Flight MH17 report on NPR
I suggested that the nation-state had outlived its usefulness. Someone shot back that a global government would necessarily be more oppressive.
If someone replies to my comment, I should be able to answer that reply. Yet this was deleted by NPR...
Throughout human history, the scale of human organization, including the geographical extent of governments, has reflected the distance across which people could easily communicate and travel within a few days or a week or so. The test of whether a government operates within appropriate limits while also carrying out the responsibilities of an effective government depends not on its size so much as on whether it and the people who give it material support and allegiance recognize appropriate limits to its power... and also whether there is recognition of the full extent of its basic responsibilities; that is, do the people recognize the areas where government must act.
I think that governments ought not initiate force or coercion against peaceful people engaged in private action in private spaces. We do not have authority as individuals to dictate private behavior of others. We cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government. When citizens recognize this limit to government authority, we will refrain from voting for politicians who would violate this basic principle. We will not give allegiance to governments that initiate force or coercion against peaceful people. It is this principle, rather than an arbitrary limit to the scale of organization, that will protect us from oppressive governments. (I have heard of cases where the federal government has arrested and prosecuted law enforcement officers who violated the rights of citizens. The size of the government does not prevent it from doing the wrong thing, nor does it ensure that it will do the right thing. The vigilance and engagement of the people is what does that.)
Governments can regulate public behavior. Governments can require that those who cause problems for others pay some compensation to those who are harmed. In the case of putting pollution or taking natural resources in pursuit of profit, the detrimental impact is felt by all. Payment can be required as compensation for the lost opportunity resulting from that taking or adverse impact. (If there will be overall limits imposed, then, to the extent that one actor takes some of the available resources or puts some fraction of the total amount of pollution to be allowed, others will have to refrain from taking, so as to keep overall impacts within the agreed-upon limits. So, any taking of resources or putting of pollution by one actor necessarily diminishes opportunities for others to do likewise. Payments made by industries when they take or degrade natural wealth could be shared equally among all the world's people. The idea that natural wealth is to be shared among all people would be manifest in reality. The fee proceeds would be a monetary representation of the value of natural wealth.)
Governments violate moral principle when they initiate force or coercion
A sustainable and just civilization requires that we use our moral sense
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