Why the U.S. Fails at Nation-Building, 9-5-2010

  We put too much emphasis on the nation and not on its local parts. In Iraq, we ignored the lower parts of the body politic until the locals made us look at them. It looks like we are now changing our approach in Afghanistan.

How to account for our failure? Laziness and a poor education system is how I answer my question.

Maybe our federal leadership slept through their American history classes, or they would know about New England town meetings and other aspects of local government that grew into our federal government. Maybe they did not truly understand how our state governments existed before the federal government? Education might have overcome the bias of our federal officials towards centralized, national solutions to all problems. 

I cannot discount laziness. We have become a lazy people waiting for someone else to fix our problems. I know put off dealing with my own problems, or volunteering helping others, so I could pursue the making of money. It takes work to make the politics of cities, counties and states work, let alone work well. Yet, yet, true national government does not work unless local government works. Think how well a building works, built on quicksand.

I have griped about this for years and feel better finally letting go of this idea.  We could do better at nation-building if we were serious enough about the venture to expend the resources on local governments. Next time, I suggest drafting a bunch of township trustees to help organize the local governments outside the cities and some city councilmen to organize the cities. Then hope the federal bureaucrats leave them alone until it comes time for a national constitutional convention.

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