local governance

Localism in the 2020s (Part 4) – Creating More Voluntary Unions

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Disclaimer: I don’t have answers to everything. In fact, I probably don’t have answers to anything at all, just some thoughts on what’s wrong with the structure of governance around the world (it’s too centralized and authoritarian) and some general ideas about what direction we should head in.

Given the increased likelihood that all sorts of things about the current paradigm will begin to fail in a more acute and undeniable manner in the years ahead, well intentioned people capable of critical thought should begin contemplating how things could be as opposed to how they are. Ideally, this will lead to increased action and experimentation, particularly at a local level. Never forget, if we don’t come up with our own ideas and perspectives for how things should be, others will be more than happy to decide for us.

This piece should be seen as a thought exercise of how I would think about structuring things if presented with a blank slate opportunity. 

In Part 3 of this series, I outlined a framework of sovereignty beginning with the individual, progressing to family, municipality/county, state and finally country. Though the broadest scope of decision making should always reside with the individual, the reality of social relations means some individual autonomy is relinquished as sovereign units grow to include more and more people. It’s part of human nature to expand beyond ourselves and our families into larger and more complex social relationships, but far more thought should be directed at the dangers and uncertainties that arise as these units start to include increased degrees of geography and population.

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Localism in the 2020s (Part 3) – Scaling Politics

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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.

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Localism in the 2020s (Part 1) – The 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Movement

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Many of you probably have heard of the second amendment sanctuary movement, which consists of municipalities and counties across the U.S. passing resolutions pledging not to enforce additional gun control measures infringing upon the right to bear arms. The current movement traces its origins back to Effingham County in southern Illinois, which passed a resolution in April 2018 calling the county a second amendment “sanctuary”, essentially a vow to ignore gun control legislation proposed by Illinois state lawmakers. This particular tactic gained traction not just within Illinois, where 67 of 102 counties have now passed similar resolutions, but throughout the country.

The movement started gaining more attention over the past couple of months following the blistering momentum it found in Virginia after Democrats won the state legislature in November. As of this writing, 87 out of Virginia’s 95 counties have passed such resolutions and it’s important to note that virtually all of them were passed in the two months since the election. In other words, this is happening at a very rapid pace.

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