How many hierarchical levels of government should there be?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think that the lowest level of organization in the United States should be at the county level.  In 2014 there's really no need to create a distinction and have separate city and county governments, especially in counties with under 100,000 or so people. 

No.  I could see in states laid out according to the PLSS not having any unit of government smaller than the township, but not the county as the smallest unit of government.  I'd love to see South Carolina divided into townships, tho of course, they couldn't be all six miles square.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Four, with the national government being as weak as possible. The concept of international government is vile.

In what way?

It strips national sovereignty. The very concept of individual nations is what keeps the world together and keeps local interests served in the best manner possible. Why should the people of Mozambique be ruled by a person born and raised in Australia? Why should a German be ruled by a Malaysian? Or a Mexican ruled by an "international" president from Israel?

The world consists of thousands of different cultures that are very different from one another.

sounds like a polite way of saying you don't want to share a government with all those horrible brown people.

Or perhaps the brown people don't want to share a government with us? In either case, so what?

they're not the ones posting in this thread, bru.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

>implying that an international government would be the only level of government
also there's that "constituents similar to themselves" thing again.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

very true, as we can see from the example of the un being entirely under the thumb of "the west".

You must be logged in to read this quote.

if one desires a political system that best protects everyone's rights and well-being (as any ostensible human being ought to believe is an inherently desirable end, all things being equal), then one should advocate for making the functions of government as global as possible.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

ftfy
if we left all the power to local municipalities, half of alabama would still have bans on interracial marriage.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

nah. every single reform of this kind that europe has had recently has been through the eu.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

so basically the reason you're advocating this is as a means of giving corporations more power. i suppose that is, indeed, marginally better than racism.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

advocates of minimal government make it seem as though a thousand scattered communities are the only means of dealing with such problems, though i suppose when you only have tinfoil, every problem resembles mind-control waves.

Are people really suggesting that opposing an international government makes you racist? lol

when their main argument seems to be "different people have different cultures and somehow that makes it totally impossible for them to share a government", then yeah.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

um...

[SPC]

Four, with the national government being as weak as possible. The concept of international government is vile.

In what way?

It strips national sovereignty. The very concept of individual nations is what keeps the world together and keeps local interests served in the best manner possible. Why should the people of Mozambique be ruled by a person born and raised in Australia? Why should a German be ruled by a Malaysian? Or a Mexican ruled by an "international" president from Israel?

The world consists of thousands of different cultures that are very different from one another.

sounds like a polite way of saying you don't want to share a government with all those horrible brown people.

Or perhaps the brown people don't want to share a government with us? In either case, so what?

they're not the ones posting in this thread, bru.

So you don't think they should have a say in the matter?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

>implying that an international government would be the only level of government[/quote]

Can you think of any matter where the above would not be the case?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Your point being?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

very true, as we can see from the example of the un being entirely under the thumb of "the west".[/quote]

Is it not on all matters over which it has any real jurisdiction?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

if one desires a political system that best protects everyone's rights and well-being (as any ostensible human being ought to believe is an inherently desirable end, all things being equal), then one should advocate for making the functions of government as global as possible.[/quote]

So how do you redress your wrongs when said global government violates your rights and well-being (as it certainly will)?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

ftfy
if we left all the power to local municipalities, half of alabama would still have bans on interracial marriage.[/quote]

So I take it you must oppose the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado, since that is a problem that the national government fixed long ago with the War on Drugs?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

nah. every single reform of this kind that europe has had recently has been through the eu.[/quote]

The EU has only introduced an additional layer of bureaucracy that Europeans have had to deal with, which is exactly my point.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

so basically the reason you're advocating this is as a means of giving corporations more power. i suppose that is, indeed, marginally better than racism.[/quote]

No, I was merely outlining one possible alternative solution to the free rider problem, as that was inevitably going to be the counterargument someone would propose. The common objection to a free society is that some goods necessitate a monopolistic provision of services, so if I propose a means by which such an arrangement could come about without an expansive state, do not then object that such an arrangement is corporatist in nature. What else can you call an arrangement where one corporation has a worldwide monopoly on the power of taxation and provision of certain services (because otherwise what would be the point of a global state?)

