Is there really good argument for states' rights in 2005?

Various states - decrimination of drug laws
Various states - higher speed limits
Oregon - Assisted suicides
Nevada - gambling and whoring, etc.

But don't the federal agencies swoop in on this?

Another example of where states' rights are unfairly being trod upon by the Feds is with alcohol. Before the early eighties, states set their own laws on what age one could legally drink. Due to pressure from groups like MADD, the Feds blackmailed the states into changing their laws to 21+ by witholding matching federal highway funds. The same thing is happening now with the governement saying that they'll withold money for highways unless everyone lowers their BAC limits down to .08%. Whatever your feelings are on these issues, it's a huge interference by Washington to stick their nose into local issues.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050517/capt.maea20305172350.gay_marriage_maea203.jpg?x=256&y=345&sig=z_wI44LPR7KsCWKE4vEgPw--
Massachusetts plaintiff couple Julie, front left, and Hillary Goodridge of Boston, pose for a group photo in Boston, Tuesday, May 17, 2005, to celebrate their first anniversary, one year after Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to recognize same-sex marriages. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

PP and M White OTM. Cuts both ways. Personally, I'm willing to see some of the red states get redder if it means that more liberal states can enact their own policy. Really, the whole idea behind states rights is not so much "fuck the federal gov't!!" as it is the notion that a government should be as *close* to the people as possible. This is why communes work better than Communism.

Just look at the EU. If we ignore the whole "country" thing (which is vastly different, yes), one could argue that the EU is much closer to what the Founding Fathers pictured for America. Like, do whatever the fuck you want over there, I'll do what I want over here, but let's make it easy to trade and, push come to shove, circle the wagons.

(so many x-posts! I gotta write faster)

x-post PP: Word.

At least some of the Founding Fathers, anyway. There were Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

That's a really fucking easy thing to say if you are a white heterosexual.

Fair enough, but upholding that institution would afford more rights for gays (in some places). And those places what *wouldn't* improve are the same places that are blockading gay rights at a federal level anyhow.

I understand that. That was also specificaly removed from the Constitution by the fourteenth amendment. People are currently using states' rights as a justification to restrict and deny peoples' rights.

Kenan OTM. I don't think your sexuality should determine where you need to live in order to have access to all of your rights as a citizen of the United States.

Whoah. I said nothing of the sort. Re-read, plz. What I said above was that gay "marriage" is bunk, just like "real" marriage. Marriage is a "sacred covenant" between two people and should not be legislated. If you're going to give legal breaks for co-habitation, it should be for everyone. As far as red/blue is concerned, I was just pointing out that states rights would vastly accelerate the process in blue states and do little to impede the process in red states (only because they're already impeding it). Furthermore, the moral majority holds sway at the Federal level, so don't even think about making any progress there.

Or the western states who allowed women to vote waaaayyy before 1919.

I do think that the power of the people should be kept as close to the people as possible, as long as no person's rights and freedoms are abridged. If a state breaks that last rule, then it's obviously unconstitutional and should be corrected. States' rights have been the cause for some awful, tragic shit, but so has the Federal governement.

x-post: Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Word. I don't think anyone here is arguing all the way for states rights or central gov't (i'm not at least).

For example, the states led the way to women's suffrage by granting the right to vote decades before the nation did. That was a case of granting expanded rights. Dan is all-too-aware of the sorry record of state's rights in regard to taking rights away from African-Americans. Then again, Oregon has recently expanded the rights of the dying to end their own lives. So the record is mixed there.

The best thing about state's rights is the ability of the states to all mill about doing things their own chosen way in matters where basic rights are not at issue so much as each state choosing how best to skin the same cat - in raising revenue or regulating commerce. For example, Kansas is dry and buttoned down while Nevada is wide open. Freedom in that sphere isn't such a bad idea.

Did you really just have the nerve to fucking compare state-approved racism to the fucking noise board?

Go ahead and sign up for your National ID card with your digital thumbprint, Dan, and be glad that George W. Bush and the Federal Government is doing all that it can for civil rights.

I like how, as more and more liberal Americans have begun posting to ILE, I have felt like the board is more hostile towards me. Really makes me glad to be here.

States' Rights rhetoric has been used to try and prevent the Fed. govt. from interfering in state sponsored racism but that doesn't mean that it's the only meaning of states' rights. The Constitution says that all rights not enumerated in it devolve to the states or the people.

