Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Most Americans do not like to give up their autonomy, the power to make 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 uniting power. Though the U.S. Constitution is a marvelous 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 for autonomy and independence are still appealing, so-much-so that the single issue of parochial local control verses representative national control is the second most important distinction, right after the choice of individual rights verses group rights, that determines political ideology and affiliation.

Parochial control is empowered by social conventions, tradition & patriarchy. It wields its authority via top-down commandments in a dictatorial manner with little or no counter-appeal from its constituency. In fact, in its organized forms, parochial control is essentially a Class hierarchy: a person is superior to members whose social status is below their own, and subservient to those above. Even seemingly benign expectations, such as playing golf, watching football, or drinking wine are subtle forms of parochial societal pressure. Parochial interests feel justifiably threatened by an overarching federal power to whom their only connection is a few elected politicians whose names they can’t remember. They feel that some remote, faceless bureaucracy should not dictate what they can and cannot do. Except for the undeniable success of federalism in guiding this nation to prosperity, the arguments against it would prevail.