Today’s post will outline a framework through which I’ve come to view politics, as well as life in general. It will identify and examine various units of sovereignty as they exist in the contemporary U.S., since that’s the political system I’m most familiar with. Nevertheless, the overall framework should prove useful to people living all over the world.
Let’s start from the beginning. The most basic and meaningful unit of sovereignty is the individual, followed by the family, the municipality/county, the state (California, New York, Texas, etc) and finally the federal government (Washington D.C.). It’s my view that within a healthy society the scope of governance should decline as you add more and more individuals to the mix. It’s at the most basic unit of sovereignty (the individual), where authority over most of life’s decisions should reside. This runs the gamut from the really big decisions, such as what sort of work to do, who to marry, what religion (if any) to believe in; to the completely mundane, such as what to eat for breakfast.
As a person starts to add more members to their daily life in the form of a family (spouse and children), a wide range of complexities are added to the equation which call for a more expansive approach to individual agency. You suddenly find yourself sharing an intimate existence with people who are not you, and who’ll invariably have conflicting views on a wide variety of subjects, both significant and trivial. Compromise becomes necessary in the pursuit of a harmonious coexistence amongst spouses, as well as within the larger family unit, and you start to relinquish a certain degree of individual sovereignty.
It’s important to note that the creation of a family by consenting adults tends to be a voluntary choice by which individuals agree to put some of their more selfish proclivities to the side in order to create a cohesive, expansive unit. Since the decision to form a family is in most cases voluntary, the decision to relinquish some measure of individual sovereignty is likewise voluntary. While it’s not romantic to consider the transition from an individual-centric lifestyle to a family-focused one in the context of politics and governance, it can be quite helpful.
After the family, the next major unit of sovereignty is found at the municipal or county level. At this stage, a significantly larger number of humans have been added to the structure, ranging from thousands to millions depending on where you live. Unless you reside in the smallest of towns, this unit will consist of countless people you don’t personally know and never will. Nevertheless, a common geography will almost always lead to some level of coordination and decision-making for stuff that applies to and affects the larger unit.
What this means in practice should be determined by those living in the communities themselves. As anyone who’s travelled extensively around the U.S. knows, distinct cities and counties tend to have very different vibes and attitudes about all sorts of life issues, and in some cases counties bordering one another even within the same state demonstrate dramatic differences. It’s important to accept this as perfectly normal and healthy, just as two neighboring families can have distinct views on all sorts of issues and still get along just fine. Each family runs their affairs as they deem appropriate.
Moving further up the scale, political units beyond the municipality/county level in the U.S. consist of the 50 states. This is where things start getting far more complex, as you begin adding millions if not tens of millions of additional people of very diverse opinions and geography under the umbrella of a much larger governance structure. In the case of the U.S., some of these states are as large, in terms of population and economy, as entire countries. After that, there’s the dreaded federal government, which covers an unwieldly large and diverse political unit of 325 million people.
It seems one major source of our current problems stems from an improper understanding and delegation of sovereignty along the scale of our existing political units. For example, as you move up the scale from individual, to family, to city/county, then state and finally country, you add more and more people as well as geography, and the bonds become more complex and impersonal. The political relationships also tend to become less voluntary as you move up the scale, which is meaningful. For example, it’s relatively easy and common to get up and move from one city to another, but changing national citizenship is a major ordeal which most people never consider let alone consummate.
The nature of sovereignty and politics under this framework is that as the unit expands to more individuals, some degree of individual sovereignty is relinquished each step of the way. Equally significant, is as the units grow the voluntary nature of the relationship starts to fade. Since a political unit becomes less voluntary as it scales, the larger the unit, the less authority it should have to exercise political power in relation to the smaller, more voluntary units. Does anyone reading this actually think they have as much capacity to first understand the issues and then impact decision making in Washington D.C. as they do at the local level? As political relationships become less voluntary and fluid (lack of clear exists), the proper scope of governance should decline.
Specifically, whatever can be done at the municipal/county level, should be done at the municipal/county level, with the larger state only chiming in when it’s absolutely necessary for decisions that require larger scale coordination. This same principle should be applied to the relationship between the states themselves and Washington D.C. What requires no input or assistance from the country-level political unit should be left to the smaller units as appropriate. Only the small number of issues that require national coordination should be considered at the country level, and even then there should be direct input from the smaller units in the form of referendums.
