Ghost sighed:
"Even when the local government is run by Communists?"
And HoustonSam retorted:
"So long as a local government is legitimately elected and operating with respect to the US and state constitutions, it answers only to the local voters; what that local government does is no one else's business, not ours and not their governor's."
OK, Sam, I'm gonna hit you on that one and hit you hard.
How about if the local population voted and elected National Socialists to run the government?
Would that be ok with you, too?
Of course not. But my option is simply to not go there. The residents of Smalltown USA are under no obligation to vote for people I approve, any more than I am under obligation to vote for people in my local government that Californians or New Yorkers might approve. Those residents are obligated to conduct fair elections and to operate their local government within the constraints of the US and State constitutions and whatever local charters also apply. So long as they do those things they don't owe me one instant of concern for how they choose to govern their own localities or for who they elect to act in their name.
Kshama Sawant is an elected member of the Seattle city council. She is a member of a party called Socialist Alternative, which bills itself as a Trotskyist party and argues that capitalism is incapable of meeting the needs of the majority of people. I'm pretty sure we both reject that ideology; it's about as close to communism as one can get short of openly identifying as a communist. Is it "OK" with you that she was elected? Do you think you have some authority to constrain her representation of her constituents or remove her from office because she is a communist in all but name?
David Duke was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives and ran for US Senate from Louisiana and for Governor of Louisiana in the early 1990s. Did anyone other than the voters of his State House district and his state have the authority to remove him from office because of his KKK and American Nazi party associations?
I don't respect or approve of the electoral choices of millions of people throughout the US; I want nothing to do with people who continually return Ds to office and I seriously doubt the country can hold together so long as millions continue to do so. But those people don't need my approval to govern themselves as they wish. It might ultimately lead to a national break up, but they still don't require my approval, any more than I require theirs.
And unless their state constitutions and local charters say otherwise, they don't require the approval of their governors to decide for themselves on their own local health policies.
Is there some part of "consent of the governed" that you don't understand?
