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Comment by Clubber | Hacker News Reader

I think with a country as diverse as the US, balkanization is preferred. It's really by design, states have autonomy over citizens and the federal government presides over national issues. Unfortunately, the federal government has gained more and more power and tries to pass laws that half the country doesn't want. The next political party gets in power and does the same thing, except for the other half.

It's a good thing that I can move out of a state that's turning into something I don't like. It's expensive and uprooting, but at least I have the option. When the federal government passes a law I don't like, I'm stuck with it.

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> Unfortunately, the federal government has gained more and more power and tries to pass laws that half the country doesn't want.

On the other hand, due to mechanisms favoring minority obstructionism left over from the slavery era, the federal government also hasn't passed laws that most of the country does want.

- Nationalizing healthcare[1]

- Getting money out of politics[2]

- Stricter laws about gun purchases[3]

Rather than having powerful state governments, what I'd prefer is that the states were dissolved in all but name, and their powers were ceded to county governments instead. The multiple tiers of government at the national/state/county/municipality made sense in a time when information could only travel as fast as your fastest horse, but that was nearly two centuries ago. Ceding state powers to counties would give you your options for moving away from policies you don't like, and would even make it more convenient since you wouldn't have to move as far.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/08/most-americ...

[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx

Is it really preferred? I simply cannot return to my home state because my home state has become so disconnected politically and socially. It's pretty sad. There are several states that fit this category for many. I don't even particularly feel that safe traveling through some states.

Many states are effectively headed towards extremism and terrorist states. It's not like the extreme states are differing in subtle ways. They are openly attacking human rights and really what America should be about. It isn't good by any measure.

>The next political party gets in power and does the same thing, except for the other half.

Can you give some examples? I'd say centralization of power has been mostly one sided for the past century or so. (FDR, JFK, LBJ)

George Bush and the Patriot act

I was actually thinking that, but I also think the Patriot Act was largely bipartisan. From wikipedia[0]

>Passed the House on October 24, 2001 (Yeas: 357; Nays: 66)

>Passed the Senate on October 25, 2001 (Yeas: 98; Nays: 1)

62 nays from democrats in the house[1], and only one nay in the senate and one not voting[2]. I'd say its more like Bush just happened to be president at the time. He didn't run with Patriot Act as his "platform" either (obviously). It also isn't directly about taking away state power in the first place so from that alone it isn't a great argument. That said, Patriot Act to me really seems like a turning point (for the worse) in US history.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

[1]https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml

[2]https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...

I agree, I think on many aspects for the last 40 years, we have a uni-party disguised as a dual party. National security is one of those aspects. Having said that, the Patriot Act was proposed / championed by the GOP, but the Democrats were also culpable. I would add the drug war and militarization of police to the more-GOP side, but again, both sides are largely culpable.

The civil war was the first instance of this federal overreach. Things haven’t really gotten better since then.

The Confederacy placed enormous control in the centralized government. It was not a contest between a loose collection of states and a centralized federal power.

Can you describe this more, or link to some materials?

I'm not familiar with it.

Are we talking about temporary war powers, or was this the long term government structure that would have been powerfully centralized?

If accurate, it would certainly change my understanding of the ideals of the confederacy.

Many people claim that the civil war was over state vs federal authority. They are wrong and have, at best, been duped by lost causers and white supremacists.

For example, it was written into the constitution of the confederacy that no state could ban slavery. The confederacy also had strong centralized control over things like money. These were not temporary powers.

>Many people claim that the civil war was over state vs federal authority.

It was; the state vs federal authority to regulate / abolish slavery. Both points of view are right but ignore the other half of the equation.

>The confederacy also had strong centralized control over things like money. These were not temporary powers.

Can you expound on this? One of the issues with the confederacy is their ability to fund the war through taxation, because many states didn't feel they were obligated to pay it, because state's rights (of course). It's pretty ironic that they seceded over the federal authority over slavery, and the lack of that authority in their own government to fund the war was a major contributing factor in them losing the war, and no longer existing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_war_finance

It's crazy, the plantation class was unwilling to fund the war for their own economic survival, that they were winning at the time. Absolutely mind blowing.

> They are wrong and have, at best, been duped by lost causers and white supremacists.

Yeah, I'm sort of over absolutism.

Everything has nuance.

Authoritarianism's favorite tool is to reduce complex issues to "us" vs "them" absolutes.

Lots of things have nuance. I'd encourage you to speak with historians who study the civil war for that nuance. They'll tell you clearly that the narrative of state's rights vs federal authority is not based in the archive.

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