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What's so great about state rights anyways?
Jinnigan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
As a Chinese American who moved here in 1994 at the age of 4, I do not see how state rights benefit our modern society of airplanes and cellphones. Please fill me in on how state rights improve our standard of living in 2007. Am I simply ignorant of history?
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My take on it is the federal government's job is more to handle broad domestic affairs like basic civil rights, and deal with international affairs, like trade or diplomacy. Everything else would be left up to the states to decide, which, in our democracy, is to say the particular population of that segment of land can determine and decide upon their own legal specificities differently than their neighbors. Instead of one national law for anything from traffic speeds to legal procedures, states can interpret and act independently. Choice, freedom, autonomy, etc.
But I'm working off of limited real knowledge here. This is just my impression based on facts and histories I've read and heard over time. My impression is real, and founded on real facts, but the actual knowledge which shaped my opinion... long since gone.
A tad. However, as someone who interned at the Massachusetts' State House, I can tell you that the states are inept at ruling effectively. Nowadays, "States Rights" basically mean "we want slavery" and other views that bigots know are not held by the majority. They just want their little island of ignorance.
Also keep in mind that the less educated populations tend to breed faster. The more you can reduce the control of the uneducated, generally, the better.
You're not born educated you know...
ALABAMA
It's a system that's worked since the birth of the nation. Well... except for the Civil War but we learned a lot since then! Read up on American history and you'll see it's about fair representation for all of the US.
...
The bastards!
Yes, yes it is funny that I didn't mention that states are necessary in a country of America's size.
But I was speaking terms of the overarching American narrative.
This is basically "So why don't England and France just become one country with one law, they're both in the EU!"
We want people at our state capital to decide things like how to keep up the road system and shit. We want people at town hall deciding leash laws. We want the home owner to decide what color to paint his house.
The state's rights vs national rights is just the most talked about aspect of this.
Gay marriage is ironically another thing that could benefit from some states rights. Why? Simply because you are a lot more likely to find a couple of states sympathetic to granting marriage contracts for homosexual couples than you are going to get the representatives across the whole country. The problem then is how you deal with out of state marriage contracts, but that is a long discussion by itself.
The issue can be used as a Trojan horse for a ton of things, but it isn't really alone in that. Environmentalism has been used politically for a Trojan horse quite a bit as well, and a lot of the corporatists use "free marketism" as a Trojan horse for ends quite contrary to Smith's economics.
NNID: Hakkekage
There's few things I hate more than this. The cynicism involved in co-opting a cause because you assume (and sadly are right far too often) that it's members won't notice you manipulating the hell out of them to benefit yourself is depressing.
Presumably the same way you deal with any other out-of-state contract, i.e. good old Article IV, Section 1, right?
Funny you should mention Massachusetts, the only state with legal gay marriage.
Federalism allows for greater experimentation in government. To some extent every state is able to shape its government to its taste, and to its local conditions. This lowers the stakes and the tension surrounding debates at the national level and lets government policy be specialized and focused on local conditions and issues.
The unintended flip side being it's easier for fringe groups to co-opt a smaller government and yank it wildly to one side or the other. There's a certain, special, kind of stupid that only comes up in mid-size groups.
Or something.
If you trust some French dude a long time ago.
Actually, there was a proposal to do just that at the beginning of the 20th century.
Also, it's a bit disingenuous to compare say, California and Rhode Island to England and France. England and France are two entirely separate nations, not just political units, and they have been culturally and linguistically separate since the fall of the Roman Empire. California and Rhode Island (and every other state within the union for that matter) have much, much more culturally and linguistic homogeneity than England and France, and they have never been meaningfully separate - aside from distance and local government.
Anyway, Federalism in the U.S. is pretty much a joke. The US federal government operates like a unitary government. When you compare the US to other federated countries like Canada, or Switzerland, you'll see that there is a vast gulf between how a more federal federal system works (Canada/Switzerland) and a less federal federal system (the US). In Canada, for instance, Quebec is able to dictate it's own language and immigration policies - what US state can do that?
I'm from Illinois. That is the most truthful truth in existence.
People are inept at ruling effectively, but my monarch-o-matic isn't complete yet so we'll have to try our best anyway.
We will then, on the dawn of his 21st birthday, grant him control over every nation in the world. Nations which do not recognize his authority will promptly be dominated through fierce diplomacy or force, leaving an entirely compliant and willing world for him to control.
He'll then decide humanity is just too corrupt to live, and secretly plots the destruction of the whole human race by actually acting as the head of a rebel organization bent on bringing his own leadership down. He will fabricate and heighten this feigned conflict until a nuclear apocalypse occurs.
And this summer, it will be up to one lone agent to stop him.
Jet Li is... The Reclaimer!
Wouldn't that be an argument against states rights?
On the black screen
Also, how much influence do the uneducated have on the political process anyhow? And really, not just by our impressions of how sour things have gotten, or based on our religious right leaders.
But, aside from that, would you rather one state go to hell being run by a bunch of morons, or for that state to influence decisions on all the states.
I for one choose eugenics.
No.
If the dumbass population in the nation reaches 51%+, they would be able to do dumbass things with the entire country at once.
As it stands, the dumbass population can only do that in the specific states in which they reside, and the dumbasses in DC can only mostly do dumbass things to non-dumbass-majority states.
Ya get me?
--
If that's not clear enough: What if George W. Bush was not only president, but also Governor of every single state, all at once?
That French dude was pretty smart.
This.
Also, it allows for little experiments in democracy. Various policies can be tried in certain states, and emulated by others if they work well. Mishaps can be mitigated by not affecting the entire country.
The people who are really into states rights are (typically) probably some breed of xenophobe and/or nationalist.
Well, let's see with this here 51% dumbass thought experiment.
Your way, you've got a 51% stupid country while you're sitting tight in cali. I'd argue that if it's gotten that bad, it wont matter if you're in an enlightened state that much.
in the long run, wouldn't it be more productive to prevent those little islands of stupidity(ie; alabama in your example) from getting really bad?
On the black screen
It bought us until 2010 or so before it gets really really bad.
That's at least 10 years on Dubya.
Yes, also if unicorns would prance around in the front yard on Sundays.
And can we define "stupidity"? Because if we're talking serious, civil rights infractions here, we're supposed to have constitutional and legal safeguards to protect the people.
It wouldn't matter if 99% of the population wanted to outlaw blacks or gays or something, we can't do it.
Our fight now is getting the idiots to realize that disallowing gay marriage, for instance, falls into the category of "civil rights infractions."
Uh...
If you think state govt. is inept you should check out the federal govt.
On the black screen
I couldn't think of a good example. My point was that the very definition of "inalienable" rights protect even 1 person even if 299,999,999 want to take the right away.