Local politicians aren’t all Andy Griffith? No shit? Thank you for that, Captain Obvious.
The reason states and municipalities should do the bulk of legislating and regulating is because the people being directly affected by the legislation would have a lot more say in how things are run. That’s it.
Some of you think that’s a bad thing, and I won’t begin to speculate why.
“…The reason states and municipalities should do the bulk of legislating and regulating is because the people being directly affected by the legislation would have a lot more say in how things are run…”
I don’t know how you can even say that with a straight face and be serious, tGun…or either I need to move to where YOU live…
Mufasa
Never mind.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
<<< doesn’t leave people better off. >>>[/quote]
How many government programs have left you personally and directly better off?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
<<< To sum up what you think about Palin: “She is not a very good politician.”
And therein lies her appeal. >>>[/quote]
And therein was the precise element in 1992 that got Ross Perot, both into the major debates and a historic 18% of the vote in the general election. Perot was a kook, but his “not one of those guys” persona made him a player, though he did also spend 60 million dollars of his own money which he never ceased to remind us of.
How well I remember:
Bush 1: You have no experience…
Perot: No, you’re right… I have no experience creating a trillion dollar debt.
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Who is more “common man”, the $30k/year urban union teacher or the rancher? Which is the “real” America, the urban coasts or the rural middle? Which is more beneficial, the liberal urban ideal or the conservative rural ideal?
It’s impossible to answer these questions, and the idea that we must answer them (or worse, compromise) is a false choice.
All this talk of regionalism and different cultures within the U.S. should be convincing us all that an all-encompassing, one-size-fits-all federal government is the wrong way to go.
Read this thread: it’s clear that the federal government is wholly unable of doing anything without a sizable chunk of the country feeling upset, as if they “lost”, and it’s not the government’s fault. It’s because the U.S. is simply too large and too varied to be effectively governed by one central authority.
A wise, just, and necessary law for the Alisa’s in Chicago may be worthless and tyrannical for the Push’s in Montana. So should we compromise? Should we force one group or another to just deal with it? Why can’t we just allow the Alisas to govern Chicago and the Push’s to govern Montana?
Let states and municipalities handle the brunt of legislating, and a much larger chunk of the country will be satisfied because the law will more closely represent what they believe to be right.[/quote]
Well-said, and that is where I was headed with commentary about the “common man”. If you truly care about the “common man” and you respect his values, let him govern himself.
It is this disdain for these values that leads to attempts to nationalize every solution to every perceived problem. The underpinning to this overcentralization is the base idea that the “common man”/“middle America”, etc. can’t be trusted to handle it themselves at lower levels of government.
I don’t have time for full replies due to work, but I wanted to second this post.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
“…The reason states and municipalities should do the bulk of legislating and regulating is because the people being directly affected by the legislation would have a lot more say in how things are run…”
I don’t know how you can even say that with a straight face and be serious, tGun…or either I need to move to where YOU live…
Mufasa[/quote]
As opposed to the Feds, where you have ZERO, ZIP, NADA, NO say whatsoever in what they do? GTFO. Are you serious?
Why do you think the Feds listen to you anymore than local politicians would? Congress has demonstrated twice in the last six months with TARP I and this Cap-And-Trade nonsense that they don’t give a fuck what voters think, and you think it would be even worse at the state and local level?
I’m not arguing that it’d be all puppy-dogs and sunshine if we let cities and states do the bulk of law-making, but it’s seriously fucking moronic to think that allowing the Feds to make one-size-fits-nobody laws for all 300 million of us is a better solution.
It’s so fucking stupid that I’m really wondering if you guys have hit your heads recently.
And BTW, you’re welcome to come to southern Oklahoma any time. Apparently we do local law-making a lot better than your cities do. 
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
“…The reason states and municipalities should do the bulk of legislating and regulating is because the people being directly affected by the legislation would have a lot more say in how things are run…”
I don’t know how you can even say that with a straight face and be serious, tGun…or either I need to move to where YOU live…
Mufasa
As opposed to the Feds, where you have ZERO, ZIP, NADA, NO say whatsoever in what they do? GTFO. Are you serious?
Why do you think the Feds listen to you anymore than local politicians would? Congress has demonstrated twice in the last six months with TARP I and this Cap-And-Trade nonsense that they don’t give a fuck what voters think, and you think it would be even worse at the state and local level?
I’m not arguing that it’d be all puppy-dogs and sunshine if we let cities and states do the bulk of law-making, but it’s seriously fucking moronic to think that allowing the Feds to make one-size-fits-nobody laws for all 300 million of us is a better solution.
It’s so fucking stupid that I’m really wondering if you guys have hit your heads recently.
And BTW, you’re welcome to come to southern Oklahoma any time. Apparently we do local law-making a lot better than your cities do. :)[/quote]
No thanks, Sheriff McCoy…
The thought of living in “Tornado Alley” scares the livin’ shit outa’ me…
(P.S. I don’t live in a city).
Mufasa
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
“…The reason states and municipalities should do the bulk of legislating and regulating is because the people being directly affected by the legislation would have a lot more say in how things are run…”
I don’t know how you can even say that with a straight face and be serious, tGun…or either I need to move to where YOU live…
Mufasa
As opposed to the Feds, where you have ZERO, ZIP, NADA, NO say whatsoever in what they do? GTFO. Are you serious?
