A smaller/more locsl system can still attempt to be totalitarian, but the more local you get, the harder it is to maintain control like that

Dont you know the parties swtiched sometime **after 1960** and before **FDR?**

@Beemann What. No. Local warlord or lord?

Lmao @ VA

Local warlords dont often maintain power

General Lee where r u pls help

They can maintain for a generation.

The Congo is a mess because nobody has the power to control more than a small area at a time, and everyone wants power

@FitnessByHeatherHeyer Didn't you get the Memo? All Civil War statues are celebrations of slavery and literally proto hitler.

@Beemann I mean sure, also because they violently kill and rape each other 24/7, and everyone has a blood fued.

Right but that's obviously not a sustainable model at any scale

I think a powerful leader often is the ONLY way to be bring peace to really violent seperate groups.

I think that depends on the existing circumstances of the separation. Usually it works that way for a reason. It also may not be sustainable

Yugoslavia fell apart. We'll see how the Balkans do going forward

@Beemann Yep, my point is though that no goverment other then brutal totalitarianism seems to hold those crazy places together.

It takes a generation or two of murder to make everyone calm down enough to work together, then aggressive redoctrination

@Old Man Hound you lost me. What party switch are you referring to?

Sometimes the larger force enhances or creates the animosity

@The Bitter Draught It was sarcasm. The party switch that was supposed to have happened to explain how the south went Red. The Joke is it happened after 1960 and before FDR (who died in 1945)

@Beemann
> The US ran the system I'm talking about, until it was undermined primarily in the last hundred years or so.
Lol. No.
> Decentralization is a sliding scale. It's not dictatorship or ancapistan.
Centralization has nothing to do with either. That would be scope.
> Further,
> 1) decentralization means that you are ruled by a more-local body, which is more accountable
Except, no. All it means there are more points of failure. There's no evidence that being local inherently makes governing bodies more accountable.
> 2) scope of government is a factor of centralizarion
Nope.

@Beemann
> A smaller/more locsl system can still attempt to be totalitarian, but the more local you get, the harder it is to maintain control like that
Sauce?

Kevin are you voting for big government or what here?

Not judging but having trouble following your argument.

@Old Man Hound
Yup.

He's suggesting that scope and centralization are inherently separate. To which I must ask what centralization would be defined as

I completely understand the advantages a dictator can bring to a government as well as the advantages of democracy.

Where the seats of power are. Imagine a Federal system of vanguard communist regimes. It would be both decentralized and totalitarian.

@Old Man Hound
Honestly, I care a lot less about size/scope of government power, and more what it does with that power.

isn't one of the problems with communism is it tries to be centralist and power hungry over all elements of a society, but because government never reacts fast...

You have issues of starvation and human rights abuses?

Centralization of power doesnt just exist within federally appointed positions though does it?
E.g. if we return to pure citizen's militias, we've atomized defense. If we decide that states need standing armies, we've partially centralized. This is *also* an aspect of scope

Because scope is necessarily deeming what power can and should be consolidated

Can I make a broad analogy?

This isn't specific to this argument but...

Its important to have opposition.

Knock yourself out my dude

One nice thing about multiple small governments competing either in taxes, trade, or militarily is that

It prevents the government from getting too drunk and stupid because someone will move in, and move in worse if they get really dumb.

It also encourages innovation because there are actual real issues that need to be dealt with.

I think this is one of the HUGE issues America is having right now?

America is drunk, powerful, and has no real foes, so why not fuck off and get drunk and suck some dick?