Count me in.

[Aloysius]

[quote]One word: desegregation. There's no way that the Southern states would have desegregated their schools voluntarily without the imposition from the Federal Government. It's the Federal Government's job to secure our individual rights - not necessarily govern, but make sure that it gets done - as set forth in the Bill of Rights and, in this case, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.[/quote]

See my post about what happens when a local government becomes incompetant, how the larger government becomes the competant authority to restore the moral order. That doesn't mean the Federal Government making widespread laws over all states for individuals, and that doesn't mean the federal government taking over the proper role of that state, that means interfering temporarily in the states which are incompetant in order to restore the moral order.

That could be seen as a justification for the North's agression in the Civil War. However, the Federal Government did not plan to restore states rights once moral order was restored, the Federal Government was attempting to increase its power over all the states permanently.

[Socrates]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1397441' date='Oct 4 2007, 11:13 AM']This has been the debate in the US since the Constitution was adopted, and which of course had its ultimate expression in the Civil War, in which the matter was decided.[/quote]
Something being "decided" by force of arms does not determine whether it is the right or just thing (unless you want to have a philosophy of "might-makes-right"), nor does it determine that ever-increasing central federal government power must be the path of the future. I would say the end of slavery was the only good to come out of that war, whose outcome overall has been detrimental to the Republic.
Actually, all the war decided was that the states had no right to secceed from the Union, even though this right was recognized by many before as being implied by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Lincoln himself prior to the war (Lincoln called this a "sacred right" in an 1848 speech).

The path taken by the country since Lincoln is one contrary to that invisioned by the founders, who were divided between the Federalists, who wanted a central government held in check by the states, and the Republicans, who wanted very little central government power at all over the individual states.

Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions declared that individual states could in fact nullify federal laws.

The principle of subsidiarity and states' rights is formulated in the (much neglected) Tenth Amendment:[quote][b]The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. [/b][/quote]
The Tenth Amendment has been totally disregarded by many subsequent judicial rulings.

[quote]An "all-powerful central government" is morally neutral. Government authority can be used for good, or for evil. It is men, of course, who as the agents of that central government, act in morally good or morally evil ways.[/quote]
I called it a "dangerous two-edged sword" in a prior post. The problem is that as long as government is by fallen sinful men, and especially in an age which rejects much of the Christian ethos, the tendency is too strong for it to do evil. Since power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the safest thing is to limit the power of central government so that it can do the least damage.
If a state or local government is evil or corrupt, it can only do so much damage, however if a powerful central government is rotten, the damage is far more widespread.
Those who (like "Son of Angels") want to expand the powers of the federal government in the belief that it will allow it do more good, are extremely naive in their thinking.

[quote]From a pragmatic perspective, it would have been better for the Supreme Court to allow the political debate regarding abortion on demand to continue. However, it acted in accordance with its role as set out in the Constitution.[/quote]
Actually the SCOTUS acted completely against the Constitution in Roe v. Wade, contradiciting the Tenth Amendment, and using as an excuse a completely bogus "implied" "right to privacy" nowhere actually stated in the Constitution.
The proper role of the SCOTUS is to [i]interpret[/i] the law as found in the Constitution, not change the meaning to something entirely different, and in effect legislate from the bench as in Roe v. Wade.

[quote]As for the people in SC being ruled by the opinion of those in NY and CA, that's called "Democracy."[/quote]
I do not worship this modern idol of "Democracy," and neither in fact did the American founding fathers. The word "Democracy" is nowhere found in our country's founding documents, and a number of the founders wrote rather vehemently against democracy.
America was concieved as a representative republic, not as a direct democracy.

States' rights and limited central government is both more in accord with the intention of America's founders AND with Church social teaching of subsidiarity.

Edited October 5, 2007 by Socrates

[son_of_angels]

And yet how can a local government, so close to the people, so used to pandering to the people's whims (believe me, I am from the South, I've seen how "just" local government can be), ever be competent in the eyes of the national government to exercise authority. As I said above, I am for subsidiarity, but subsidiarity, to really be a matter of competency, should belong to people who are NOT elected locally. For example, I would be very much in favor of giving as much authority as needed to the "state" governments (although I would rather us not use these federal terms, and call them provinces instead), and completely trust them to handle local affairs, so long as the governors were appointed by the president, and the mayors appointed by the governors, etc. for life.

You see, the states are dependent on the federal government nowadays. Just consider the drinking age law. The 21 year old limit is a state law, not a federal law, but because the federal government threatened, if every state did not enact the 21 year old drinking age limit, they would cut off funds to their highway departments, each state has folded to the federal government's wish. Now, this works, and indeed most of federal-state relations work, because a federal government which acts sovereignly on behalf of the whole nation intrinsically creates a great deal of power which belongs to the federal government. That power is responsibility for the conduct of the whole nation, like it or not. If the power is not used, then the nation quickly loses direction and ceases to advance, or worse, people like party politicians will take and use that power in the state governments without a competent leader.

What I am talking about is essentially political distributism, it seeks to give that national power to as many people as possible, so that subsidiarity is actually effective. The provincial governments exercise BOTH local power and the federal power in a truly effective manner, and the potential exists for the Prince of that country to unite the nation when needed. He should be always formed by the necessity of acting out of subsidiarity, because he himself appointed those governments, and lack of confidence in them by the people reflects lack of confidence in himself.

