Can Conservative Incrementalism Work?

For a long time, on a national level, we conservatives have had one option in the general election, the lesser of two evils.  The centralization and expansion of power at the federal level has continued, sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but it keeps going in the same direction.  About the most “extreme” thing a federal candidate is going to suggest is holding the line and eliminating deficit spending.  The idea of reducing the reach of the central government, of eliminating agencies and departments will be met with an all-out propaganda campaign in the media attacking the proponent of such an outlandish and totalitarian scheme as uncaring, cruel, and a bullwhip-wielding overseer for corporate slavers. 

It may be impossible to roll back the federal government incrementally through electing “conservative” candidates.  However, some commentators, bloggers, and pundits have been talking about a concept that is already working successfully.  Strangely enough it is the more liberal states that are showing us the way in legalizing marijuana contrary to federal law.  Some states, like Missouri, are also legislatively attacking enforcement of more restrictive federal firearms laws, as we’ve talked about in the past. 

This is how libertarian/conservative incrementalism could work.  At the state and local level, we can elect sheriffs, mayors, school board members, state legislators and governors who are willing to defy federal mandates.  The feds’ ability to enforce their own laws could be severely hampered by the refusal of state and local governments to cooperate.   I could even imagine federal courts and judges discovering that their orders, when ignored, were unenforceable.  The federal government might withhold money from states as punishment.  States, in response, might offer protection to their citizens and businesses that refused to pay their federal taxes.

You could picture a kind of civil war and secession without all the gunfire.  I don’t think the feds would want a shooting war. 

I don’t think we can do this tomorrow.  That’s where the incrementalism comes in.  We will have to make the argument for the supremacy of state and local governments over the long haul and grab small victories wherever we can, but I think that might be a way to get back to the Founders’ vision.  

UPDATE --  After writing this, I ran across this post on Sarah Hoyt's blog from Bill Reader: 

Likewise, the slum revolts and regional uprisings that, in aggregate, put paid to the Roman Empire, were certainly not the result of masterful tactics. Rather, those revolting recognized that Rome had lost sufficient belief in its own culture to fight to uphold it; had in any case mostly lost the capacity to impose culture in its wholesale importation of anybody and everybody; and probably was afraid of said anybody and everybody because it spent so much bread-and-circus money trying to appease them. Rome had an unparalleled army, but no clear target, only the most bare-bones idea of when to use it, and increasingly limited resources to maintain it.

Though he is talking about the Attack of the Social Justice Warriors, the concept is the same.  More and more, though the feds will still have the ability to come after us, they will lack the will.

And while I'm at it, Ace reinforces with Charles Murray.