In any event, if one is opposed to corporate power, why would one be a supporter of a global superstate, where influence of policy that affects the entire planet is available to the highest bidder (and if you're objection is "something something campaign finance laws", then I posit that if campaign finance laws had any actual effect on curbing corporate influence in government, there would be no incentive for the politicians who run the global state to enact it). Far more destructive to the influence of corporate power would be an arrangement where one can only buy influence proportional to one's market share, which would open them up to the specter of competition.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

advocates of minimal government make it seem as though a thousand scattered communities are the only means of dealing with such problems, though i suppose when you only have tinfoil, every problem resembles mind-control waves.[/quote]

Nice way of combining an ad hominem attack with a red herring argument to avoid answering the original question. While I acknowledge that undoing the century-long trend toward centralization is a difficult task given the seemingly infinite resources of the nation-state, I would aver that the more foolhardy task is seeking to construct a government across hundreds to thousands of cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, and economic barriers and expecting an institution that is capable of improving the lifestyle of even a majority of its subjects.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

when their main argument seems to be "different people have different cultures and somehow that makes it totally impossible for them to share a government", then yeah.[/quote]

Because that has worked so well in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Basque Country, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Quebec, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Rwanda, Sudan, East Pakistan, Tibet, Xinjiang, West Papua, East Timor, Western Sahara, or any other of the myriad of attempts to impose a common government on different cultural groups. Was the nation of Slovakia racist for not wanting to share a government with the Czechs?

[Antonio the Sixth]

"Why should an American be ruled by a Nigerian?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should a Wisconsinite be ruled by a Californian?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should an inhabitant of Marathon County be ruled by an inhabitant of Dane County?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should an inhabitant of Emmett Town be ruled by an inhabitant of Wausau City?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should an inhabitant of the eastern side of the town be ruled by an inhabitant of the western side?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Wait, why should I be ruled by my neighbor?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

...and that's how every person in the world became a sovereign country.

[SPC]

"Why should an American be ruled by a Nigerian?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should a Wisconsinite be ruled by a Californian?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should an inhabitant of Marathon County be ruled by an inhabitant of Dane County?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should an inhabitant of Emmett Town be ruled by an inhabitant of Wausau City?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Why should an inhabitant of the eastern side of the town be ruled by an inhabitant of the western side?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

"Wait, why should I be ruled by my neighbor?!? That makes no sense!!!!"

...and that's how every person in the world became a sovereign country.

Your reductio ad absurdum argument falls apart when the service in question is changed from governance to literally anything else (I would try to be more descriptive than "governance," but the one-worlders on here seem to be vague as to what this world government would actually do, except for implementing a Harrison Berguson-esque regime, and it is a perversion of vocabulary to describe that as a "good" or "service"). If, instead of government, we were discussing imposing a global monopoly on retail goods, you could argue that to object to forcing Walmart shoppers to do their shopping at KMart, or vice-versa, inevitably implies that one must advocate for everybody to craft all desired retail goods by hand, the flaw in this argument is more obvious. Just because I (and most other people on the planet) object to the imposition of a global monopoly on government does not imply that I am somehow opposed to the division of labor with regard to government. Given that we are all inherently unequal, some people are inevitably going to be better at governing than others. However, that does not imply that those people would necessarily provide the best form of government for everyone. Different people will prefer governments that provide different services and different quality of services for different prices. While this is true at any level, these differences are only magnified if you look across different cultures. Peoples with a deep history of common law jurisprudence will have a fundamentally different outlook from those with a legal tradition stemmed from Napoleonic law, who in turn will have a different outlook from those with an tradition in Islamic law, who in turn will have a different outlook from those with an oral tradition passed down by the tribal elders. If you cannot get a nation to even agree on something as simple as what is the best recipe for water flavored with high-fructose corn syrup, how can you possibly expect the entire world to agree whose legal traditions would be the best for everybody on the planet to follow. While one may object that this is a moot point since national governments would still hold most jurisdiction and the global body would only have power on a select range of issues, inevitably these questions will arise as soon as there is a serious dispute about how the global body is governed. Once one begins to ask these questions, the facade that globalism is anything but neo-imperialism fades. The claim that it is racist to object to imposing the same form of government on an American and a Nigerian holds no more water than the older claim that only a savage would object to imposing Western practices on a Nigerian, or the more recent claim that only a Baathist would object to imposing democracy on an Iraqi. One could claim that the fact that the United Nations exists disproves my point. However, the fact that the only actions of the United Nations that can be realistically enforced are those that are tacitly approved by the five most powerful nations only serves to illustrate my point.

