In the American Colonies of the 1600 and 1700s there was lots of government. It just wasn’t federal. Most government was very local.
The responsibilities of the federal government are truly very few. They have achieved gargantuan proportions because the Progressive idea of Ameritopia was successfully sold to the American people.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - Depending on the colony, government in North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was either very autocratic/theocratic or firmly controlled from the mother country. Unfortunately for the Pilgrims, ten years after they landed they were descended upon by the Puritans who settled Boston a few miles away and who spent the next couple of centuries attempting to dominate every aspect of life of all their inhabitants and neighbors. One of my ancestors was very proud of the fact that he had reduced one of his parishioners to a state where she spent her days in a dark closet weeping and praying – that parishioner was four years old. Most colonies were ruled by a Royal governor appointed by and answerable only to the King – one reason why the US revolted in 1775. The idea of a federal government is that the powers are divided between local, state, and national – a good idea for an modern developed nation with over 300M citizens and all their complex needs and desires. The powers they give their government are democratically determined. Don’t you think this is a good idea?
@tychecat - Exactly! Depending on the colony. A huge federal government violates the principle of subsidiarity which has government arising at the local level.
The Big Government quest for Ameritopia of the Progressives throws the American Revolution on the ash heap.
It produced the very kind and scope of government that put the American Colonies into open revolt.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - I’m not sure what you mean by ” subsidiarity”but I suppose it means the relationship of the different levels of government in a Federal system. I am confused about your rejection of “progressive Ameritopia”by which you seem to mean movement toward a more perfect society. This type of ideal seems to me to be more the dream of religious groups – “The City on a Hill” concept of the very early Puritan Colonists, for example. The revolt of the American colonies against their English rulers was not caused by English attempts to impose more government – rather to deny the colonists rights and privileges some thought they were due – and incidentally to have them pay for English expenses in protecting them from the French and Indians during the Seven Years War – that is, to impose taxes which would lead to a more balanced budget. Mainly however, the revolutionaries wanted a progressive and changed society with more local civil rights. I suspect if you had lived then, you would probably have been a Tory, not a Patriot – the religious establishment generally supported the King as did most “Conservatives”. The dream of a more local government has been the long-term ideal of the Democratic party. the Republican party has historically been more ready to impose checks on individual and local liberties – recent examples being the curtailing of women’s rights and voting by “undesirables” and their skillful use of congressional rules to thwart laws approved by the majority of Americans – such as increased taxes on millionaires.
@tychecat - I recommend that you read the Declaration of Independence. At the end it lists all the American grievances against the crown.
Also see the Bill of Rights. Its specific function is to limit the size and scope of government.
There is nothing wrong with wanting and working for a better world. It’s just that the federal government is not the means to accomplish such an endeavor.
A government that is strong enough to impose Utopia, is a government that will mass murder its citizens and terrorize them as a matter of policy.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - I am pretty familiar with both the Declaration and the Bill of rights – I taught them for over thirty years. The Declaration is interesting if you read it carefully – it mostly complains about the colonists NOT being able to impose, run, and execute their own governments. The Bill of Rights asserts and spells out what action of the National government is both allowed and forbidden. It had little or no affect on state and local governments before the passage of the fourteenth amendment in the late 1860s. To compare Utopian government with authoritarian, brutal, and repressive government is absurd unless you mean a Utopia where members of a particular group are allowed to repress other citizens. Most such Utopias have been religiously based. In America the largest such group has been the Church of the Latter Day Saints, who, after considerable persecution in the US, moved to the indian territory of Utah, where they in turn harassed and occasionally murdered passing immigrants to CA. It was some time historically before their differences with the rest of the US were mostly settled. Governor Romney’s ancestors actually moved to Mexico because they objected to the agreement to abide by the US constitution and laws. His father was born in that Mexican community. Modern foreign examples might be the Israeli treatment of non-jewish palestinians or the Sudanese treatment of non-muslem southern tribes.
I would love to start on this topic, but the scope is too broad. Major treatises which fill whole sections of research libraries have only scratched the surface of political economy. Financing only complicates the broadness of the question at hand.
As such, I give you my entire blog (especially earliest posts) and nearly all of the entries therein as a response. Most entries are about the legitimate boundaries of state power and finance. I use tags, so feel free to choose a topic and have at it.
@virtus1 - I’ll post your blogsite above. I find your views interesting and I’m sure other viewers of this site (both of them will also.
I’ve got a comment cogent to this at my site, please link it.