The men whom the people ought to choose to represent them are too busy to take the jobs. But the politician is waiting for it. He’s the pestilence of modern times. What we should try to do is make politics as local as possible. Keep the politicians near enough to kick them. The villagers who met under the village tree could also hang their politicians to the tree. It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”
– G. K. Chesterton
The spirit of the U.S. Constitution is based upon this general idea, though I place more emphasis on the municipal/county level vs. the states. A good example of the proper role of the federal government as outlined in the founding document is the Bill of Rights. These consist of what are seen as inalienable individual rights that should never be infringed upon across the country irrespective of where you reside within the smaller political units. The principle here isn’t to create a structure whereby Washington D.C. is in charge of micromanaging the everyday lives of people across the land, but rather the opposite. It’s a principle aimed at preventing the micromanagement of individual sovereignty by making certain core rights unassailable.
Though we pay lip service to checks and balances, decentralization of power and a defense of core civil liberties explicit in the U.S. Constitution, we most certainly do not live these ideals in reality. The big elephant in the room that many people still refuse to talk about is that the U.S. in 2020 is an imperial oligarchy, and an imperial oligarchy is a system defined by gross concentrations of power and centralization. Much of the frustration in the county can be traced to this state of affairs. We’ve been losing control of our individual lives and communities in order to feed the insatiable beast of empire, and worst of all, we’ve been convinced that the answer is to fight each other for this centralized power so at least our team can be in charge of the bossing around.
Not everything should be about efficiency and convenience. At this point in time it's more crucial to empower and restore communities across the country than it is to make everything a hyper-efficient homogeneous blob.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 13, 2020
This is a twisted and deranged mindset guaranteed to end in tyranny of one flavor or another, civil conflict, or both. Nothing good can come of it, which is why I firmly believe we need to turn in the opposite direction.
We need to turn away from Washington D.C. and focus on the smaller units of sovereignty outlined in this post, specifically the individual, the family and the municipality/county. These relationships tend to be more intimate, manageable and voluntary and, as such, should be were political life is centered. This what localism means to me.
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I was born into despotism… my parents wielded absolute authority over every aspect of my life. My wishes and desires were ignored while they made decisions that, most of the time, ran contrary to my desires and wishes… I was told what to eat, what to wear, when to sleep, what to say, with whom I could interact, and even what to think… most of my peers were similarly oppressed and those that weren’t were considered to be somehow neglected, like they were being somehow cheated.
Seriously, I would scream and cry, I would beg and plead, I would even refuse to eat, pitching hunger-strikes almost daily… really desperate stuff!… yet, I was rarely given even the semblance of a logical explanation for their decision-making and my inquiries seemed to only frustrate them, as if an explanation was a condescension, hence their most common response: “because I said so.” I couldn’t leave without their permission, and when I did it was with them or another despot or under very strict terms for where I could go and when I had to return.
As I grew older, I learned to deploy various behaviors that would sometimes yield a limited form of autonomy… but that was a tricky proposition since, depending on their mood, said behaviors might often result the forfeit of one or more of the few privileges I did enjoy, or even corporal punishment.
In time, I and most of my peers, without our consent, were told to stand outside each morning and wait to be transported in a yellow rolling cage to a “school” where another caste of despots imposed an even stricter regimen… it started off sorta fun, with singing and clapping, but that was obviously just a ploy to assimilate us into their regime since over time the days became structured more and more around periods of focused activity, mostly centered around a large black slate where we were expected to memorize various symbols and then abstractly manipulate said symbols using small quantities of compressed talcum powder… around midday, we were allotted less than an hour to eat a scary gruel prepared by even scarier people and eating outside of that time was severely punished… There was also a period of mandatory physical exercise where we would be divided by gender and the largest of us were encouraged to physically demean the rest of our peers. As we got older, we realized that our female peers responded positively to such displays, leading us to try to improve our ability to demean one another.
This lasted most of the daylight hours and was so excruciating that we actually LOOKED FORWARD to returning to our private tyrannies.
We did this for roughly 13 years. 13. Years.
Over that time, I learned that if I could survive for 18 years, I was to be given absolute autonomy via some legal mechanism… However, my parents did not respect that and I realized that escape was my only recourse… this was very scary because I had no idea how to navigate the outside world… most of my friends felt the same, though others found that by moving into the subterranean chambers of their prisons to avoid interaction with the despots, they could make peace with their situation by frequently igniting certain plants and inhaling the emissions. These were usually the ones who had been “neglected” previously… very curious, indeed.
But for most of us, the solution seemed to be the acquisition, through various schemes or physical labors, of currency units that could be traded for space in another dwelling, along with food, clothing, and transportation, things that the aging despots deemed it best to now withhold from us, for our own good… WTF?
You could also use the currency units to buy alcohol, which made you feel warm and cool and dizzy and facilitated mating by functioning as a suitable substitute for the physical displays previously required.
To aid in currency collection, there were various collectives of people that would sort of team up to engage in some scheme or another, making the currency collection process more efficient, at least for the people that had been at the collective the longest… this seemed like the answer, but in time we learned that this was worse than the “school” thing and that the number of currency units you needed to collect to trade for food, clothing, shelter, and alcohol seemed to increase each year… And the currency units you received was always less than the amount you’d agreed to exchange for your time and labors, which was frustrating because it went to the “government” and was basically never heard from again.