The above is why I do not take the specter of global government seriously. The Alex Joneses of the world may try to gain followers by scaremongering their viewers about a distant monolithic body with literally nothing stopping it, but hundreds of years or more of cultural differences will ensure that such a nightmare remains a pipe dream of socialist intellectuals. The more dangerous threat comes from the states that already wield a tremendous amount of power, not the hypothetical powers of a superstate.

[Indy Texas]

It seems like five vertical layers* is the most common?

*Example:
1. Local (cities, towns, villages, etc)
2. Regional (counties, metro-wide, etc)
3. Above regional but below national
4. National/federal
5. International

COMMUNIST AGENDA 21 POPULATION CONTROL BLACK HELICOPTERS UN STATISM BLUE HELMETTED STORMTROOPERS MUHFREEDOMS TRILATERAL COMMISSION SOVEREIGNTY BOUTROS BOUTROS GHALI MURICA JESUS FREEDOM CLUB OF ROME NEW WORLD ORDER

[ElectionsGuy]

It seems like five vertical layers* is the most common?

*Example:
1. Local (cities, towns, villages, etc)
2. Regional (counties, metro-wide, etc)
3. Above regional but below national
4. National/federal
5. International

COMMUNIST AGENDA21 POPULATION CONTROL BLACK HELICOPTERS UNSTATISM BLUE HELMETTED STORM TROOPERS MUH FREEDOMS TRILATERAL COMMISSION SOVEREIGNTY BOUTROS BOUTROS GHALI MURICA JESUS FREEDOM CLUB OF ROME NEW WORLD ORDER

Just had to separate it out.

[politicallefty]

I'd probably say four, which would include:

International. This would be weak, but would be much stronger than the UN. Not all countries would have equal representation, but it wouldn't be solely based on population either. I could see each country having between one and ten votes, depending on a number of factors. The international government would have power to enforce treaties, which could come into force upon approval of a 3/4 vote of that body and 3/4 of national governments approving it. That sort of structure would at least have ensured full enactment of treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

National . This would mostly remain as it is today, but nations would no longer have absolute sovereignty. Overall, this level of government would still retain the most power.

Regional/State. This level would be made up of each national government. To use the US as an example, this would be the state level of government. However, I'd redraw the lines to more accurately represent today's society. Population would be a consideration, but just one of several (in other words, not necessarily equal in size, but also not horrendously imbalanced). They would also have certain delegated powers.

County/Municipal/Local. This would be the lowest level of government, with powers similar to most cities and counties. In the US context, this would be a consolidation  of cities and counties. For the sake of simplicity, these jurisdictions would be drawn from scratch within each regional/state entity. I'd try to keep core metropolitan areas together, though they could be conterminous with the regional/state government. (In other words, I could see NYC as both this level and the level above.) Examples of redrawn units in this level could be the DFW Metroplex or the Tampa Bay Area.

[Sol]

IndyTX, could you fix that? It makes the thread unreadable.

[Indy Texas]

IndyTX, could you fix that? It makes the thread unreadable.

FIFY!

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Four, with the national government being as weak as possible. The concept of international government is vile.

In what way?

It strips national sovereignty. The very concept of individual nations is what keeps the world together and keeps local interests served in the best manner possible. Why should the people of Mozambique be ruled by a person born and raised in Australia? Why should a German be ruled by a Malaysian? Or a Mexican ruled by an "international" president from Israel?

The world consists of thousands of different cultures that are very different from one another.

sounds like a polite way of saying you don't want to share a government with all those horrible brown people.

Or perhaps the brown people don't want to share a government with us? In either case, so what?

they're not the ones posting in this thread, bru.