That is why I say that federalism is a gross mockery of the principle of subsidiarity, because it doesn't actually distribute the power and responsibility, it just diffuses it so that the public cannot actually know who to blame, and the leaders can always blame someone else. The point in subsidiarity should not be so that the national government can coddle the American people by extolling their "state" governments and using them thus as a shield to their own irresponsibility.

[Aloysius]

your problem is not with federalism/subsidarity, but with democracy itself. sorry, can't help you there, but Catholic Principals hold that no matter what form of government it is, monarchy democracy or republic, it is best excercised at a local level, and that far away central powers do NOT have the competancy nor the responsibility to deal with local issues.

a local government pandering to the local people is not as much of a problem in my opinion, and it's much better than a far away central power pandering only to the rich and powerful.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1397755' date='Oct 4 2007, 09:37 PM']Something being "decided" by force of arms does not determine whether it is the right or just thing (unless you want to have a philosophy of "might-makes-right"), nor does it determine that ever-increasing central federal government power must be the path of the future. I would say the end of slavery was the only good to come out of that war, whose outcome overall has been detrimental to the Republic.
Actually, all the war decided was that the states had no right to secceed from the Union, even though this right was recognized by many before as being implied by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Lincoln himself prior to the war (Lincoln called this a "sacred right" in an 1848 speech).[/quote]
The nature of Federalism in the US was debated before the adoption of the Constitution, e.g. in the Federalist Papers. A strong, centralized government was favored by the likes of Hamilton, with a more decentralized approach favored by the likes of Jefferson. This debate continued throughout the first half of the 19th century, driven primarily by - let's be honest - the issue of slavery, hence all the compromises, e.g. Maine and Missouri, etc. Perhaps the word "decided" is not completely accurate. "Asserted" would be better. What was Lincoln supposed to do when the Southern states seceded? His Constitutional role was to defend the Union. Unfortunately, he had a much different vision for the post-war South than the Johnson and the Reconstruction Congress. Who knows how things might have turned out if Lincoln hadn't been assassinated?

[quote name='Socrates' post='1397755' date='Oct 4 2007, 09:37 PM']The path taken by the country since Lincoln is one contrary to that invisioned by the founders, who were divided between the Federalists, who wanted a central government held in check by the states, and the Republicans, who wanted very little central government power at all over the individual states.

Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions declared that individual states could in fact nullify federal laws.
The principle of subsidiarity and states' rights is formulated in the (much neglected) Tenth Amendment:
The Tenth Amendment has been totally disregarded by many subsequent judicial rulings.[/quote]
As to the whether the path taken by this country is contrary to the one envisioned by the Founders, that's a matter of opinion, IMHO. The whole point of our Constitution is that's it's flexible and allows for adaptation as needed, i.e. through the Amendment process. You don't like the way it's adapted, which is fine, but nothing was foisted on you, it all happened through a Constitutional process. As for nullification, that was obviously settled by the Civil War.

[quote name='Socrates' post='1397755' date='Oct 4 2007, 09:37 PM']I called it a "dangerous two-edged sword" in a prior post. The problem is that as long as government is by fallen sinful men, and especially in an age which rejects much of the Christian ethos, the tendency is too strong for it to do evil. Since power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the safest thing is to limit the power of central government so that it can do the least damage.
If a state or local government is evil or corrupt, it can only do so much damage, however if a powerful central government is rotten, the damage is far more widespread.
Those who (like "Son of Angels") want to expand the powers of the federal government in the belief that it will allow it do more good, are extremely naive in their thinking.


Actually the SCOTUS acted completely against the Constitution in Roe v. Wade, contradiciting the Tenth Amendment, and using as an excuse a completely bogus "implied" "right to privacy" nowhere actually stated in the Constitution.
The proper role of the SCOTUS is to [i]interpret[/i] the law as found in the Constitution, not change the meaning to something entirely different, and in effect legislate from the bench as in Roe v. Wade.
I do not worship this modern idol of "Democracy," and neither in fact did the American founding fathers. The word "Democracy" is nowhere found in our country's founding documents, and a number of the founders wrote rather vehemently against democracy.
America was concieved as a representative republic, not as a direct democracy.[/quote]
Look, I'm not sure who this vile, far away government is you're talking about. In the US, [i]we're[/i] the government. Indeed, my main beef is not that "government" is bad, naughty, or whatever, but that corporatism and Big Money have so perverted the political process.

As for Roe v. Wade, the Court's job is to interpret law, as you note. I'm not sure why you think it acted outside its remit in this case.

Regarding "Democracy," yes, I painted with a broad brush. The point is, majority rules. I think that President Bush has been a train wreck for this country, and could similarly complain about the South and West forcing him on me. But that's how the system works.

[quote name='Socrates' post='1397755' date='Oct 4 2007, 09:37 PM']States' rights and limited central government is both more in accord with the intention of America's founders AND with Church social teaching of subsidiarity.[/quote]On the former point, in your opinion; on the latter, I'll leave that to those more learned than myself.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1397755' date='Oct 4 2007, 11:37 PM']The problem is that as long as government is by fallen sinful men, and especially in an age which rejects much of the Christian ethos, the tendency is too strong for it to do evil. Since power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the safest thing is to limit the power of central government so that it can do the least damage.
If a state or local government is evil or corrupt, it can only do so much damage, however if a powerful central government is rotten, the damage is far more widespread.[/quote]Are the Monarchists aware of this?