Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Day to day life Message-ID: <733@mmintl.UUCP> Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 17:02:16 EST Article-I.D.: mmintl.733 Posted: Thu Oct 24 17:02:16 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 04:05:24 EST References: <139@mck-csc.UUCP> <179@l5.uucp> <147@mck-csc.UUCP> <207@l5.uucp> Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) Distribution: net Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT Lines: 43 Summary: We live in a global community [Not food] In article <207@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >There is no way to fix this without decentrallising government. So, if you >consider this a large problem, what you have to do is identify those things >which should not be done locally (say national defence, national justice) >and then have everything else done as ``locally'' as one can get. I think >that 10,000 people neighbourhoods make a nice unit of government. The >10,000 people >who live closest to me may have legitimate claims on me. The 10,000 people >closest to where I work and hang out may have legitimate claims on me. But I >find it hard to believe that I owe Jesse Helms anything... 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. 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. 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. Now as for Jesse Helms and the anti-"satanist" amendment. First, I doubt that this act will ever get out of Congress. If it does, the courts will strike it down. We have a system of checks and balances precisely because NO individual or group is always reasonable. Do not assume the system has broken until it actually has. 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. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108