Wednesday, December 1

Would Greek City-states Be a Better Governmental Model?

Reading about the Greek polis: 'city-state' or even 'citizen-state'.

I stipulate that federalism has been best for the US up to now. Hamilton's success is obvious, in my opinion. Hard to think our country would have risen to such great heights with Jeffersonian ideals.

However, I do think to continue in strength, we're going to have to start getting smaller, to devolve decision-making and spending to more local levels, as small as possible, really.

At the same time, I think there's a fairly good chance that Stephenson's enclaves will also eventually come to pass, whether we like it or not.

The US would be best-served by more local government, or at least engagement, but will we really be able to pull it off?

It's certainly possible without a Constitutional convention. All it takes is more people, as many as possible, getting involved in their communities. More local involvement is always good. If we had a movement of local citizen activism, it would certainly change this country more than any national change in political partisan control.

Beyond that, as a Christian, I am also a firm believer in local impact through church involvement and local Christian activity. In fact, that would is my preferred local activism for Christians.

There, I've solved our problems. Live long and prosper ;-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a non-Christian, you have my vote as well.

I agree we would do far better with more local government and push up to the state and federal levels only that which must be done there. (isn't that a working definition of Federalism?)

I doubt the huge federal bureaucracy will go down without a fight. For many years per person federal spending ran around $100 per person (in today's dollars) but we are now hitting $10,000 per person per year.

Sean Meade said...

thanks for the vote, Stu!

i may have used 'federalism' imprecisely...

i doubt it too: love of money is a root of many kinds of evil (to quote a 1st century Jewish sage ;-)