I always see the red county map after every presidential election posted on social media as if the large red areas mean that most of America is conservative and Republican.
We live in a representative democracy (or a constitutional republic) which is not the same thing as a pure democracy. That is a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s also a system in which there are a lot of people who live in the politeia (the city)1 who are cosmopolitan, Liberal, and dependent on government services.
Universities are Liberal because they receive a lot of money from the government.
The entertainment industry is to be liberal because artists are so-called free thinkers. Although there are some superstars, most artists don’t have a lot of money and they would like to have grants and assistance in order to continue their livelihood.
Blacks and Indians are politically Liberal (in general) because white Liberals never let them leave the plantation or the reservation. But their community values are actually quite conservative. It’s a paradox. I know that’s a stereotype, but in general it’s true.
Should I go on?
The answer to this conundrum is a system not based on politics, rule by the city state, politeia, but rather the “village state.”
People have asked me, “How do you do that, seeing as there are so many people in the cities now who control the democratic process?”
It would have to be done by a powerful and aggressive president who would build technologically advanced rural communities that would be spread out and more attractive to live in than big cities – something with more of a Home Town feel than the suburban sprawl we have in urban areas. We have quite a few cities that have been built that way in Florida by the way, and that is why the state has become more conservative. But we also have warm weather year round and a lot of land, so people want to move here from Liberal areas to get away from the craziness.
Other countries have done this for years. In Russia and Eastern Europe, for example, many city dwelling families own a small village farm house or dacha or may purchase one fairly cheaply. They can buy a plot of land and construct a house with virtually no codes, fees, regulations or permits. They live there on the weekends during the nice weather and take an entire month off in the summer in order to cultivate their garden. That makes people less Liberal and cosmopolitan and more close to nature and God.
We could also repeal the 17th amendment, which was the period of time when America started to become liberalized and more cosmopolitan. We would have a house of the US Congress that was not chosen by the people, but rather by the legislatures. The effect of that was when people didn’t like the federal government and what it is doing, which is actually most people in America today, they would throw out their state legislator, and replace them with someone that was more conservative. Then those legislators would choose the senators.
In the system we have now, we want to cut taxes, but everyone wants their representative to bring home the bacon to their own districts. Repealing the 17th Amendment would solve that problem. We would become a republic again — a nation of communities — instead of a nation built on individualism and individual rights — by automatons who believe that the government exists in order to rifle other people’s money for their own well-being and liberty.
So the subject of a Fourth Political Theory could be the village state model — a nation run by rural states and regions rather than by the popular vote of city dwellers.
1 Incidentally, Plato’s Republic, Res Publica in Latin (“Of the People”) — is Politeia in Greek (the “city state”) implying the rights of citizens to from a government.