Over time, many of us mated successfully (very counterproductive to the currency collection process) and swore we’d never become despots.
Recently, many of my non-despotic peers (and their spawn) have taught me that I was born into a life of privilege, further enhanced by my possessing male genitalia and an epidermis with low levels of some pigment called melanin… these things are apparently unforgivable, but I seem to be more guilty of these crimes than others of my kind based on my ability to collect and control currency units more efficiently than most of my peers.
The spawn of my peers that decided to frequently burn plants in subterranean chambers are especially vociferous on this point.
They and some despots from northern areas of the planet say that if I combine my currency units with their currency units, we will all have more currency units. I reminded them that the symbol manipulation we were taught back in “school” clearly indicated this to be false, but they grew angry… so now I am quietly apologetic when they are around.
But, yeah, localism. 🙂
Brilliant, I think we were cellmates, er I mean classmates.
Best of luck from the far north.
I agree with the general concept expressed here but realize that the controlling behemoths are quite able to act locally and think globally. Some entities even have this as a description in their name such as ICLEI or the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives….as most likely the major city near you is a member of. If you want to be active locally come prepared to battle the same entities that you would at the state and national levels and beyond. The public has just been too slow to realize the peril they are in and in fact most so very stupidly do not see any peril at all.
I live in a town of about 9,000 and the local planning department is well versed on sustainable development as offered up by the U.N. and its “Growing Smart’ manual/manifesto and the monetary incentives that come with this as ‘no one left behind’ is a motto they mean to enforce.. This, with a large very vocal following within the community in support of this new found religious mantra.. As a heretic I can’t get a word in edgewise let alone a letter to the editor published in the local newspaper no matter how I try and couch my words. My only option is of course to move but almost all other communities are like minded, leaving only a completely rural setting as my escape. Basically the NWO already exists de facto with only the standardization of systems and some systems structure to be completed before the veil is removed to reveal the edifice, as largely a fait accompli at this late stage. Good luck to us all….
There are 13 doorways by which the centralizers take power further from you every generation no matter how people vote. Understand how they do it to know how to stop them. Localism, a philosophy of government. See website link.
Localism is a good idea but we all know widespread adoption will only happen out of necessity. Rather than easing in, we’ll undergo a frantic crash course whenever the time comes.
People in the former USSR struggled mightily in the 1990s, which is ominous because they were used to a lower standard of living and already had some experience in local black markets. At least we won’t be shocked by the introduction of street drugs into society like they were and we won’t experience the “brain drain” they did. Former Soviets fleeing to the West was a walk in the park compared to us trying to escape the umbrella of central banking and the petrodollar.
Agree with everything you said.
Excellent article Michael, thank you and I agree that localised economies will be the final outcome after a revitalising crash, which surely is not far off now? We have a small ginger group here in UK trying to encourage local politics and some towns are actually making progress:
https://www.flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/
and are website: http://harrogateagenda.org.uk/
Allow me to emphasize that at every level of socio-political organization mentioned in Mike’s article, from the family to the nation-state, individual sovereignty stays with the individual. Citizens may grant certain powers and authority to those who we elect, those who we charge to represent us at the more complex levels of government, but in so doing we never rescind or cede away our individual sovereignty. However we do voluntarily give up different levels of personal autonomy in the day-to-day decision making of government but in no sense does this mean that we’re relinquishing our individual sovereignty. In a constitutional democracy all governing is only with “the consent of the governed,” which is the same as saying state sovereignty is always subordinate to individual sovereignty.
JHC
Our apathetic lifestyles, has opened the door to perversion of our three pillars of democracy. For years we have have allowed corruption of the most important institution in ANY democracy, Today’s education system if rife with FAR LEFT scocialistic thinkers . Proof in point the term “ politically correct” is now viewed as a way to carry oneself in society . My question is “ how many people know that that term stems from the worst teachings of communism?
So today we wear a badge of honour if we’re “ politically correct “ ?
Our teachers preach socialism on a daily basis , unions are running roughshod over budgetary considerations, and all we can bring ourselves to yell about is the farce that is ( global warming ) !! What a joke .. even to simple to realize what Gorbachev described “ as the greatest tax theft in history “ !
Wuhan citizen plainly tells the coronavirus situation in Wuhan & seeks help from the world.
Wow , It’s inspirational to see young people risking life & limb to simply speak to the horrors of living under a rotten corrupt, inept, oligarchical structure.
World Wide Web at its best !!!!
Makes you wonder how many would defend such a putrid system in the event of a confrontation with outsiders ?
My guess , not as many as the government may believe .