[fiblye]

Maybe I'm confused, but that sounds precisely like the current condition of countries today, except on a scale smaller than America and more similar to small European or Asian nations. Having a global government would either do nothing to them in the best case scenario, or more likely, end up crushing them for the needs of the many and/or ultra rich.

Taking your example of Virginians wanting a holiday for Robert E Lee, small countries and big countries could easily do this. You say limit it to a city so that those who don't want it aren't affected. But even passing it at the city level leaves people who don't want it. I see no difference between 60% of a country the size of Malta supporting something and 60% of a city the size of Anchorage.

[muninn_]

Well it kind of is, but with power being pushed even further down to the local level, where you could actually know your leaders, you largely remove the ability of nations to wage wars, especially on any sort of global level, and people are better able to self organize. In the states we see a problem right now with coast-inland and some other smaller cultures where you have some people who are able to take power dictating wildly different views for other people who absolutely disagree with them. It's hard to manage a multi-cultural country. We see it right now.

[filoeleven]

Thinking strictly about the freedom of movement, there is a huge difference between Malta enacting a policy I hate enough to leave it and Anchorage doing the same. In the latter case it's easier for me to pack up and go somewhere else. This may or may not be the case in the absence of nation-states, but I suspect that freedom of movement would be greater than it is between nation-states today--at least in the vast majority of cases.