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In a comment by Timothy Burke about a Mindles H. Dreck post at AI Timothy said:
If you ask people to remember and respect large pluralities of people who think differently than they do, then you have to ask that across the board. One of my objections to the Bush Administration and many of their most ardent supporters is that they show zero inclination to consider any opposing views. I feel little desire to "unite behind the President" since he has shown no interest whatsoever to take any of my views, interests, beliefs or knowledge seriously. But it would be fair to say that much of the opposition to Bush would do the same were they in power. If you find that a lamentable state of affairs, then lament it even-handedly, and work to change it. We would need a model of political process that regarded radically diverse or pluralistic convictions with respect, and tried to incorporate them into the process of decision-making, though not to the extent that bold or decisive action became impossible, and leadership was reduced to merely reflecting in even measure the consensus of all possible views. We do not have that model in place now within the national leadership. It would be hard to burden the opposition to Bush with an obligation to acknowledge the legitimacy of other points of view that Bush and his supporters steadfastly reject. You can't ask someone to play Prisoner's Dilemma in an altruistic mode without demonstrating your own willingness to play it the same way.There is an admirable core sentiment here but the idea is unworkable. The problem is that too much power and too many decisions are made at too high a level affecting too many people. Statism doesn't work except in boutique sized states with homogeneous populations, and even then it is unstable in the long term.
This is the main concept behind the structure of American society as conceived by the founders and corrupted during the world war and New Deal era. By inflating the power, privilege and wealth of the remote central government the present situation was created in which vast numbers of people are disenfranchised no matter which group is in power.
Self rule requires subsidarity, local rule. Larger political entities are useful to resolve conflicts among localities but when such large entities become activist, attempting to impose behaviors on localities and engineer idealized societies it all falls apart and you end up with rebellion and in the end risk secession or revolution.
That's why I'm OK with the US election. Though I opposed war and favor self rule, which precludes many of the issues in dispute at the national level, I'm satisfied that the republic functioned and that it is still an admirable thing compared to the rest of the world despite the degradations of recent decades. I also think that the trends are positive, that all those whingeing about doom, predicting and even hoping for national demise, merely reveal their shortcomings.
The New Deal socialism lite trend reversed in the 70s and 80s. During that era those who lacked scope and scale in their vision and analysis of society, who drive looking in the rear view mirror more than through the wind screen, saw only the extremes, the noisy surface of society, and concluded that the US was following Europe down the path to a centralized, stratified, authoritarian society fragmented into economic, social, racial, ethnic and gender interest groups who all looked to government to manage tensions between them and provide treats for the faithful, and in which there was not just a separation of church and state but a separation of church and society, where religious people were shamed and encouraged to practice their perversions in the closet.
That isn't what happened because Americans didn't want that kind of society. What they saw was a world sinking into despair as prosocial institutions were dismantled and quality of life declined. They were not charmed by the broadcast model of society in which a few sources of information and authority interacted with individuals on a personal basis, claiming an ever larger portion of their wealth to fund such meddling, preferring a networked model of society in which many sources of information and authority vied for mind space while individuals interacted with one another. Not surpisingly, those chained to the broadcast didn't even know this was happening.
The most obvious centers of these more modern trends are small towns in rural areas and churches of all descriptions since the trends are more advanced there, though it isn't unique to them. They had an easier time reversing statism since they hadn't been so completely remade by New Deal thinking. But the same thing is happening in cities, even in the belly of the beast in the north east and west coast where statist thinking is strongest. Those places still have statist majorities but huge numbers of people no longer support them, voted against them, and have a vibrant intellectual climate that draws increasing numbers.
Statist culture warriors fail to understand what is happening because they reject the personal values of those more advanced groups. They fail to see that the religious groups have both personal and social values, and fail to grasp that those social values are largely compatible with the goals of statist social intervention but focus on local rather than state delivery mechanisms. The reality behind the phrase "faith based initiatives" is that community level organizations centered on voluntary associations, often churches, have been delivering social services to those in need. These social values are required by their beliefs just as personal values are required. As they say "we can't keep fishing bodies out of the river without sending someone upstream to see who is throwing them in", meaning that they feel that they ought to be receiving funds from the government to do these good works and that their feedback about the causes of problems should be listened to. Reduction in national tax burdens, leaving more for local works, is even more effective than federal funding since it avoids wasted effort.
Though I'n not religious, 3rd generation red diaper and all that, I admire their work and even help them. They don't care what I believe, they care what I do. We have similar social values but wildly divergent personal values. That's OK because you don't have to love your neighbor or even like them, but you do have to be neighborly, lend a hand like everyone else on tasks that can only be accomplished by joint effort and that are necessary for the thrival of all. It's the modern equivalent of a barn raising or water management. You roll up your sleeves and work with your neighbor. You share meals and behave well while doing projects and what you do when you go home is your concern. Though there are different communities of mind they have significant overlap.
So, I'm OK with all this and I expect the trends to continue and expand because the statists continue to lose, prompting them to think about the consequences of centralization when they are in the minority on a national basis. The old fashioned statists still haven't grasped the significance of networked information and computing technologies. They see it as a different delivery mechanism for broadcast of official information, one that is cheaper and more ubiquitous. This is true but even more importantly it greatly increases the power of networked, peer-to-peer communication and so increases the ability of non-statist groups to prosper.
Small town America has been wired up and interacting for a long time. You may not hear as much about it because there are a large number of small groups rather than a small number of large groups, the kind that old fashioned broadcast media recognize. In a homegenous population power laws describe distribution of focus; a few large sites will command attention an order of magnitude greater than much more numerous small focus sites. But it isn't a homogenous population so power laws don't completely or even usefuly describe network activity. Even those who are not wired are still networked with those who are wired and participate indirectly in the meta network, still byapssing broadcasts.
The string of losses for statists that have happened over the past decade, reversing several decades of political dominance, is an educational experience for them, many of whom never knew a different society. Though the current administration is a statist creature significant numbers of those who elected them prefer smaller federal influence and only supported them because the alternative seemed far worse. The erosion of support for statists may well continue over coming years as the consequences of the approach become apparent to those who whelped the beast in the first place. They never dreamed that those they wished to dominate and gradually eliminate would rally and seize control of the death machine in self defense.
UPDATE:
Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek expresses a related view:
Personally, I’m much more of a blue-state-value guy than a red-state-value guy. I love Manhattan and Cape Cod and dislike sleepy southern towns and cow pastures. I couldn’t care less who anyone (save my wife) sleeps with; I’m an atheist; I don’t think that stem-cell research is a moral issue; I read the Atlantic Monthly and not Field & Stream; I listen to Beethoven and Dvorak and not to Merle Haggard or Alan Jackson; I refuse to Pledge Allegiance to any flag; I believe the war in Iraq to be a grotesque crime. And I would rather stand on my head for a day and stack b-bs than sit for even five minutes at a NASCAR race.I'm more open to diverse experiences, listen to both Ludwig and Merle, read the Atlantic Monthly IN a cow pasture, but share his hope that red-state suspicion of central power is not dimmed by holding power and that blue-staters learn from the experience.But I do share one traditional red-state value, namely, deep suspicion of central power. I hope against hope that red-staters don’t lose this value -- and I hope that so-called "liberals" discover, embrace, and celebrate it.