Local control our best hope

Henry David Thoreau - American author, naturalist, tax resister, sage writer and philosopher - wrote in "Civil Disobedience": "I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, 'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."
 
Ralph Waldo Emerson - American essayist, poet and philosopher - expressed a similar sentiment in his essay entitled, "Politics," where he states, "Hence the less government we have the better - the fewer laws and the less confided power."
 
The lowest level of government is the individual and right next to it, the family unit. It is at this level where all of life's decisions are made. This is the ultimate in local control. Local control is having the ability to make decisions at the level closest to a situation. It makes sense that those most familiar with a situation are going to have the best, not necessarily the most complete, knowledge in order to warrant a proper decision to exact a desired outcome.
 
The founders believed in local control. They believed that individuals closest to their government officials would be in the best position to control those officials and thereby be in a better situation to make proper decisions. Individuals have closer communication with school district, city and county officials than they do with state officials. They have closer ties to their state representatives than they do with their federal officials.
 
Like federal government officials, state government officials are to be limited in their decision-making power. However, officials at the state level scream that federal government officials interfere too much with their decision-making process.
 
School district officials and city and county officials all get irritated at state government officials for making decisions in their realm.
 
Likewise families get upset with school district officials and city and county officials about interfering with their decisions about how to use their property, types of clothing to be worn to school by their children, what school their children may attend, or what business they can establish.
 
Of course, children hate it when their parents dictate to them how they should run their lives.
 
The Golden Rule, the one that goes, "He, who owns the gold, makes the rules," speaks volumes about why so much animosity and irritation exists between the various levels of government, resulting in the disappearance of local control at a very rapid rate.
 
When a child demands and expects his parent to provide for him, the parent naturally is going to make all or most decisions for the child, although, many times the screaming newborn dictates to the parent. Essentially, though, the parent is in charge and makes all, if not most, of life's decisions for the individual. As the individual grows and becomes independent, then the child makes his own decisions. This is local control.
 
When individuals demand that the city, county or school district pay for a zoning or licensing office to make decisions about land use or what business an individual can establish, it is pretty tough to argue who gets to make the decisions. Local control begins to get lost to other individuals.
 
As city, county and school district officials - along with many other individuals - clamor that the state pay for roads and school buildings, and dictate individual business activity, local control is again lost in an even greater amount.
 
Finally, once individuals decide that federal government officials ought to pay for education, roads, drug use, medical care and many other aspects of the individual's life, local control can and in many cases does become non-existent. This is the reason why the founders developed an extremely limited national government, assigning very few duties to the federal government.
 
It is also why the state constitution and city charter ought to do the same.
 
It is extremely difficult for society to have "no government." As James Madison noted, "If men were angels no government would be necessary."
 
The best mankind can have is local control allowing as much individual freedom - and by definition individual responsibility - as possible and limit all other government levels to keeping the peace and penalizing those who would initiate force upon another.


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Howard J. Blitz is a local libertarian and
president of The Freedom Library Inc.,
2435 S. 8th Ave. His e-mail address is
info@freedomlibrary.org.