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> Ok let's start simple, what level of authority should decide those things [1]? State? City? Muni? Federal? Straight up just admitting you didn't actually rea

> Ok let's start simple, what level of authority should decide those things [1]? State? City? Muni? Federal? Straight up just admitting you didn't actually read what I wrote before responding, because I already specified. C'mon man. "It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level authority rather than the state, but the state is still better than the city." > Do you recall? Yes, and I made it extremely clear that I was objecting to calling this "anti-democratic". You then switched arguments for some reason, while acting like it was the same topic.

ericmay 4y ago
> Yes, and I made it extremely clear that I was objecting to calling this "anti-democratic". You then switched arguments for some reason, while acting like it was the same topic. Ok so it's democratic for the state of Ohio to override the city of Columbus gun laws?
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  It's not anti-democratic for a higher level government to override a lower level government, no. That doesn't make it necessarily a good idea. Some issues make more sense to manage at a higher or lower level, and beyond that of course I have opinions on specific laws being good or bad. What level of government you decide certain policies at is orthogonal to how democratic a thing is*. As a relevant example of higher level authority on zoning, IIRC Japan just has twelve levels of zoning for the whole country; cities can choose which one to use for different areas, but they can't make up a new level. Whereas in the US, every city seems to have a dozen or more variants they made up themselves. Neither of these is fundamentally more democratic than the other. * assuming we're talking about democracies at each level, of course.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    I'm trying to avoid getting into a discussion about exact definitions of democracy, but what I see here is that you're arguing that the bigger a government is the more democratic it is and thus it is justified in imposing its will on other democratically elected governments by virtue of its size and I don't think that those things follow one another. If you want to say that of course a higher (which is typically defined by size, but I guess also potentially authority or ability to enforce rules or some other concern) level government overriding a lower level government could be anti-democratic then we're just arbitrarily picking and choosing what we believe is democratic or anti-democratic which ties back to effectively expressing moral statements of good and bad. Leaving aside natural rights, and the complexities of state sovereignty in the United States specifically.

ericmay 4y ago

> Yes, and I made it extremely clear that I was objecting to calling this "anti-democratic". You then switched arguments for some reason, while acting like it was the same topic. Ok so it's democratic for the state of Ohio to override the city of Columbus gun laws?

TulliusCicero 4y ago
It's not anti-democratic for a higher level government to override a lower level government, no. That doesn't make it necessarily a good idea. Some issues make more sense to manage at a higher or lower level, and beyond that of course I have opinions on specific laws being good or bad. What level of government you decide certain policies at is orthogonal to how democratic a thing is*. As a relevant example of higher level authority on zoning, IIRC Japan just has twelve levels of zoning for the whole country; cities can choose which one to use for different areas, but they can't make up a new level. Whereas in the US, every city seems to have a dozen or more variants they made up themselves. Neither of these is fundamentally more democratic than the other. * assuming we're talking about democracies at each level, of course.
- ericmay 4y ago
  I'm trying to avoid getting into a discussion about exact definitions of democracy, but what I see here is that you're arguing that the bigger a government is the more democratic it is and thus it is justified in imposing its will on other democratically elected governments by virtue of its size and I don't think that those things follow one another. If you want to say that of course a higher (which is typically defined by size, but I guess also potentially authority or ability to enforce rules or some other concern) level government overriding a lower level government could be anti-democratic then we're just arbitrarily picking and choosing what we believe is democratic or anti-democratic which ties back to effectively expressing moral statements of good and bad. Leaving aside natural rights, and the complexities of state sovereignty in the United States specifically.