Well, the simple fact that if they don't, they literally have no reason to exist. It's not so much a moral question, so much as that this was the decided policy when the smaller units chose to join together into a larger one. It's moral because that's the decision the people made when they joined together.
There are various names for the concept over higher-over-lower power in a democracy -- supremacy, preemption, paramountcy.
If smaller units want to accomplish things together that can't override their individual sovereignty, then they sign treaties, form alliances, and groups -- like NATO or NAFTA and so forth. The thing that distinguishes a grouping that makes an actual state is precisely the fact that it can strike down the laws of lower organizational units when they conflict.
Now, nobody's claiming this power is unlimited -- that would be fascism. There are still rights that exist precisely to limit state-level power. But the general principle of supremacy/preemption/paramountcy still exists.
>>> So the moral authority comes from country-level democracy, and state-level, being able to rightly supersede local level.
>> Ok, what is it about larger aggregations make them have more moral authority than smaller aggregations?
> Well, the simple fact that if they don't, they literally have no reason to exist.
This is circular reasoning. You made an assertion. Either defend it or declaim it. What is the specific moral authority that you claim larger aggregations have over smaller ones?
There are various names for the concept over higher-over-lower power in a democracy -- supremacy, preemption, paramountcy.
If smaller units want to accomplish things together that can't override their individual sovereignty, then they sign treaties, form alliances, and groups -- like NATO or NAFTA and so forth. The thing that distinguishes a grouping that makes an actual state is precisely the fact that it can strike down the laws of lower organizational units when they conflict.
Now, nobody's claiming this power is unlimited -- that would be fascism. There are still rights that exist precisely to limit state-level power. But the general principle of supremacy/preemption/paramountcy still exists.