Parochial Control

[Martin Hash]

Most Americans do not like to give up their autonomy – the power of making their own decisions based on their personal set of values. When this country was founded, the 13 states united primarily to act in concert during their rebellion from Britain. The arguments for State’s rights were measured against the strength achieved by subservience to a central government. And though the U.S. Constitution is a miraculous piece of negotiation, it was really that the time and the place in history were just right for the creation of a new kind of political entity. The federal government is certainly an example of how the whole is stronger than the sum of the parts. However, the old feelings and arguments of autonomy and independence are still appealing, so-much-so that the single issue of parochial control verses representative control (national) is the second most important distinction, right after the choice of individual rights verses group rights, that determines political ideology and affiliation.

Parochial, or local, control encompasses much more than just State’s rights. Many groups wish to assert ultimate authority: church, civic groups, business, ethnicity, political organizations, and others. It is not just organized authority that defines parochial control – it could also be social conventions, tradition, or patriarchy. Even seemingly benign expectations, such as playing golf, watching football, or drinking wine are subtle forms of societial pressure. All of the above special interests feel justifiably threatened by an overarching federal bureaucracy to whom their only connection is a few elected politicians whose names they can’t remember. They feel that some remote, faceless bureaucracy cannot dictate what they can and cannot do because they owe their allegiance to others. Except for the undeniable success of federalism in guiding this nation to prosperity, there are few visible redeeming attributes of its Constitutionally-based supremacy.

Parochial authority wields its power via top-down commandments in a dictatorial manner with little or no counter-appeal from the constituency. In fact, in its organized forms, parochial power is essentially a class hierarchy - a person is superior to classes below their own and subservient to those above. The primary advantage of federalism is that parochial power is not representative – people must do as they are told with little chance of influence, whereas representative forms of a central government are at the mercy of the electorate.

p.s. Interestingly, a parochialism of one is anarchy, and a parochialism that includes everyone is communism.