Theory and Politics: EarthTopia
A hypothetical discussion of a US of Earth.

What type of government would work best? I tend to think that federalism is probably the best option.

Federalism would allow for states rights in a manner outlined in the (US) tenth amendment.

An amendment based on the theory of nullification could be a mechanism for enforcing the bill of rights and act as another input in the balance of power between a federal government, states, and the individual.

The public sector could be ethically, legally, and morally obligated to promote the general welfare via a social contract.

Interesting concept. Are you talking about an United States style government rule the world?

A federal system would definitely by necessary to rule over a state of that size, but I think it would have to be boosted a little. I think to keep all of the levels of federalism at a resonable size it would require more levels than the United States Currently has, so that would kind of twist it up a little bit.

The Theory of Nullifcation probably wouldn't work because it would remove all of the power of the upper levels of the federal system. As long as the lower levels can nullify anything they choose, and the Federal Government has no check against nullification, anything that the Federal Government does is pretty much irrelevant. Nullifaction would take any real power of the Federal Government. There are better ways to check power abuse.

What type of social contract do you have in mind?

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Yes, the little green fist up there is a symbol of Earth First! No, I'm not an eco-terrorist, nor do I agree with eco-terrorism...I just thought it looked cool.

I thought the whole point of the theory of nullification was to allow for state sovereignty. It should be up to the states what federal rules they choose to enforce. One line of reasoning is that the resulting arbitrage between public sectors would result in more local control, and possibly more efficient government.

Hypothetically, a social contract could be implemented that ethically, legally, and morally requires the interstate public sector to promote the general welfare for the public good.

True, Nullifaction would result in more local control, but if th Federal level had no enforcement power, it would be useless. Nullifaction gives the local level too much control.

What scope would you give the government to promote the general welfare? What rights should they enforce?

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Yes, the little green fist up there is a symbol of Earth First! No, I'm not an eco-terrorist, nor do I agree with eco-terrorism...I just thought it looked cool.

I am not sure I can agree with your premise that a nullification amendment would give to much local control of local public policy to the local public sector (government). Another way stating this is that nullification would nullify interstate public sector micro management of local (intrastate) issues.

I am of the opinion that the public sector should enforce a bill of rights, and provide sufficient public sector interference to promote the general welfare.

Okay, but take de-segragation laws for instance, the Federal Government passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it was a big step forward in the Civil Rights Movement. Now, had the theory of nullifaction been in place, all of the Southern States would have simply nullified the act and the act would have only applied to Northern States where it was less needed to begin with. If the Federal Government has no authority over the states (because whatever authority it does have can just be nullified) then we've regressed back to the Articles of Confederation.

What are the rights you would include in your bill of rights? Education? Bear arms? Housing?

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Yes, the little green fist up there is a symbol of Earth First! No, I'm not an eco-terrorist, nor do I agree with eco-terrorism...I just thought it looked cool.

In the case of the Southern Secession, a formal nullification amendment would have precluded our civil war. With advances in technology, the US would have eventually dropped the issue of slavery as a bad idea in modern times.

I think, the thing to keep in mind, when dealing with world federalism, is that a bill of rights should be as generic as possible to enable all states to be in agreement with that social contract.

There are even more problems with it, however, for instance many of the states would simply nullify federal tax laws in order to justify increasing state taxes on their citizens. Not to mention, the civil war may have been prevented and slavery would have become ineffecient over time, but if that were the case we would be probably 100 years behind in Civil Rights progress from where we are now. The state representatives check abuse of federal power in the current system, but what would check state power is there was nullifaction amendment?

Would the bill of rights be written at a federal or sub-federal level?

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Yes, the little green fist up there is a symbol of Earth First! No, I'm not an eco-terrorist, nor do I agree with eco-terrorism...I just thought it looked cool.

A nullification amendment would apply to legislated acts. I presuppose that all powers not retained by the states are specifically delegated to the interstate public sector.

Europe dropped slavery voluntarily, and is not one hundred years behind in civil rights.

I think a bill of rights should be written at the appropriate interstate level.

to run a country of that proportion would take years of progress, it would most likely be socialistic, or communism.

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