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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Day to day life
Message-ID: <756@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 21:31:12 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.756
Posted: Fri Nov  1 21:31:12 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 04:55:58 EST
References: <139@mck-csc.UUCP> <179@l5.uucp> <147@mck-csc.UUCP> <207@l5.uucp> <733@mmintl.UUCP> <237@l5.uucp>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Distribution: net
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 83

In article <237@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>In article <733@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>>Let's leave Jesse Helms out of this for a moment.  The 10,000 people next to
>>you are far too small a unit to deal with.  The food you eat, the electricity
>>you use, almost everything you buy comes from outside that circle.  You are
>>free to travel anywhere in the country, without elaborate preparation
>>(passports, etc.)  Power companies hundreds of miles away can poison your
>>air and water.
>
>I am not saying htat power companies should be able to poison you because
>they are hundreds of miles away.  Remember that I said you had to determine
>which laws had to apply throughout a nation (or I'd rather go international,
>of course).  Laws against assault and murder (poisoning people) and laws
>permitting free travel are in my set of national laws, because they represent
>basic rights and freedoms.

You miss my point.  The scope of those laws which should be done on as large
a scale as possible is much larger than those which can appropriately be
done on a small scale.  What, in the U.S. today, is done nationally, that
should be done by local government?

(And don't turn back to the anti-witchcraft bill.  That is an illegitimate
attempt to excersize power by the federal government.  Since you admit the
need for a federal government, you must have some ways to prevent it from
illegitimate excersizes of power.  I claim our current system does this
fairly well.)

>>So you have many important relationships with people far away from you.  THE
>>FACT THAT THOSE RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT PERSONAL DOES NOT MAKE THEM
>>UNIMPORTANT.
>
>No. BUT THE FACT THAT THEY ARE IMPORTANT does not mean that we need a large
>centrallised government.

Our large centrallized government deals with those issues which must be dealt
with centrally.  It is unfortunate that there are so many of these, and that
collectively they are so important, but they are.

>>Or to look at it a bit differently, suppose we do divide the country into
>>groups of about 10,000 people.  This enables those people near the center
>>of the area to deal with those relatively few truly local things with their
>>neighbors in a group of reasonable size.  But most of the population will
>>live near the edge of one of these groups, and will have decreased leverage
>>with their neighbors on the other side of the border.
>
>Why do you assume that every person will live within only one group? For a
>lot of things, a plurality of groups makes sense.   For the rest - you have
>nothing worse than what we have now.  the people on the edges may be 
>disgruntled (but maybe they can move to the centres) but right now the
>only difference is that everyone is disgruntled in some way.

If you have multiple groups regulating the same thing, the effect is to
multiply the coercion any individual is subject to.  If you mean for
different groups to regulate different things, my argument is unaffected.

Also, in any group with more than a few dozen members (I am tempted to say,
more than three), any set of rules acceptable to the majority will leave
everyone disgruntled about some aspect of them.


Let me make another point here.  Very little of my social interactions are
with the 10,000 people closest to me geographically.  This includes the
people I work with, the people I deal with in leisure activities, and my
family.  I don't think I am unique in this; I suspect that most of the
U.S. population has most of its social interactions with people outside
that group.  About all that's relevant at that level is questions like
"how loud can I play my stereo" and "can I build a garage that blocks
your view of the beach".  (No, I don't live near a beach.)

>>That does not mean that those likely to be adversely affected should just
>>sit and wait.  "The price of liberty is eternal viligance."  That is just
>>as true for small governments as for large ones.
>
>Yes, but it is a lot easier to watch the small ones than the large ones.

Is it really?  Certainly, it takes more effort to influence a small
government than a large one; but more effort is available.  I am more
worried about my town government passing some disciminatory or absurd
act, than about the U.S. Congress.  It only takes a few people to screw
things up in a group that small.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108