Wednesday, March 30, 2011

There is a sturdy political cliche' out there

to the effect that the fifty states of this here Federal Union of ours, constitute fifty individual little "laboratories of democracy".
Like all cliches' at the core there is a hard nigh indestructible kernel of truth.
However, when Mad Scientists get control of the "individual little laboratory of democracy" it is Katie-Bar-The-Door Time!
My problem with all this is simple, it is an interpretation of Federalism taken to a partisan extreme. Seeing one's state as a laboratory workbench is a short step to seeing one's state as a personal fief-dom wherein one is a soverign autocrat on the model of the late House of Romanov.
This is where we get Governor's like Scott Walker (R Wisconsin) and John Kasich (R. Ohio)...Both men with an exaggerated sense of gubernatorial power and a messianic sense of mission, at least when it comes to Union Busting.
Federalism divides power, it does not abolish power or divide national sovereignty.
This is something worth remembering as the Governor of Wisconsin flirts with outright nullification.
Where does all this rubbush come from?
Sad to say one of the major political parties out there is too beholden to crazy people and too enamored with aggressive utopian notions to "play nice" within the context of a two party democracy.
I'm not talking about the democrats here either kids.
I don't think such a situation is sustainable over the intermediate term...But it does raise questions about where democracy is headed in this country.

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