The Founders had many reasons for setting up a
decentralized system. I'll share one of the most
important ones next.
In an 1800 letter, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"Our country is too large to have all its affairs
directed by a single government."
Today, the federal government really does try to
direct virtually all of our affairs;
from what our kids learn in school, to what plants
we can grow in our own yards, to how much water we can
have in our toilets.
This is the kind of micro-managing that the
founders warned us about.
Jefferson's point is pretty straightforward.
Bureaucrats hundreds, or even thousands of miles
away in Washington DC simply can't grasp of all
the issues facing a local community.
Since there is no way for them to understand
what's needed locally, we end up with one-size
fits-all solutions that don't work for anybody.
But the flip side of the coin might be even more
dangerous.
We don't really know what's going on in
Washington DC, and we have absolutely no control
over it either.
Jefferson warned us about this too. He said this
kind of situation "will invite public agents to
corruption, plunder and waste."
You don't have to look around too much to
see that's exactly what we have today.
