All Fascism is Local

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dylan-brody/46639/all-fascism-is-local


All Fascism is Local
by Dylan Brody | November 19, 2012 - 10:12am

The Reagan era produced a cultural belief that government is inherently bad and that big government is inherently worse than small government. This sounded like it made sense when it came out in warm, condescending grandfatherly tones from an apple-cheeked old actor-cum-politician but ultimately the fallacy becomes apparent.

The truth is, the whole point of creating a United States rather than a Loose Affiliation of Sovereign States was that there are things a centralized government can accomplish that several competing and feuding governments cannot. At the start, of course, it was about throwing off British rule and the life of colonial fealty to a distant monarch. Over time, our nation found other benefits to being a single country under a centralized government. We were able to build commercial and economic resources in ways that made us a world power. As a country we have been able to exploit innovation as it has occurred from the cotton gin to the steam engine to the electrical distribution system and space exploration. We have grown more inclusive in terms of our own governance and economic participation, abolishing slavery, accepting women as full citizens and disallowing discrimination based on race or religion. The seven day work week, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a public education system, child labor laws, great, hard-won accomplishments, all of which came to be under the single banner that flies above all the state flags in our Union.

Our very mythology, reaching back into pre-American feudal society, revolves around the value of big, centralized government. When King Arthur came into power, according to the legend, England was a divided land, a place of tribal rivalries and small kingdoms vying for power and warring for land. Then, under Pendragon’s banner, all pledged fealty to the single king allowing Arthur to bring peace to the land. Granted, this was still a feudal vision of governance, but it was a start toward movement away from segmented government.

~snip~

It is time to let go of this idea that without centralized government, every community would run itself peacefully. The fact is, we are all a half-inch away from devolving into fractious, regional mobs. We need centralized government. We need a government big enough to oversee a huge, powerful, diverse country. We need to learn the darkest, saddest, most important lesson history has to offer: All fascism is local.

[rsweets]

1. +1 nt