So you don't think they should have a say in the matter?

what i'm saying is that you and sanchez are the ones spouting nonsense about not being able to share a government with the browns, not the other way around.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

>implying that an international government would be the only level of government[/quote]

Can you think of any matter where the above would not be the case?[/quote]
you mean issues which would be handled better by an international government than national governments?
human rights in general. weights, measures, and other standards. global warming and related issues. human trafficking.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Your point being? [/quote]
obvious racist undertones. it's not a coincidence you picked zambia rather than, say, belarus.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

very true, as we can see from the example of the un being entirely under the thumb of "the west".[/quote]

Is it not on all matters over which it has any real jurisdiction?[/quote]
no.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

if one desires a political system that best protects everyone's rights and well-being (as any ostensible human being ought to believe is an inherently desirable end, all things being equal), then one should advocate for making the functions of government as global as possible.[/quote]

So how do you redress your wrongs when said global government violates your rights and well-being (as it certainly will)?[/quote]
the same way you do now when the national government violates your rights and well-being. through elections and/or the courts.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

ftfy
if we left all the power to local municipalities, half of alabama would still have bans on interracial marriage.[/quote]

So I take it you must oppose the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado, since that is a problem that the national government fixed long ago with the War on Drugs?[/quote]
i'm fairly certain a world government wouldn't perpetuate the war on drugs.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

nah. every single reform of this kind that europe has had recently has been through the eu.[/quote]

The EU has only introduced an additional layer of bureaucracy that Europeans have had to deal with, which is exactly my point. [/quote]
it has made many areas more "streamlined, comprehensible, and comparatively uniform" than any collection of states without such a framework has done.

also, the average european doesn't have to "deal with an additional layer of bureaucracy" in any meaningful sense. sounds like you're more concerned with large corporations than with normal people. again.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

so basically the reason you're advocating this is as a means of giving corporations more power. i suppose that is, indeed, marginally better than racism.[/quote]

No, I was merely outlining one possible alternative solution to the free rider problem, as that was inevitably going to be the counterargument someone would propose. The common objection to a free society is that some goods necessitate a monopolistic provision of services, so if I propose a means by which such an arrangement could come about without an expansive state, do not then object that such an arrangement is corporatist in nature.[/quote]
what?
you're totally missing the point here. nobody thinks that a "free society" (lol) wouldn't have roads or defense. we just see that the mess of greedy, unchecked corporations that would spring up to fill those needs would be tremendously bad for more or less everyone.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

you seem to be implying that a state and a corporation are the same thing.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

this is, indeed, a valid concern. but a world government sure as hell isn't going to be more influenced by corporations than the current american government.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

"influence proportional to one's market share"? sorry if i'm misinterpreting, but considering the relevant corporations operate worldwide, doesn't this only work in a global government? i mean, in the current system, you see corporations using profits earned in richer countries to influence poorer countries far beyond their market share.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

advocates of minimal government make it seem as though a thousand scattered communities are the only means of dealing with such problems, though i suppose when you only have tinfoil, every problem resembles mind-control waves.[/quote]

Nice way of combining an ad hominem attack with a red herring argument to avoid answering the original question. While I acknowledge that undoing the century-long trend toward centralization is a difficult task given the seemingly infinite resources of the nation-state, [/quote]
and thank heavens for that

You must be logged in to read this quote.

why not?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

when their main argument seems to be "different people have different cultures and somehow that makes it totally impossible for them to share a government", then yeah.[/quote]

Because that has worked so well in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Basque Country, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Quebec, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Rwanda, Sudan, East Pakistan, Tibet, Xinjiang, West Papua, East Timor, Western Sahara, or any other of the myriad of attempts to impose a common government on different cultural groups. Was the nation of Slovakia racist for not wanting to share a government with the Czechs?
[/quote]
most of these are a case of one group subjugating another. this cannot happen in a world government. you're not going to find a bloc of more than 3.5 billion people that is unified enough to stomp on everyone else.

[SPC]

Four, with the national government being as weak as possible. The concept of international government is vile.

In what way?

It strips national sovereignty. The very concept of individual nations is what keeps the world together and keeps local interests served in the best manner possible. Why should the people of Mozambique be ruled by a person born and raised in Australia? Why should a German be ruled by a Malaysian? Or a Mexican ruled by an "international" president from Israel?

The world consists of thousands of different cultures that are very different from one another.

sounds like a polite way of saying you don't want to share a government with all those horrible brown people.

Or perhaps the brown people don't want to share a government with us? In either case, so what?

they're not the ones posting in this thread, bru.

So you don't think they should have a say in the matter?

what i'm saying is that you and sanchez are the ones spouting nonsense about not being able to share a government with the browns, not the other way around.

