By Ryan McMaken
The radical classical liberals of the past were not so naive as to think that words on paper would prevent the abuses of the central state. Allowing the central state to have a monopoly on coercive power is always a mistake.
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Isn’t the House of Representatives and states rights an attempt at decentralization?
I think the biggest mistake our system made was making senators an election. I think governors should appoint senators as it used to be.
Yes, states' rights were an effort in that direction, but the argument is that the system was still designed with centralizing tendencies.
The House of Representatives is still part of the same federal government as the other branches and the Senate. The argument here would be that while those different bodies may be reluctant to relinquish power to another branch, they still all have an incentive to accumulate more power to the federal government.
Senators no longer being state appointees was a blow to decentralization because they were there to see to the interests of the states.
I hadn't really thought about this before, but the House might have made more sense if the districts were somehow required to align with specific community boundaries, even if that meant different numbers of constituents in each district.
please consider including the most important four-digit number of human history in future such posts.
e.g. if Ryan McMaken died 150 years ago, and published while alive, I'd be commenting angrily as to why there is no link in your post of a downloadable copy of the text.
in case it's not obvious: year of publication. I don't care if you forget the negative, I can probably figure out whether you're talking about papyrus or medieval scroll... however there is a huge difference between how much time I might dedicate reading about something I should buy for supporting the living author, rather than the impulsivity with which I'd skip reviews and seek the downloadable copy of e.g. Galois's dying letter to Cauchy
What if you try clicking the link and just see all of that for yourself, instead of these whiny passive aggressive comments?
you ever tried skimming the bibliography of a
bookmonograph?please consider improving the quality of information that is included in the single line that appears on the frontpage!