"States Rights" is Surpassingly Stupid
The demand for states rights, which reached an especially toxic crest when something was thought necessary to put down the insistent cries for racial equality and fairness during the Civil Rights era, is once again being heard, as always in the last 50 years, from the mouths of Republican politicians. Yet what could be more stupid and evil than states rights?
If each of the various states of the Union had their own control of each and every governmental policy, then the question is, why do we have a federal government at all? Why are we united, in politics or in any other way? Why don't we satisfy ourselves instead with being a collection of 50 independent jurisdications that only come together when there is a threat from some external force that is so massive that it can't be dealt with by one or even five or ten or 45 states together?
It seems to me that the whole point of having a country called "the United States" is so that the citizens of the 50 states can have a choice. Some states, formerly confined to the South but now perniciously spreading all over the country, such as in the cases of Arizona, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Maine, can elect officials that put into place policies based on sheer small-mindedness that adversely affect in painful ways certain helpless segments of those states' populations, namely those without enough votes. (Bad policies are almost invariably carried out against apparently helpless people.) If there weren't a second level of authority to appeal to, such as a federal government, then the mistreated segments of those states would have no recourse but to suffer, and meanwhile we'd have all these little totalitarian states all over North America, each of them happily inflicting their own "Final Solutions" on any demographic that enough of the jaundiced majority doesn't like.
The big advantage of national unity and big government is to spread the wisdom (and sometimes the pain) around, especially so as to ameliorate those times when bigotry and ignorance get too strong a foothold in individual states, almost aways, these days, at the hands of Republican officials.
In fact, it's getting so that no one state ever appears to have enough people with brains to hold everything together, and they need help from others in the Union. That can be seen happening all the time, in all sorts of matters.
If each of the various states of the Union had their own control of each and every governmental policy, then the question is, why do we have a federal government at all? Why are we united, in politics or in any other way? Why don't we satisfy ourselves instead with being a collection of 50 independent jurisdications that only come together when there is a threat from some external force that is so massive that it can't be dealt with by one or even five or ten or 45 states together?
It seems to me that the whole point of having a country called "the United States" is so that the citizens of the 50 states can have a choice. Some states, formerly confined to the South but now perniciously spreading all over the country, such as in the cases of Arizona, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Maine, can elect officials that put into place policies based on sheer small-mindedness that adversely affect in painful ways certain helpless segments of those states' populations, namely those without enough votes. (Bad policies are almost invariably carried out against apparently helpless people.) If there weren't a second level of authority to appeal to, such as a federal government, then the mistreated segments of those states would have no recourse but to suffer, and meanwhile we'd have all these little totalitarian states all over North America, each of them happily inflicting their own "Final Solutions" on any demographic that enough of the jaundiced majority doesn't like.
The big advantage of national unity and big government is to spread the wisdom (and sometimes the pain) around, especially so as to ameliorate those times when bigotry and ignorance get too strong a foothold in individual states, almost aways, these days, at the hands of Republican officials.
In fact, it's getting so that no one state ever appears to have enough people with brains to hold everything together, and they need help from others in the Union. That can be seen happening all the time, in all sorts of matters.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 2:13 PM
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