That may have more to do with the demographics of this forum. I could claim with just as much credibility that world government advocates must be white supremacists, since no non-Western individuals have posted in this thread in its advocacy. (BTW, its kind of demeaning to constitute all non-Western societies in a group as "brown" people. I doubt that Zambia, Tanzania, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea would have any basis whatsoever for sharing sovereignty with one another, much less Europeans.)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

>implying that an international government would be the only level of government[/quote]

Can you think of any matter where the above would not be the case?[/quote]
you mean issues which would be handled better by an international government than national governments?
human rights in general. weights, measures, and other standards. global warming and related issues. human trafficking.[/quote]

The UN's current record of humanitarian interventions have been a disaster, and I do not see any reason to believe that it would not continue to be a veiled pretext for regime change by interested parties under a strengthened world government. Weights and measures are already effectively standardized except for three countries. I do not see why you should be so concerned whether the United States, Burma, and Liberia switch to the metric system, and if you were an American, lobbying Congress to that end would have a better chance of success than asking Congress to cede its lawmaking powers to an unaccountable world body. Unless you seek the undo the Industrial Revolution (and consequently, kill most of the "brown" people you feign concern for), a world government could not make any substantive "progress" with regard to global warming. Is the world police going to invade China and India (much less the United States), or any other country that fails to sacrifice their industrial capacity for the sake of appeasing the greenhouse gods?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Your point being? [/quote]
obvious racist undertones. it's not a coincidence you picked zambia rather than, say, belarus.[/quote]

Obviously Belarus would have worked just as well. With ~200 countries in the world, and ~50 of those being in Europe (of whom about half have a governing system in the Western tradition), chances are statistically that I would have chosen a country with a population that you would dismiss as "brown." Is it necessary to choose only countries with white people that are culturally-dissimilar to the West in order to prove I'm not a racist? Or would that also get me accused of racism on the basis that I am ignoring the existence of non-white countries?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

very true, as we can see from the example of the un being entirely under the thumb of "the west".[/quote]

Is it not on all matters over which it has any real jurisdiction?[/quote]
no.[/quote]

Great debating tactic, make a disparaging sarcastic remark intended to mock the opponent, then when questioned about the legitimacy of said remark, give a one-word response, lacking any evidence whatsoever. But seriously, can you provide an example where the United Nations performed an action with substantive enforcement that was against the interests of the United States government?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

if one desires a political system that best protects everyone's rights and well-being (as any ostensible human being ought to believe is an inherently desirable end, all things being equal), then one should advocate for making the functions of government as global as possible.[/quote]

So how do you redress your wrongs when said global government violates your rights and well-being (as it certainly will)?[/quote]
the same way you do now when the national government violates your rights and well-being. through elections and/or the courts.[/quote]

Hahahaha. Your proposed system is not imperialistic, yet when questioned about the mechanisms of dispute resolution within the context of your system, you immediately revert to the default preferences of a Western nation. Brilliant tactic, as doing so only serves to illustrate my point that establishing a world government requires mending irreconcilable differences between peoples with regard to governing preferences, which then allows you to pull the race card rather than address these criticisms. 

[SPC]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

ftfy
if we left all the power to local municipalities, half of alabama would still have bans on interracial marriage.[/quote]

So I take it you must oppose the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado, since that is a problem that the national government fixed long ago with the War on Drugs?[/quote]
i'm fairly certain a world government wouldn't perpetuate the war on drugs.[/quote]

Hahahahaha

You must be logged in to read this quote.

nah. every single reform of this kind that europe has had recently has been through the eu.[/quote]

The EU has only introduced an additional layer of bureaucracy that Europeans have had to deal with, which is exactly my point. [/quote]
it has made many areas more "streamlined, comprehensible, and comparatively uniform" than any collection of states without such a framework has done.

also, the average european doesn't have to "deal with an additional layer of bureaucracy" in any meaningful sense. sounds like you're more concerned with large corporations than with normal people. again.[/quote]

Because the costs of performing business of institutions that by definition perform transactions with a plethora of "normal" people do not affect "normal people in any way whatsoever.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

so basically the reason you're advocating this is as a means of giving corporations more power. i suppose that is, indeed, marginally better than racism.[/quote]