There is absolutely nothing negative toward you in my defense of states' rights and I agree with many above that when it is used to deny people basic rights it is despicable and misleading. Why however, must you let the racists win by only equating states' rights with southern bigotry, or rather, why will you let their hatred cloud your judgment of a function of the U.S. Constitution which allows for regional diversity and 50 laboratories for policy?

anyway -- a banal point: like any human institution, government is only as good as its constituents. "states' rights" in a stateful of hippies (vermont, say) is going to be a very different thing that states' rights in a stateful of christian fundamentalists (say, alabama). likewise, as bushco has driven home over the past 4.5 years, a strong federal government controlled by right-wing wackos is hardly ideal.

(xpost)

The Democrats aren't losing to the Republicans, they're giving up. Nice one.

I think we shouldn't fool ourselves and call our country the Divided States Of America as is. States' rights enacted or not, it's already a given that certain states critically oppose others on basic civil rights issues, culture, etc. In a more complicated sense, we're a hybrid of that and the Urban Cities Of America against The Rural Outback Of America... as we continue to follow the cliché of "those of a same feather flock together", we're getting far tighter and more populous congregations of "blue cities" versus the "red rural outback". It just depends in where the "blue cities" have more power than the "red rural outback" and vice versa in each state. States' right will only codify that division, and will make laws in this country very hard to describe. It would have a humongous impact on our country in the sense that our states would start to resemble subcountries...

Why is this a problem?.. Well, for starters, national security. When it comes time to bring up issues that threaten this part of the continent, which states get which funding? I'd hate for any president of the Divided States Of America to use partison politics to give funding to states he (or she) deems more worthy of them (Democrat or Republican.) What of our stockpile of weapons? What about energy pipelines? What about oil pipelines (while they last)?

States' rights will make states bicker at each other more regarding these basic issues, as each will rise on a higher pedestal, as each becomes more distinct over time. That certainly won't help the basics. While it would be great for a more "hippie" state to have more freedom to flip the bird at a more conservative federal government and pass its own laws, there are ways the feds could "get back" at that hippie state. Similarly, a liberal fed government could do the same to a "christian fundie" state.

(Notice I'm not mentioning the racial issues or gay civil liberties issues yet.)

anyway, I got to eat.. I'm sure there are holes in my argument somewhere.. I'll get to them later.

in a faster age, is it possible that those who seek to protect minority rights should be less concerned about the longer-term effects of the level of government whose power they seek to maximize? the other side doesn't seem so concerned.

I realize it will feel more like 33 years from now as opposed to 3 years.

Arguing the enactment of decentralizing country power just because our current centralized power is very temporarily "right wing wacko" is a bit reactionary, don'cha think?

Unless you can prove that we will be having a "right wing wacko" federal goverment for a very long time after W., I will remained baffled by that line of argument. Sorry.

xpost to gabbneb

States rights are all well and good, but they aren't sufficient in all cases.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The entire line of reasoning is predicated on two assumptions:

1) The Republican Party will continue to defeat the Democratic Party.
2) The Republican Party will become further and further right-wing.

#2 I really don't give a shit about. Who cares if Repbulicans become more right-wing? That will only make me less likely to vote for them. If they become more left-wing, they will be turning into something I would consider voting for; that's not a bad thing, either, unless you are completely against the label "Republican" rather than the policies behind it.

#1 really, really irritates me. It is not impossible for Democrats to win. Stop acting like it is because giving up that fight is basically going to guarantee that every worst-case scenario you're upset about is going to happen.

I don't know many people arguing that. I know lefties saying that local control is important, given what we're dealing with nationally. I haven't seen them saying "let's shrink the Federal government on principle." Or, "we're never getting back." It is important to note though that certain structural and interpretive changes that the current regime wishes to implement can and do make it harder to move back the other direction.

I'm sure somewhere in 1933 there was some Republican fuck saying "oh, that New Deal is a FAD, we can change that once we get back in. I mean, Republican, Democrat, whatever, but you're telling me that the Federal government has the right to manage the stock market like that? People won't stand for it. Who does that FDR think he is, God"?

It is important to note though that certain structural and interpretive changes that the current regime wishes to implement can and do make it harder to move back the other direction.