Comments (9)
In the American Colonies of the 1600 and 1700s there was lots of government. It just wasn’t federal. Most government was very local.
The responsibilities of the federal government are truly very few. They have achieved gargantuan proportions because the Progressive idea of Ameritopia was successfully sold to the American people.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - Depending on the colony, government in North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was either very autocratic/theocratic or firmly controlled from the mother country. Unfortunately for the Pilgrims, ten years after they landed they were descended upon by the Puritans who settled Boston a few miles away and who spent the next couple of centuries attempting to dominate every aspect of life of all their inhabitants and neighbors.
One of my ancestors was very proud of the fact that he had reduced one of his parishioners to a state where she spent her days in a dark closet weeping and praying – that parishioner was four years old. Most colonies were ruled by a Royal governor appointed by and answerable only to the King – one reason why the US revolted in 1775.
The idea of a federal government is that the powers are divided between local, state, and national – a good idea for an modern developed nation with over 300M citizens and all their complex needs and desires. The powers they give their government are democratically determined. Don’t you think this is a good idea?
@tychecat - Exactly! Depending on the colony.
A huge federal government violates the principle of subsidiarity which has government arising at the local level.
The Big Government quest for Ameritopia of the Progressives throws the American Revolution on the ash heap.
It produced the very kind and scope of government that put the American Colonies into open revolt.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - I’m not sure what you mean by ” subsidiarity”but I suppose it means the relationship of the different levels of government in a Federal system.
I am confused about your rejection of “progressive Ameritopia”by which you seem to mean movement toward a more perfect society. This type of ideal seems to me to be more the dream of religious groups – “The City on a Hill” concept of the very early Puritan Colonists, for example.
The revolt of the American colonies against their English rulers was not caused by English attempts to impose more government – rather to deny the colonists rights and privileges some thought they were due – and incidentally to have them pay for English expenses in protecting them from the French and Indians during the Seven Years War – that is, to impose taxes which would lead to a more balanced budget. Mainly however, the revolutionaries wanted a progressive and changed society with more local civil rights.
I suspect if you had lived then, you would probably have been a Tory, not a Patriot – the religious establishment generally supported the King as did most “Conservatives”.
The dream of a more local government has been the long-term ideal of the Democratic party. the Republican party has historically been more ready to impose checks on individual and local liberties – recent examples being the curtailing of women’s rights and voting by “undesirables” and their skillful use of congressional rules to thwart laws approved by the majority of Americans – such as increased taxes on millionaires.
@tychecat - I recommend that you read the Declaration of Independence. At the end it lists all the American grievances against the crown.
Also see the Bill of Rights. Its specific function is to limit the size and scope of government.
There is nothing wrong with wanting and working for a better world. It’s just that the federal government is not the means to accomplish such an endeavor.
A government that is strong enough to impose Utopia, is a government that will mass murder its citizens and terrorize them as a matter of policy.
@PrisonerxOfxLove - I am pretty familiar with both the Declaration and the Bill of rights – I taught them for over thirty years. The Declaration is interesting if you read it carefully – it mostly complains about the colonists NOT being able to impose, run, and execute their own governments. The Bill of Rights asserts and spells out what action of the National government is both allowed and forbidden. It had little or no affect on state and local governments before the passage of the fourteenth amendment in the late 1860s.
To compare Utopian government with authoritarian, brutal, and repressive government is absurd unless you mean a Utopia where members of a particular group are allowed to repress other citizens. Most such Utopias have been religiously based. In America the largest such group has been the Church of the Latter Day Saints, who, after considerable persecution in the US, moved to the indian territory of Utah, where they in turn harassed and occasionally murdered passing immigrants to CA. It was some time historically before their differences with the rest of the US were mostly settled. Governor Romney’s ancestors actually moved to Mexico because they objected to the agreement to abide by the US constitution and laws. His father was born in that Mexican community.
Modern foreign examples might be the Israeli treatment of non-jewish palestinians or the Sudanese treatment of non-muslem southern tribes.
I would love to start on this topic, but the scope is too broad. Major treatises which fill whole sections of research libraries have only scratched the surface of political economy. Financing only complicates the broadness of the question at hand.
As such, I give you my entire blog (especially earliest posts) and nearly all of the entries therein as a response. Most entries are about the legitimate boundaries of state power and finance. I use tags, so feel free to choose a topic and have at it.
@virtus1 - I’ll post your blogsite above. I find your views interesting and I’m sure other viewers of this site (both of them
will also.
I’ve got a comment cogent to this at my site, please link it.