To some extent, I think we could use some redrawing of the borders and reallocation of the states to better map to actual metro regions and group areas that have common interests together. It'd be a bit ticklish to get right, and leave everything functional, but there are some wicked schisms between areas of our historical states, and other places that are spliced up into multiple states that probably should be joined together.. It'll never happen, but it's a fun thought experiment.
I don't think things are going to get better on this front by themselves, as the economy seems to be centralizing more and more, such that even the second and third rate regional cities are hollowed out and population and money clusters ever tighter. It's already evident that the urban areas can throw their weight around and vote in pretty much whatever they want in a lot of places, and the rest of the state has to mobilize completely to defeat them. I'm from Maine originally, and it's been a constant battle lately to keep the Portland metro area from passing ballot initiatives that make sense in their little neck of the woods, but are insane when you get off the I-95 corridor.
> I'm from Maine originally, and it's been a constant battle lately to keep the Portland metro area from passing ballot initiatives that make sense in their little neck of the woods, but are insane when you get off the I-95 corridor.
I'm also from Maine, and this is true. And I agree that some redrawing is necessary, because the reason things work as you describe in Maine is tha the Portland metro area is almost half the state's poptulation. They kinda should get what they want if we're talking about this like it's a democracy. As you note, dividing things up and creating new levels of administration to better reflect this would be a real problem--'cause now Maine-minus-Portland opens their wallet and a couple flies fly out.
(I'm on the "federalism is broken" bandwagon, though, so, eh. I dunno.)
The best answer is to decentralize and devolve power as much as feasible. That way, everybody can go their own way as much as possible. Of course some people/groups don't like that and want to impose their way of doing things everywhere.
All groups do that. Even you're doing that with your comment right here. "Everybody should do X." That's what humans do with our shared moral languages. It is inevitable.
But you probably think it's different when you're proposing a decentralization rule like this, because it is about empowering people, not oppressing people. Of course, you'll empower people who want to oppress people, but you'll have shirked any responsibility for actual consequences, so it's all ok, isn't it? You're not advocating for your country to be divided and conquered, just divided. So you won't be responsible for the inevitable conquering that occurs afterward.
You have solved the problem of personal responsibility, but social responsibility still exists, and you haven't proposed anything to manage it.
Different people have different values, and one person's tolerance is another's oppression. (The more authoritarian sides of the Left and Right each see opponents as "too tolerant" of different things.)
Recent studies have suggested that there may be some fundamental cognitive factors that control political alignment. They may even be genetic. If this turns out to be true, are you still OK with forcing the other side to live by your "correct" rules? Isn't that just tribalism and conquest?
Just because people have different values does not mean we don't share values, and more importantly, that we don't share reality. The things that I am intolerant toward are a disregard for the facts, a disregard for demonstrated relevance, and a disregard for the legitimacy of expertise and aggregate authority.
>Isn't that just tribalism and conquest?
I mean, if you're saying that this conflict is an integral part of human nature, then you're not asking me to change my mind; you're giving me a justification for why I don't have to. That knife cuts both ways.
This is always the problem I have when trying to reason about American conservatism; if God gave you your riches, then if you lose them, attribute it to God. If might makes right, then I am not wrong to deny it so long as that denial leads to victory. Etc.. There's nothing there to tell me I'm wrong, only that people disagree. So wrongness has to be a kind of aggregate disagreement, and that leads to liberalism. Both roads lead to liberalism.
> Just because people have different values does not mean we don't share values, and more importantly, that we don't share reality. The things that I am intolerant toward are a disregard for the facts, a disregard for demonstrated relevance, and a disregard for the legitimacy of expertise and aggregate authority.
We may share the same physical reality, but many facets of reality that are critical to human experience may not be shared. In particular, and I am aware that this contradicts what you've just said, values seem to be very different across cultural boundaries. There are some general shared values that are often shared across cultures, but these shared values are also not the values that people care most about on a day-to-day basis. (Not too many people out there protesting murder, theft, etc in any organized sense.)
The values that people seem to care most about are the ones that distinguish them from other tribes. These values are often more important to people than basic needs. People will starve themselves over values, they will kill themselves over values. You can say they shouldn't. Obviously they disagree!
> I mean, if you're saying that this conflict is an integral part of human nature, then you're not asking me to change my mind; you're giving me a justification for why I don't have to.
It is an integral part of human nature. I'm not sure it can be "solved" without creating a truly oppressive superstate and permanently reducing human genetic diversity. Conflict is inherent to being alive; the best you can do is keep it on a slow boil.
You keep framing this conflict as though it is a purely political/value-based disagreement. It is not. When somebody denies basic facts about the world or the validity of rational methods and/or scientific reasoning, you are not simply disagreeing with me in a political sense, you are advocating for a world that is entirely arbitrary. This is what I'm saying is the double-edged knife: at best, if such people get their way, they have only provided others the justification to be cruel to them. They have not provided any argument that their opponents are wrong.
I don't deny anybody their experiences. If you trust someone who swears upon a bible, I will tell you that you are gullible, and point out that this activity neither aids in the service of justice nor pays due consideration to our mutual respect for freedom of religion. But if you say "homosexuality is a choice", you are marginalizing people's fundamental perceptions. This is not merely a difference in values, it is deception and oppression that supports one's arbitrary values, and if anyone else did the same thing, they'd be in a position to oppress and marginalize just the same.
This conflict is not simply about political disagreement -- it is about the denial of the validity of basic reasoning methods solely on the basis that the outcome is personally inconvenient.
> You keep framing this conflict as though it is a purely political/value-based disagreement. It is not. When somebody denies basic facts about the world or the validity of rational methods and/or scientific reasoning, you are not simply disagreeing with me in a political sense, you are advocating for a world that is entirely arbitrary.
Isn't that a position based on its own set of values, though? And your position would clearly be based on a different set of values.
> I don't deny anybody their experiences. If you trust someone who swears upon a bible, I will tell you that you are gullible, and point out that this activity neither aids in the service of justice nor pays due consideration to our mutual respect for freedom of religion.
Followed immediately by
> But if you say "homosexuality is a choice", you are marginalizing people's fundamental perceptions.
[Emphasis added]
Look, there's nothing wrong with having values and staking out a firm position based on those values. Claiming that one's own values-based position is distinct and special and is fundamentally different than other values-based positions, however, is merely dogma.
And if everything is dogma, then we must simply fight to the death. I am arguing it is not, precisely because that is not the outcome I want to occur. You can disagree -- but you do not improve anything by doing so.
As I've been saying, if you argue that our positions are merely equal, you do not change my mind, you simply cause me to stop trying to justify my position. (You've justified it for me!) That is unacceptable, and betrays the entire reason we're talking about this.
> And if everything is dogma, then we must simply fight to the death.
Only if everyone feels they have to "win".
It is possible to force a draw or stalemate, in perpetuity. That's what I'm arguing for. The only alternative is to force your opponents to comply, globally, through overwhelming oppression.
Asking that power be decentralized as feasible with more local levels and ultimately the individual as the default repository may be a moral exhortation like a call to communism in semantic sense but the end result if successful certainly wouldn't be the same.
I'm not asking for anarchy so we can still have our roads and bridges but for stuff like forced SSM cake baking I think we can take a page out of the prog playbook when they were arguing against the Religious Right and say that morality, beyond whats necessary for basic stability should be a private affair, and not actively managed and instilled by the State.
