Tell me please.

PrintSmith wrote: That was tried with the original constitution of the nation - and failed.

They just didn't try hard enough

jmc wrote:

major bean wrote: Centralization did not create strength in the least. It has no association. Centralization came afterward.

Strongest country prior to WW1 ? delusional thinking. Try reading some history from real historians. You made a blanket statement "Centralization did not create strength in the least" Prove it. Opinion only, yours.

And you made a blanket statement that centralizing more power was the reason, another opinion only statement that lacks sustaining documentation. Can you prove that it was the centralizing of power that caused the rise? Can you show that the rise would not have happened in the absence of that consolidation of power? I would be surprised if you could.

No, the rise happened as a result of existing power and authority - a single monetary unit being used by all the states within the union. As the only nation left with an industrial ability untouched by the destruction of war, that economic advantage, along with the debt to this nation that others had incurred during the war, is what set the stage for the prosperity that followed the wars conclusion.

PrintSmith wrote:

jmc wrote:

major bean wrote: Centralization did not create strength in the least. It has no association. Centralization came afterward.

Strongest country prior to WW1 ? delusional thinking. Try reading some history from real historians. You made a blanket statement "Centralization did not create strength in the least" Prove it. Opinion only, yours.

And you made a blanket statement that centralizing more power was the reason, another opinion only statement that lacks sustaining documentation. Can you prove that it was the centralizing of power that caused the rise? Can you show that the rise would not have happened in the absence of that consolidation of power? I would be surprised if you could.

No, the rise happened as a result of existing power and authority - a single monetary unit being used by all the states within the union. As the only nation left with an industrial ability untouched by the destruction of war, that economic advantage, along with the debt to this nation that others had incurred during the war, is what set the stage for the prosperity that followed the wars conclusion.

PS, I am referring to after WW2. The US became the leading power and the federal gov. grew with that power expansion. Are you saying that they are not related?

What I am saying jmc is that the US was already the leading power - before the efforts at consolidation intensified. We were the leading power after WWII because our industrial base, our economic ability to produce, had not been decimated by the prosecution of the war. If anything, it had been enhanced. We built the tanks, the guns, the planes - but we charged the other nations for what they consumed and they paid us in gold. Their gold had been sent here for safekeeping - and we accepted payment for our help by keeping that gold. Bretton Woods was much more responsible for the rise than consolidation of power within the federal government. It is also true that the consolidation of power at the federal level was one of the primary reasons that the Bretton Woods Agreement had to be abandoned by this nation in 1971 - which was what set us up for the huge inflationary period during the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. In 1971 $35 USD would buy you an ounce of gold - that figure is now, what, around $1400? And yes, that deflation of purchasing power is the direct result of consolidation of power within the federal government.

AspenValley wrote: My problem with the debate between strong federal powers/weak state powers and weak federal powers/strong state powers is that the states are too darned small in today's world to be any but "pissant" powers in the real world. I can see the sense of drastically weakening federal powers if there were strong confederacies of regional groups of states, because oftentimes the problem with federal government is that it tends to ignore regional concerns. But otherwise, if you just weaken federal powers and expect the states to make up the difference, I think all you'd succeed in doing is making the U.S. too weak to have an important role in international affairs. Colorado can't very well negotiate on its own with say, China.

That was also the case when the Constitution was written and ratified. None of the separate and sovereign states were strong enough to compete internationally or defend themselves from the aggression of a Great Britain, France or Spain. That is why the federated government was given the power over the international relations and to create a single currency that all the member states would use. The federated government was intended to unite the separate states into one entity with regards to foreign relations, foreign trade agreements. That was sovereignty that was knowingly being ceded to the federated government. Domestic issues within the state such as the welfare of the citizens of Colorado, however, are quite a different story.

AspenValley wrote:

major bean wrote: It is my belief that those who want a strong centralized gov't do not want it for reasons of foreign relations, but, rather, they want it for domestic policy. They want inner control of our population and society. They want to control our culture. They could care less about our influence as a world power.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I don't think the federal government should have a role in controlling our culture, other than perhaps as part of the 'glue' that gives us a national culture. When you go abroad, you don't say you're a "Coloradan", you say you're an American. I also think it serves an important role in keeping states from getting too unequal, which might lead to civil wars. There are quite a number of states that receive more in federal funds than they give, and I'm okay with that because, among other things, it means when I drive through states down south that don't have a lot of money I don't have to do it on a dirt road.