No, I was merely outlining one possible alternative solution to the free rider problem, as that was inevitably going to be the counterargument someone would propose. The common objection to a free society is that some goods necessitate a monopolistic provision of services, so if I propose a means by which such an arrangement could come about without an expansive state, do not then object that such an arrangement is corporatist in nature.[/quote]
what?
you're totally missing the point here. nobody thinks that a "free society" (lol) wouldn't have roads or defense. we just see that the mess of greedy, unchecked corporations that would spring up to fill those needs would be tremendously bad for more or less everyone.[/quote]

So a company that must constantly compete for the good graces of its customers in order to stay solvent is "unchecked," but a bureaucrat for a national government (much less a hypothetical world government) who essentially holds his position until he retires, is "accountable" because his boss's boss's boss is chosen by a plurality of the population every few years, and if one of his victims has the resources to fight a years-long legal battle with this bureaucrat, a judge holding a lifetime appointment from said boss's boss's boss can determine the limits on this bureaucrat's power.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

you seem to be implying that a state and a corporation are the same thing.[/quote]

Can you provide a reason why an entity called a 'state' that holds a de jure monopoly on power would be any more benevolent than an entity you choose to call a 'corporation' and speculate would grow to hold a monopoly in the absence of a global 'state'?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

this is, indeed, a valid concern. but a world government sure as hell isn't going to be more influenced by corporations than the current american government.[/quote]

Again, why would the incentive system that encourages rentseeking in the context of the American political system suddenly disappear by transplanting this system to a global context? Even if it were possible, those who would be in a position to do so most certainly would not exercise that option.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

"influence proportional to one's market share"? sorry if i'm misinterpreting, but considering the relevant corporations operate worldwide, doesn't this only work in a global government? i mean, in the current system, you see corporations using profits earned in richer countries to influence poorer countries far beyond their market share.[/quote]

Again, that only exists because poorer countries have corrupt governments that can be easily bought by external interests. Rentseeking would be impossible without a powerful central government, and those poorer countries might make substantive progress in the absence of regime uncertainty poised by corrupt and capricious autocrats. Given those autocrats sanction by a global governing body (unless you want this body to directly impose local administrators on the local populations, in which case you're not even hiding the pretense of plagiarizing Cecil Rhodes) is the last thing that people in impoverished nations need in order to achieve economic growth.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

when their main argument seems to be "different people have different cultures and somehow that makes it totally impossible for them to share a government", then yeah.[/quote]

Because that has worked so well in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Basque Country, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Quebec, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Rwanda, Sudan, East Pakistan, Tibet, Xinjiang, West Papua, East Timor, Western Sahara, or any other of the myriad of attempts to impose a common government on different cultural groups. Was the nation of Slovakia racist for not wanting to share a government with the Czechs?
[/quote]
most of these are a case of one group subjugating another. this cannot happen in a world government. you're not going to find a bloc of more than 3.5 billion people that is unified enough to stomp on everyone else.
[/quote]

Again, you're vainly assuming that this global government would adopt the rules and procedures that come with Western cultural norms. That in itself would constitute "subjugation" for a substantial proportion of the world's population. Second, you make the assumption that "subjugation" in a democratic political system requires the active consent of a majority of its citizens. Unless this global polity is going to be governed like an Ancient Greek city-state or Lord of the Flies, that simply is not going to be the case. The candidates with the backing from those with the greatest financial resources will get elected and consequently obtain the opportunity to implement their preferred agenda, which will no doubt piss off a significant minority of their constituents, unless the adoption of this global government will convert the entirety of mankind to a hive mentality.

I've already wasted way too much of my time arguing over such a silly idea, and considering I am already reaching the maximum message size, I shall end my remarks here. If you choose to debate a policy that is of greater relevance to the world as it is today rather than as a utopian collectivist envisions it, and can hold it in yourself to refrain from hurling ad hominem attacks at your opponents at the mere suggestion that such a policy may be lacking in merit, I would happily oblige in partaking in civil debate.

[Del Tachi]

I think that the lowest level of organization in the United States should be at the county level.  In 2014 there's really no need to create a distinction and have separate city and county governments, especially in counties with under 100,000 or so people. 

No.  I could see in states laid out according to the PLSS not having any unit of government smaller than the township, but not the county as the smallest unit of government.  I'd love to see South Carolina divided into townships, tho of course, they couldn't be all six miles square.

