[gozur88]

I'm okay with that. Why should people in the East or South Bay have a say in how San Francisco governs itself?

[otterley]

Because how SF governs itself has external impacts upon people living outside SF: traffic, pollution, cost of living, etc.

[gozur88]

Other people will always affect you. That doesn't give you the right to govern them.

[otterley]

On the contrary, that's exactly why we have government in the first place -- because the alternative is war.

For a primer on the philosophical reasons behind government, I recommend _Leviathan_ (1651) by Thomas Hobbes.

[gozur88]

Well, okay. But the result of one group of people being governed by another is also war.

We have different levels of government for a reason.

EDIT: To other points occur to me: 1) I've never found Hobbes very compelling. And 2) If "these other people affect me" is your (not you you, but the general you) idea of a casus belli, you will perpetually be at war no matter how large or small your government.