Federalism Works Every Time it is Tried
One cannot use collectivism and authoritarian control to create individualism and liberty. These are the two opposite poles of the societal magnet.
There is a constant tension between the rights and interests of the individual and those of the collective. Balancing the two in order to maintain a civil society is not the question, that such an action must be taken is a given. The real question is how much to give and how much to take in pursuit of that goal.
It sounds corny, but the wisdom from the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie, War Games, seems applicable:
“The only winning move is not to play.”
This is especially a good rule of thumb when debates reach such lengths as to cross into the dimension of the absurd.
An example – decades ago, our federal government sought to create equality through unequal treatment by instituting race and gender set-asides, restrictions and so-called “affirmative action” programs (which were actually reparations). America’s academic institutions also adopted such perspective, although largely under coercion of government through bribery and extortion with public funds.
These “preferential” programs were based on discrete definitions of race and gender.
People can now “identify” as any race or gender. Social media allows up to 70 some-odd gender “identifications” and as society becomes more and more integrated, the boundaries of race become increasingly blurred. We had 8 years of a president who identified as black but in fact is bi-racial, having a black Kenyan father and a Caucasian American mother.
Talcum X (Shaun King) and Rachel Dolezal (or whatever she calls herself this year) – are both white people who “identify” as black. Bruce Jenner is clearly an Olympic medal winning dude who now “identifies” as female.
I would argue that, from the perspective or race and gender, society has taken a distinct libertarian turn without reasoning itself into it. The fact remains that people who seek to slice identity into smaller and smaller pieces are actually arguing for more individuality, a decidedly libertarian thing to do. Do your own thing, baby!
The issue is the distinctly non-libertarian facet is the desire and drive to force government to continue its inertia driven processes of preferential treatment based on race and gender. These deviant members of society seek to use the power of government to provide validation of their choices and force the greater society to accept them. That is the very essence of tyranny.
One cannot use collectivism and authoritarian control to create individualism and liberty. These are the two opposite poles of the societal magnet.
Rationally, if each individual can decide to identify as anything they want, no central authority can keep up. It is simply impossible to give special treatment to each individual based on who and what they think they are this week, any attempt to do so renders applications of laws arbitrary and capricious and instead of increasing equality, inequality is increased.
The old adage applies – if everyone is special, then no one is.
One wonders when the human brain reaches such a point of absurdity it simply can’t contain all the contradictions.
In a country of over 330 million people, the law of unintended consequences will always create permutations and combinations that result in infinite and insoluble contradictions. Somebody will always get hurt by government action.
The reality is there is a limit to how thin the slices of the pie can be. If you want to avoid that endpoint, the only way is to never start slicing the pie in the first place. Once the decision was made something is going to be mandated, the war shifts to how much and under what conditions it should be allowed, and the pie begins to be carved into smaller and smaller slices.
There is no perfect answer. Government hasn’t the wisdom or standing to answer moral questions.
Many times the answer isn’t even good and it is almost always worse when made at the top. “One-size-fits-all” decisions commonly fit the least number of citizens.
Roe is an example.
People who believe abortion is murder and should never be allowed will never agree with those who believe abortion should be legal up to 28 days AFTER birth. With the former, it is an issue of morality, the latter argues it is merely a matter of “privacy”.
Somewhere a line must be drawn.
The Founders anticipated such conflicts when they crafted a constitution that expressly limited in what the national government could do and they tried to tell us to push decisions as far down the food chain as possible.
The optimal answer is the one prescribed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a little something called federalism. The Declaration notes that all men (also meaning women) are CREATED equal and our Constitution provides the structure to protect that equality by not getting government power involved in deciding societal battles.
Try a little federalism – unlike any form of collectivism, it works every time it is tried.
It’s actually the only way the United States can stay united.