Previous regimes all pursued similar strategies. The difference here is that the Republicans bragged for several decades that they were the party of limited government, and have shown for the past 20 years that they are not. They are just as drunk on power as the Democrats before them were.

i have to admit i'm of mixed emotions re: the filibuster. on the one hand it's legacy is horrible, it exists primarily to prevent the federal government from acting and since the liberal impulse is to use the federal government to solve a problem or right a wrong and the conservative impulse is to prevent the fed gov from doing so the filibuster is inherently a conservative device (this is basically the timothy noah position for getting rid of it yeah?). at the same time certain institutional quirks in our system - mainly gerrymandering but the electoral college and other things as well - have made it so that by getting a slim majority of voters one party can hold 100% of the power. i'm wary of majoritarian rule, especially since its current form embodies the dangers of it - ie. existing to punish the minority (the right leaned real hard on 'rule of law' during the lewinsky affair but now view it as much a nuisance as the bill of rights), and the filibuster does work as a bulwark against it.

in fact, i wish the US was more like europe.

it's better experimentally. there could actually be some states that try libertarian stuff... or socialized medicine (for real, not like TN where i live where it's sort of a half-assed situation that's about to fail.) ... etc etc.

of course, the downside is that some of the resultant states would SUCK. like many in the south have. imagine if a super christian state was formed from... sucks to be a nonchristian living in that state.

as long as people are free to move and had some basic, unrevocable rights, it might not be horrible.

national security obviously is something i never thought too much about in forming my opinion. neither is overall division of resources and power and so forth.

i mean of course i'm talkin out of my ass here.
m.

Let's take education, for example. If advocating local power is merely a creationist drive to give the teaching of science a kick in the balls then I'll stand up and say that I think it's un-American and un-patriotic to make our country stupider than it already is. However if states want to tailor their educational systems to meet the needs of their populations, then I can't see how that would be bad. I don't think North Dakota should have to spend as much money on oceanography, for example, as Florida. If Texas wants to spend more money on animal husbandry programs than Oregon, that's fine by me too.

Take the environment. If my city bans new wood-burning ovens and chimneys to lower particulate matter in the air, does that mean that a small, sparsely populated town in logging country should have to as well? Should they be forced to recycle in the same fashion I do?

1) The Republican Party will continue to defeat the Democratic Party.
2) The Republican Party will become further and further right-wing.

Dan, having been relatively politically conscious since the Reagan administration, my worry isn't just whether the Republicans are getting more right-wing but also whether the country at large is too. Clinton, if we recall, only won a plurality in 1992 and this was a man capable of executing retarded people, signing the Defense of Marriage Act (and telling Kerry to come out against gay marriage), and 'ending Welfare as we know it'.

If Kansas wants to turn itself into a small Crusader state on the plains, I won't complain as much if they let us Californians smoke our medicinal cannabis and forego bombing raids on the People's Republic of Berkeley. Live and let live, right?

Apart from the high-minded devolution of powers argument in the Constitution, the ability of different states to tackle similar problems individually, provides us all with testing grounds for different policies. If you took away the high-profile, touch-button issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc... I think most Americans wouldn't have much of a problem with Alaska being different and being entitled to be different than Rhode Island.

From industrial and labor regulations to civil rights through environmental policies, I think I would be generally in favor of strong central national policies. I was simply trying to point out that there are reasons for states to have rights and defend them.

as long as people are free to move and had some basic, unrevocable rights, it might not be horrible.

Free to move? Is that like being free to shut the fuck up? Free to get the fuck out if you don't like it? Charming.

That's what bothers me most about the argument -- the rights of the minority seems like it will be the first tenet of democracy to go out the window.

When it comes to civil rights, life and death, and the defense of our nation, then yes. The Federal Government should be there to protect these things.

However, the Federal Government has no buisness nosing into the buisness of whether or not a state can decriminalize marijuana, raise speed limits, ban radar detectors, set liquor laws, have a state income tax, put deposits on their cans and bottles, require a blood test before marriage, legalize prostitution, legalize gambling, strengthen gun-control laws, decalare holidays for Casmir Pulaski, set tolls for state highways, hold Saturday elections, force motorcylists to wear helmets, open K-Marts on Sundays, issue driver's licenses to sixteen-year olds, pay residents for their oil pipeline, decide how to divvy up its school districts or congressional districts, cast its electoral votes, have one house in the legislature or two, enable banks to mortgage real estate, call itself a "right-to-work" state, ban smoking from public restaurants, let the blind hunt, stay on Standard Time all year long, or declare the ivory-billed woodpecker as the state bird.

Jim Crow doesn't fit under any of that because it deprieved Americans of their fundamental rights. Dixiecrats wrongly used the term "states' rights" as their excuse to continue those archaic and horrible laws, even though there wasn't one thing right about them.

x-post

Well, "Republican" and "right wing" are very flexible terms, as we've seen over a long period of time.

fair point. of course this happens already. there's a reason certain people move to certain states. or to canada. etc.

