John Seymour and small government

More reading from small is still beautiful by Joseph Pearce. Mr. Pearce quotes John Seymour of the 'self-sufficiency' movement (may his soul rest in peace.) I have one book of Mr. Seymour, but there are a couple more I'd like to get. He has much to offer in practical advice, although my goal has never been to be self-sufficient as a family. I think it would be good for communities to be close to self-sufficient in most respects.

But I digress. The quotes I will reproduce below are the kind that get my blood going-I want to do something about it: join with others, start a movement. Here they are:

What is the cure for this beastly disease of gigantism? Break "Great Britain" and the other huge nation-states up again. What do we want to be "Great" for any more? I don't want to be "Great"-I want to be wise, I want to be free, I want to be happy. In what did our "Greatness" consist of anyway? In beating other people up and then saying to them: "Look-we're the bosses of the Greatest Empire the World has ever seen!" Did this make the average Englishman wise, free, kind and happy?

Think about this: how many nations could afford to make WMD's if our nations were small enough for each man to represent himself? Here's more from John Seymour, via Mr. Pearce:

Now I must brace myself for the counterblast from the people who always say, at this juncture of this particular argument: "What we want is not more nations but fewer! We want to do away with nations altogether in fact. All men should unite in one nation, the nation of the world!"

...Surely it can be seen that one government for the whole world, one all-embracing nation would be about as far from real democracy as you could get? If a man cannot make his voice heard in England,how the hell is he going to make it heard in the world? ... how much is the voice of one honest man going to count?

Surely we have heard ourselves (if we have not felt it ourselves) people say they don't have a voice. No hears them. Bill Clinton (although I despised his presidency) was a master at making people feel that he heard them.

I life in a small state (population-wise) compared to many and compared to the state of my birth (MA). In SC, you do get a feel that you have some access to the top leaders-more so than most other states.

Some things to think about on this primary day in SC.

Oremus pro invicem!