Virtual Militias

[Ken White]

old wall for almost 100 years. The fact is that politicians have been seduced into attempting to provide all things to all people in order to protect their incumbency and feather their bank accounts. It's an appealing concept to many as it allows them to wander through life with no responsibilities and all can simply ask at every turn "What's the government going to do about this?" A worldwide culture of dependency has developed and is fostered by these same politicians who do not want people to think -- thinking people, after all, ask embarassing questions. Note the general decline in Education outcomes in teenagers worldwide...

Since it does possess some appeal it is a difficult concept for those that refuse to think past next week and the political and chattering classes shortsightedly continue to pursue the chimera of ever larger government that is all things to all people. That is patently impossible and, even were it possible, it is absolutely not affordable.

Thus, the Pols are in process of destroying the very thing that provides their livelihood. The result has been the trend noted by all above to smaller and hopefully more effective entities of governance and the fractures are quite predictably on cultural and ethnic lines.

Personally, I'm all for it. Want a Kurdistan? Good idea. Unfortunately, people do not like change and the Pols don't want to see their livelihood frittered away so much of the world will resist such fragmentation. Putin's (and others...) reaction to Kosovo is typical.

They probably ought to get over it. Confronted with devolution in all the places we have cited in this thread and looking at dozens of other places around the world, my suspicion is that the Stateus Giganticus will disappear and be replaced by dozens of Statelets and a series of Confederations as Marc posits (and which will, I'll bet, be somewhat xenophobic and disinclined toward 'multiculturalism') -- and, hopefully, that will happen before the World government fans can achieve their goal. Mankind will be much better off for that...

That of course ties into Steve's basic question and much of the comment above -- if the Guvmint is perceived as not doing something well (or even as some would prefer) then people will react in conglomerations to fill that vacuum. Good for them.

Shame the ruling milieus can't realize that...