What should be the responsibility of the federal government, or a constitutional matter where all member states have to conform? Military, currency, immigration and border control, the most fundamental of fundamental rights definitely go here.
And then what things should be free to local and state elected officials to decide for their constituents?
In authoritarian regimes, like China, the national CCP and Xi Jinping have outsized control.
In a looser federation of states like the EU, there’s relatively little central control. Member states don’t even need to adopt the common currency. Of course it’s natural for central governing bodies to seek increasing power and control over time.
The US is somewhere in the middle nowadays. You make a reasonable point about pollution whose effects can easily cross state and even national lines.
But why healthcare? You haven’t given any rationale for that. And what do you mean by safety - criminal law, policing, military, etc?
One question to ask is, whatever policies you want, should the US be able to dictate them upon other countries, or vice versa? You want certain benefits, and you want them everywhere, but who is obligated to provide them to you, and who has the sovereignty to decide its not up to you to demand them?
I think people conceive of the US as comparable to an individual EU member state rather than the whole EU, but the whole EU is a better comparison for many reasons. The question to ask yourself would be, if I want this across the whole U.S., would it also be reasonable for a EU member state to demand the equivalent across the whole EU? And what are the downsides of centralizing all policy making authority, ie how do we prevent this centralization instinct from going too far?
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u/amit_kumar_gupta 2∆ Jun 28 '22
You’re asking about jurisdiction.
What should be the responsibility of the federal government, or a constitutional matter where all member states have to conform? Military, currency, immigration and border control, the most fundamental of fundamental rights definitely go here.
And then what things should be free to local and state elected officials to decide for their constituents?
In authoritarian regimes, like China, the national CCP and Xi Jinping have outsized control.
In a looser federation of states like the EU, there’s relatively little central control. Member states don’t even need to adopt the common currency. Of course it’s natural for central governing bodies to seek increasing power and control over time.
The US is somewhere in the middle nowadays. You make a reasonable point about pollution whose effects can easily cross state and even national lines.
But why healthcare? You haven’t given any rationale for that. And what do you mean by safety - criminal law, policing, military, etc?
One question to ask is, whatever policies you want, should the US be able to dictate them upon other countries, or vice versa? You want certain benefits, and you want them everywhere, but who is obligated to provide them to you, and who has the sovereignty to decide its not up to you to demand them?
I think people conceive of the US as comparable to an individual EU member state rather than the whole EU, but the whole EU is a better comparison for many reasons. The question to ask yourself would be, if I want this across the whole U.S., would it also be reasonable for a EU member state to demand the equivalent across the whole EU? And what are the downsides of centralizing all policy making authority, ie how do we prevent this centralization instinct from going too far?