As far as controlling the culture, in terms of taste, and religion and values, I think the media has 100 times more influence than the federal government does.

Isn't Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance, SSDI and now Obamacare all part of federal control over the culture of the nation? The things you ascribe to the federal government in your posts thus far, foreign trade agreements, strength in international affairs, good roads for commerce - are all part of the federal authority actually granted in the Constitution - sovereignty ceded from the states to the federated government. All of those are actually addressed in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. That is not the usurpation and consolidation of power into the federated government that is at issue or that has brought us to our current economic crisis. It is that the federated government has stepped outside of that role to address the welfare of each and every citizen in each and every state, that it has usurped from the states the sovereignty of domestic affairs, that is the basis for the current problems and what is behind the renewed call for that sovereignty which the federated government has usurped to be returned to the states.

PS, I am not talking about the Constitution here, just history of world powers.If we want to go that direction fine with me. My question concerned people that want this country to be a world leader but want a relatively weak federal gov. and a saw an historical disconnect. Over reach is implied in my posts.
How do you whip up nationalism without a dominate federal gov.?

What we are supposed to have is a strong central government with regards to world affairs and a weak central government with regards to domestic ones. No one I know of is advocating a weak federated government with regards to international relations, it was one of the reasons that sovereignty in that matter was granted to the federated government. No one I know of is looking to enable California to negotiate its own trade agreement with China, France, Australia or any other nation. No one I know of is advocating that each state issue its own currency.

Yes jmc, a strong central government is necessary in international relations. No one I know is advocating making the federal government weak in this arena. No one I know is saying we should not have the world's best military, or the world's strongest currency or that we should allow each state within the union to develop its own trade agreements with foreign nations. These are not the areas where the argument is being forwarded that the federated government is too powerful and needs to have some of its power taken away. That is the faulty premise of yours which I mentioned earlier. We want, and need, a strong federated government to address these areas.

The federated government is responsible for the welfare of the union in the international arena, and for that it does need to have absolute power and sovereignty in that area - including the power to levy and collect taxes from the citizens of the states to provide the revenue necessary to secure it. If the federated government would confine itself to the authority provided it by the text of the Constitution, instead of expanding its authority by torturing new meanings from that text, I believe all of us would be quite content with that because all of us recognize the importance of having a strong military to defend our liberty and our commerce, a single currency that we all use, a good national system of roads and a large group of people that have a unified voice in international commerce and international relations. I think we can all see the benefits of preventing Illinois from polluting the Mississippi River, from levying a tariff on the navigation of that river or from damming the river an only allowing a trickle to proceed downstream. We want, and need, a strong federated government for certain things, but not for everything, that has to do with governance.

I guess I have just failed miserably in what i was saying. It had nothing to do with the Constitution. My question was , what divided country ever remained a world power. Either thru conquest ( England, Soviets) ever without a homogeneous culture remained a world power. Does an emphasis on states rights weaken our dominance in the world. Good/ Bad is not what i asked , just does it. I see a divide between the states rights advocates that also want the US to continue to dominate world affairs.Seems like a disconnect to me. I think that there is a natural partnership with strong central control and world leadership. No history i have read shows me anything different. I am not making a value judgement, just an observation.

And I guess have equally failed in what I am trying to say, so I will try it again.

No divided nation has ever remained a world power. No unified nation with a single entity of governance has ever remained a world power either. They may rise, but eventually they will also fall - as we are now falling with more and more power consolidated within a central entity. I can't think of a single world power today that was similarly powerful in times past with the same central government it had in that earlier time. Great Britain? Please, she is a shadow of her former self. France? Spain? Romans? Greece? Egypt? Where is the world power that has risen and kept that power that has been continually ruled by an all powerful central government?

If the desire is to have a country that remains a world power, then an alternative to no central power or only a central power must be found as both extremes have proven themselves incapable of that task.