?
m.

It's been talked about, though we're probably going to keep our beloved mockingbird as the top bird.

And if Asa Hutchinson gets elected, we'll have our own peckerwood!

Does it have any business putting conditions on that sweet, sweet, sweet Federal money that it might allocate?

The days when conservatives could dream about selectively pruning the federal budget tree are long past. We're staring at a massive economic readjustment over the next 20 years or so. Fantasizing about lopping off the DOE is fiddling amidst the flames of Rome.

I call it blackmail, myself.

Venice?

"Tsunami? tens of thousands dead? Oh, yeah, that's right. That did happen then, eh?"

What does? Helvetic Confederation?

The New Republic. Also, Banana Republic.

I don't want my southern bigot state to have southern bigot marriage/drug/right-to-death laws! Give me a pinko gummit, dammit!

...haven't there been, like, three threads on this already? Someone--I forget who, blount?--neatly diced the US into some like 12 states or something. Hilarious and insightful.

xxx...xxx-post: The whole "cutting off the funds" is exactly the problem with "strong" central gov't, some would say. NY or Cali would have every right to outraged if, being two of the wealthier states and thus filling much of the pot, the Gummint shut off the utilities and said you can't smoke weed.

Like PP said above, there are just some things the Fed shouldn't have anything to do with anymore.

(tangent: the legal driving age is just as wily and complex as the age of consent (or the drinking age), in my opinion. I knew farm kids that could drive safely and well at 15 and air-head city kids that didn't get their licenses until they were 20 that were the WORST drivers I'd ever met...)

It's not the sort of thing that can be "imposed," which is how we seem to have been conceiving of it so far on this thread. The Federal govt. is simply not going to wake up one day and decide it's a good idea to give lots of power and authority away.

Plus, you don't just automatically rediscover/invent a coherent cultural/economic/political entity that is so.... SOUTH DAKOTAN that it must necessarily burst the legal bounds it's previously occupied. Our "states" are just big counties, not like "nation-states," which is sort of how the COnstitution imagined them.

But I was thinking last night about how it seems like Europe is the real melting pot now, the real "stew" of the world, and America isn't. They're not exactly united in Europe, but they are proper "states".

Even assuming perfect function of the Federal government per the Constitutional plan, I'm not sure separation of powers is the best justification for dismissing a claimed need for state's rights. I think a better argument might be that state's rights frustrate equal protection and Constitutional rights and benefits.
When allegiances to political parties outstrip loyalty to one's actual Constitutionally mandated job, things get hairy. Hi, Bill Frist!

I'd like to see drugs legalized just to see if any of the pro state's rights libertarians suddenly don't give a shit about them anymore. Well, I'd also like to see (some) drugs legalized on principle too.

xpost

The filibuster hoo-ha is a pathetic indictment of how impossible it is for our "political thinkers" to imagine a creative solution to the powerlessness of minority parties in the American system. They have to rely on this literally absurdist, Ionescoesque arcanum. It's the best we've got but we ain't got a lot.

xpost

I guess my tribute to the founders is that so many people are such fucking bastards, I'm amazed we haven't broken this system yet. And also, it's because the founders WERE revolutionaries. Were any systems instituted before the 20th century so successfully counter-majoritarian?

The political thinkers have thought of plenty of ways to empower minority parties. It's not a failure of imagination, it's a disagreement over what is an appropriate allocation of power, and even more, the successfully applied power of entrenched interests.

And surely both the Democrats and the Republicans represent "entrenched interests," they're just quite different constellations of interests, in quite different, uh, trenches.

Since you said that, you know the deal.

There are other ways to empower minority parties, but they aren't in the Constitution, and they aren't in the Senate rules. They exist in political science texts and other nations constitutions. Folks know about them though. It takes a lot to amend the Constitution that way, or a new Consitutional Convention, which would be 52 pick-up. Given that Congress won't serve french fries and conservatives are calling for J. Kennedy's impeachment for mentioning international law, I don't think we're gonna incorporate any new ideas into our system right now. We're all about the good really old ideas, like the shining purity of the invisible handjob of the market.

Why a big deal? It's the Supreme Court first, it looms.

xpost

Yes, that's entirely reasonable, but that's a pretty high standard for that lot. We've got a de facto 60 vote reqm't through cloture rules obv.

I'm interested to see how Reid proceeds to shut down the Senate in the wake of rule "change."