On The Inherent Superiority And Vital Necessity Of A Strong Decentralized Government

[dionysusdevotee]

Recently here http://www.facebook.com/shannon.moore.5099/posts/199633946830821

I ended up in a conversation about the merits of a strong central government Vs a weak one that promotes the individual rights of smaller governments.  Unsurprisingly, I liked what I had to say, and in an age of not-even-creeping totalitarianism, I think these ideas are vitally important.  So I thought I'd share;

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    We are now discussing whether decentralization or Centralization is the best solution for ALL potential forms of tyranny. A completely different subject. I am going to make the case for decentralization, or at least a balance of power.
    
    As to you finding it non-persuasive. Here's what I don't think you're seeing. The purpose of our system of government is not to prevent anything from ever going wrong. It is not a utopian model. Its purpose is to prevent the things that will go wrong from turning into epic disasters. The balance of powers between the state and Federal government is not meant to prevent injustice from ever occurring, its meant to keep that injustice from spreading.
    Imagine if the South had the centralist, Imperialist attitude that the north had. Imagine the south had won. Which would have been the greater disaster? That the south Secede, win the war, and be content with their own sovereignty, or that they adopt the totalitarian attitude of the North, and spread slavery across North America (and given our history since, perhaps from there, beyond)?
    
    Centralization is fine if you start with the assumption that the top of the pyramid is good, and will do the right thing. Here's the problem. That requires an act of faith, a gamble, where the stakes are simply too high.
    
    Why did we (allegedly) get into the world wars? Because we perhaps rightly feared people that were our enemies wouldn't stop. That their centrally planned dystopic nightmare would spread until there was no escape. "we would be speaking German" goes the saying. The communist Empire vs corporate fascist imperialism. Diet Vs. Cherry flavored Suck. Ask Afghanistan.
    
    Not only do these Great centralized powers throughout history have a very solid reputation of spreading despotism, mass murder, literal or virtual slavery, (there is a fairly good argument that the 'civil war' was simply an argument over what kind of slavery we would have), rape, pillage and plunder of the common people for the benefit of the powerful throughout history; I find it difficult to think of a single exception...Unless you buy that whole 'they hate us for our freedoms, death to the evildoers, American exceptionalism' nonsense. And I know you don't.
    
    So, here's my two points. What is the worst case scenario in a decentralized, balanced powers environment in the case of despotism? A state or two decides to 'Go Hitler' and either they get away with it for a long, long time OR the other states decide "you are a threat, were going to band together and squash you until you learn to play nice with others".
    In the former, at least there is somewhere to (try to) escape to. At least the people in Hitlerville can look over the fence and be reminded that another way of life is possible. And with that view of what things could be, they are far, far more likely to rebel than they would be if the other side of the fence was more of the same.
    In the latter, rather than having an already geared and ready to kill giant parasitic war machine at their disposal, the other states would have to REALLY REALLY have good reason to go to war.
    
    Now, what is the worst case scenario in a strong centralized government? Complete and total dystopic nightmare for everyone from which there is no escape. No 'other state' to flee to. No 'other state' to compare ones self to. One begins to live in a 1984 state where an alternative lifestyle to totalitarianism isn't even imaginable. And even if you can imagine, no support, and that much more weight against your revolution. Much like China sent troops from other provinces to suppress the Tienanmen square protests.
    
    Second Point;
    Centralization is also from a "meme resiliency" standpoint, inferior, and unacceptably risky. I'll go back to the case of the civil war to illustrate this. I think we all can agree that not only is slavery inherently wrong, its an inferior way of doing things. The proof of this is that virtually all across the world, on a macro level, slavery has been institutionally dropped. Surely we recognize that this was not done out of the goodness of the overlords hearts, but as a road to prosperity, competition with the alternative.
    What made that happen was decentralization. Competition economically and on a meme level. Would we still have slavery if there was a global government in the 1800's? Perhaps not, maybe the one gvt would have changed on its own. But I can nearly assure, it would have lasted LONGER, because there would have been no contrast.  No competition.  I am equally confident that had the south been able to secede, and form their own country, that country, like the rest of the world did on their own, would have eventually dropped slavery, if not out of morality, out of pragmatism.
    
    Centralization not only is the only path towards a totalitarian dystopic nightmare, it also paves the way for the "Irish Potato famine of ideas". Look at education today, instead of Jeffersons vision of many laboratories, we have a centralized, top-down money pit. Don't like the example? Look at any number of issues. And where the states are allowed (or simply take) their autonomy, we have diversity, growth, options, resiliency, and dynamism.   If the idea of medical marijuana is good, it will spread, if it is bad, it will contract.
    
    So you are right, decentralization has its problems. But those problems are inherently contained by the nature of decentralization. And there are stop-gaps to keep them from exploding out of control. People at least have somewhere to go to, inferior ideas have to compete against better ones. Eventually people get tired of not doing as well as their neighbors and demand change. The whole 'every sperm is sacred' campaign comes to mind.  There is a reason so many Texans have moved to California, and so many Californians have moved to Texas.
    
    But while decentralization can create pockets of problems, Centralization, no matter how good it COULD be, alone contains the potential for uncheckable disaster. TOTAL totalitarianism. The stuff that nightmares are made of. And. as I pointed out to earlier, history has shown us that the greater the centralization, the bigger the big government, the more disastrous the consequences. The more irreversible and uncontainable the totalitarianism. The fish always rots from the head down, the further away that head is from the people, the further the rot spreads; the further out of reach it is from the people, and the harder it is to cut if off.
    
    Or to put it another way, strong central governments have PROVEN throughout the world, regardless of political ideology, that they are the nuclear energy equivalent of forms of government. They have the potential to solve all the problems, give you everything you want; but the meltdown, the disaster, the operator error WILL come eventually, and when that happens, the consequences are disastrous in direct proportion to the size of the plant, and irreversible.
    
    We have a choice, we can go along with "this time is different, the technology is better, we've improved, things will be fine." Or we can look at history, and look at the unfailing reliability of centralized governments to turn into despotic tyrannical empires that ALWAYS end in collapse, and a reversal of progress, a 'dark ages'.   We can instead wisely choose the route without the greatest utopian promises, knowing that it has instead delivered us the worst, most deadliest, hardest to escape nightmare governments in history.