I can't think of any serious repercussions that would result if you took a state like Mississippi or South Carolina and moved all local authority to the county-level.  Of course, county governments would need to get much more robust in order to make this work. 

Having municipalities existing within counties is detrimental to commercial growth and development and, in places like the rural South, perpetuates school segregation and the like. 

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think that the lowest level of organization in the United States should be at the county level.  In 2014 there's really no need to create a distinction and have separate city and county governments, especially in counties with under 100,000 or so people. 

No.  I could see in states laid out according to the PLSS not having any unit of government smaller than the township, but not the county as the smallest unit of government.  I'd love to see South Carolina divided into townships, tho of course, they couldn't be all six miles square.

I can't think of any serious repercussions that would result if you took a state like Mississippi or South Carolina and moved all local authority to the county-level.  Of course, county governments would need to get much more robust in order to make this work. 

Having municipalities existing within counties is detrimental to commercial growth and development and, in places like the rural South, perpetuates school segregation and the like. 

Municipalities have practically nothing to do with schools here in South Carolina. About the only influence they have is that in counties with multiple school districts, they usually will have different municipalities as their core.  School districts here are even largely independent of counties, with some districts straddling county borders and most having no oversight from county councils.  (We have a crazy quilt of local government, so some school boards have to get a county council to approve their tax rates.)

[Del Tachi]

I think that the lowest level of organization in the United States should be at the county level.  In 2014 there's really no need to create a distinction and have separate city and county governments, especially in counties with under 100,000 or so people. 

No.  I could see in states laid out according to the PLSS not having any unit of government smaller than the township, but not the county as the smallest unit of government.  I'd love to see South Carolina divided into townships, tho of course, they couldn't be all six miles square.

I can't think of any serious repercussions that would result if you took a state like Mississippi or South Carolina and moved all local authority to the county-level.  Of course, county governments would need to get much more robust in order to make this work. 

Having municipalities existing within counties is detrimental to commercial growth and development and, in places like the rural South, perpetuates school segregation and the like. 

Municipalities have practically nothing to do with schools here in South Carolina. About the only influence they have is that in counties with multiple school districts, they usually will have different municipalities as their core.  School districts here are even largely independent of counties, with some districts straddling county borders and most having no oversight from county councils.  (We have a crazy quilt of local government, so some school boards have to get a county council to approve their tax rates.)

So why wouldn't it be much easier and much more efficient to consolidate all aspects of local government into 42 centralized, well-funded, well-staffed entities instead of having literally thousands of municipal governments, boards, and authorities that, in many cases, cross other jurisdictional lines?

[Sol]

I think that the lowest level of organization in the United States should be at the county level.  In 2014 there's really no need to create a distinction and have separate city and county governments, especially in counties with under 100,000 or so people. 

No.  I could see in states laid out according to the PLSS not having any unit of government smaller than the township, but not the county as the smallest unit of government.  I'd love to see South Carolina divided into townships, tho of course, they couldn't be all six miles square.

I can't think of any serious repercussions that would result if you took a state like Mississippi or South Carolina and moved all local authority to the county-level.  Of course, county governments would need to get much more robust in order to make this work. 

Having municipalities existing within counties is detrimental to commercial growth and development and, in places like the rural South, perpetuates school segregation and the like. 

Municipalities have practically nothing to do with schools here in South Carolina. About the only influence they have is that in counties with multiple school districts, they usually will have different municipalities as their core.  School districts here are even largely independent of counties, with some districts straddling county borders and most having no oversight from county councils.  (We have a crazy quilt of local government, so some school boards have to get a county council to approve their tax rates.)

So why wouldn't it be much easier and much more efficient to consolidate all aspects of local government into 42 centralized, well-funded, well-staffed entities instead of having literally thousands of municipal governments, boards, and authorities that, in many cases, cross other jurisdictional lines?

The trouble is is that counties don't often correspond well to what makes sense from a planning  perspective. Think of Placer County, CA, which goes from suburban Sacto to Lake Tahoe- it doesn't make sense to put those two together.

Also, lots of cities straddle county lines, and splitting 'em wouldn't be too logical.

Instead, the wild patchwork of different municipalities should replaced by unified metropolitan governments- i.e., everything in Metro Atlanta (say) would be one big city.