The reader rejoins concerning common sense:
We do need to work together, but apparently the “we” in that sentence for the GOP means excluding the actual experts completely. We are not equal, literally. We are equal before the Law, we are equal before God (if you will), we have equal rights and deserve equal dignity. But we are NOT equal in our abilities, knowledge, wisdom and capabilities to solve specific problems.
Also, there’s no evidence that the GOP has actually supported decentralization to the states. In the last 75 years, the largest growths of the Federal government have occurred under Republican administrations.
However, it is true, in the sense of antifragility (Nassim Taleb), that all problems should be solved and all policies should be determined as locally as possible. The catch is in the “as possible” phrase — it’s like the maxim about making things as simple as possible but no simpler. Some problems are so large, a community, city, county or state cannot solve them alone. That’s where the Feds come in. Likewise, some policies, e.g. equal rights and equal dignity.
Certainly, the GOP says one thing and does another – the jump in spending under GOP leadership during the ‘aughts was truly miserable, and then the suggestion that the fact we were involved in two wars didn’t mean we had to think about how to pay for it was morally reprehensible and damn near criminal. The recent kerfuffle over North Carolina’s HB-2, an override of progressive policies in the city of Charlotte, is merely one of many similar actions in which mildly liberal policies favored by cities are disallowed by the central government.
To extend the reader’s thought, the United Nations for solving international disputes. When the League of Nations failed between the World Wars, a chance to avoid the calamity of the second World War was lost, and I have to wonder if that institution would have succeeded in somehow sterilizing the seeds that led to the Nazi party.
