Former Arlington mayor Richard Greene isn’t happy with the state legislature. He decries the state’s efforts to restrict what local governments can do, and laments the fact that state legislators are thinking about shutting down the Texas Municipal League. That organization, he claims, works “to protect individual rights to develop the communities where they live the way they want.” He goes on to claim that the efforts of state legislators are a “usurpation of your personal liberty.”
Greene is either very confused or very dishonest.
Individual rights protect the freedom of individuals–each individual–to live as he chooses, so long as he respects the freedom of others to do the same. But Greene’s only concern regarding individuals is their ability to influence legislators.
It is much easier, he writes, for individuals to influence local legislators than state legislators. If you want “something to happen in your community or if you want to stop something from happening,” it is much easier to accomplish that on the local level. To Greene, the nature of that “something” is irrelevant. If you can convince local legislators to pass a law, the state should not interfere. The citizens of a community should be allowed to pass whatever laws they desire.
Interestingly, conservative state legislators have used the same argument against the federal government. They have claimed that states should be permitted to pass laws reflecting the desires and values of the citizens of that state–so-called “state’s rights.”
According to the advocates of “state’s rights,” if a state wants to ban homosexual sex, it should be permitted to do so. According to the advocates of local control, if a city wants to ban short-term rental properties, it should be permitted to do so. Despite the issues that they choose to focus on, the two sides agree on fundamental ideas.
Both the advocates of “state’s rights” and the advocates of local control believe that the group should be permitted to impose its values upon the rest of the citizenry. They simply disagree on which group should do the imposing. But in the end, the individual is victimized. The individual is forced to subordinate his values to the group.
“State’s rights” versus local control is a false dichotomy. The real issue is individual liberty versus subservience to the group.