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Comment by oldmanjay | Hacker News Reader

Decentralization of power is not about reducing the power of government, it's about bringing power closer to the governed and reducing the ability of people to misapply the power that there is. Your offhand dismissal shows you aren't looking at the problem from the same perspective.

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I'm very much in favor of the concept of keeping government as local as possible/practical, but it's possible that the poster wasn't dismissing the idea, rather how the principle tends to be applied in practice. I frequently see politicians misusing arguments in favor of decentralization as a roundabout way to get rid of some piece of federal legislation they don't like, because then they aren't obligated to argue in favor of the thing the legislation banned. Example: rejecting the abolition of slavery using the argument that such an abolition would have been federal overreach. The person fighting against abolition no longer has to argue in favor of slavery; rather they're claiming to fight in favor of states' rights, which is a much more comfortable argument for them to have. Likewise for Dixiecrats during the Jim Crow days.

I fear that the decentralization argument has been misused in this way so many times that invoking it makes people assume it's an intellectually dishonest, roundabout argument that is selectively promoting states' rights in an attempt to accomplish some other, much more nefarious goal. This is really unfortunate, as I am a big believer in minimizing the role of the federal government wherever it's feasible and practical to do so.

History describes many examples of completely localized power, and these days good examples can be viewed through the lens of legality for prosecutorial misconduct.

Your offhand dismissal shows you aren't looking at the problem from the same perspective

Since you're the first to mention decentralization, I think I can be excused for not accounting for whatever it is you mean by it.

I wasn't the OP, if it helps, and I didn't say anyone needs to be excused.

Could you elaborate on that?

Isn't the power of government based on how many it "governs" and how many ("governed", "voters", "taxpayers") it controls?

I could elaborate but won't. Political discussions aren't worth the energy, because people just harden their minds against new ideas

I'm not sure how to answer your second question. Yes, but so what?

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