Why do you think the Feds listen to you anymore than local politicians would? Congress has demonstrated twice in the last six months with TARP I and this Cap-And-Trade nonsense that they don’t give a fuck what voters think, and you think it would be even worse at the state and local level?
I’m not arguing that it’d be all puppy-dogs and sunshine if we let cities and states do the bulk of law-making, but it’s seriously fucking moronic to think that allowing the Feds to make one-size-fits-nobody laws for all 300 million of us is a better solution.
It’s so fucking stupid that I’m really wondering if you guys have hit your heads recently.
And BTW, you’re welcome to come to southern Oklahoma any time. Apparently we do local law-making a lot better than your cities do. :)[/quote]
The federal government isn’t all that responsive, you’re right. Local government has the disadvantage, though, that it receives too little attention from people who don’t have a personal interest involved. Newspapers across the country are cutting their city hall beats. What you don’t read about, you don’t know about, unless you already have your finger in the pot. Bright, idealistic kids don’t want to grow up to be aldermen. My aldermen have systematically driven out any potential for new businesses in my neighborhood; my mayor has systematically directed public resources & infrastructure to the richest, whitest areas of the city, not to mention the usual Machine crookery; my governors can’t seem to stay out of jail. But it’s all taken fairly lightly in the public mind, compared with the intensity with which people debate national politics, even though local politics probably affects our lives more than who the President is. I’m not sure what conclusion that leads us to, regarding federalism, except that if more federalism is to work, citizens are going to have to pay more attention to their own backyards.
If Oklahoma is better run – and it might be – I’ll have to check it out sometime.
Cap and trade, by the way, is a pretty good issue for federalism. Climate exchanges in the Northeast, in Chicago, and in California were already in their infancy a couple of years ago. Before implementing anything nationally, it might have been a good idea to see if they worked locally (where “worked” means: actually reduced carbon emissions without creating horrendous price volatility.) So far we have no successful examples of a cap-and-trade system.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
The Federal Government, as much as you don’t like them, can’t pass ridiculous measures across the board because the country varies so much, and what makes sense in one place doesn’t in another. Their authority is limited on things that directly happen in your town and in your streets.
[/quote]
Then why’d they start a Civil War in 1861?
CAN SARAH SAVE US?
That now becomes the $64,000 question. Barack has a pretty big wake of destruction.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
<<< citizens are going to have to pay more attention to their own backyards. >>>[/quote]
You are on the right track with this one, but that’s part of the point. People have so lost sight of how this country was designed to work that many now believe that DC is the only place anything happens that really makes any difference to them. That both further centralizes power and diverts attention from the government closest to them thus allowing it to get away with even more because nobody’s paying attention.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Liberals are the most vicious, hateful, miserable and pitiful people I’ve ever heard of.[/quote]
As a liberal I for one would be ashamed to be associated with this Irish guy. He acts like Sarah Palin shot his father, raped his mother and ate his dog. Sheesh.
That said, your comment is silly and you know it. I could say the same thing about conservatives and it would be equally true (that is to say not at all). Other people already pointed this out so I’ll leave it at that.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
<<< Placing only admirable qualities on a group of people because they may profess to hold a certain set of political ideals approaches the short-sidedness of placing superiority on a particular race. >>>
No person or group of people possesses only admirable qualities. Nobody said or implied that. We’re talking about a specific state of mind that consistently wishes violence and ill on the persons and families of their political opposition.
The left is one thousand times guiltier of this than the right. There is like no denying that.[/quote]
This is a million percent false.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Then his twin sister from Wyoming (probably the only liberal in the whole state) joins in the duet with his fantasies of a decent woman and her family dying in a plane crash while he diddles his clit with a Joe Biden signature vibrator while staring at his Hope and Change poster that’s duct-taped to his bedroom ceiling.[/quote]
Fuck you pushy, I never mentioned her family, that was your little butt-boy dickhunter. I don’t really give a shit about them one way or the other, but if Palin runs in 2012 I hope something happens - like more disclosures of her total lack of ethics and no more than passing acquaintance with the truth - knocks her out of the running. But enough morons like you and zebbie worship her that she could win the nomination no matter how fucking stupid she proves herself to be. If it gets that far, then yeah, I’ll be praying for an accident to prevent her from ever taking office. Doesn’t have to be a plane crash, she could step in front of her campaign bus, or get sucked out the plane shitter at 40,000 feet. Just as long as she goes the fuck away I’m happy. And I don’t care too much if Brush and Twig and little Pine Cone go with her or not.
I’m all for a more powerful role for state and local governments as far as broad legislation (more of a pipe dream, local election turnouts usually become a match between who has more friends rather than substance), but it seems when ever a any law in support of gay marriage, needle exchange, medical marijuana ect, is passed, the conservative (or even non-conservative) states/community champions are either silent or screaming bloody murder to the federal governement to stop it. even in the light of the new tea parties, solidarity is still a four letter word.
only goes to reinforce that since so many states are on sucking the tit of the federal govn’t, state authority or local authority is just a campaign slogan, nothing more. Southern California and New Mexico are huge examples of this, especially Orange County, it would be a funny joke if it wasn’t so true. They either exist because of the tit, or prefer the tit to keeping their own balls.