States' Rights in the USA - why?

Great Debates
1

This query is prompted, most recently, by the news that Right to Life is endorsing Fred Thompson (AP link), despite Thompson’s lack of support for banning abortion at the federal level (FoxNews link). Thompson has said that the decision should be left to the states.

My question is not about abortion. My question is about states’ rights. I understand that the concept is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and that there is a long, proud history of people identifying more with their states than with the county as a whole. But in today’s America, I don’t really see it. I live in Kentucky, and don’t see what’s so radically different about the other states I’ve spent significant time in (Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, Massachusetts, Florida). Sure there are differences, but everyone I know considers themselves an American first and a Kentuckian, etc., second.

Furthermore, and more importantly, I don’t see why citizen’s rights and responsibilities and the role of government in their lives should be as different as they are. Whenever I buy electronics, there’s a message that says something like "This product contains Unobtanium-azene, which is known by the state of California to kill all babies. Why? Why doesn’t my state know about this?

Several states have considered teaching Intelligent Design in public school classrooms. Why should they have the right? The scientific method in Topeka, Kansas is exactly the same as the one in The Bronx. So why should it be taught differently?

And why there be 50 different sets of laws about abortion, or the age of consent, or drug use, or income taxes, or casino gambling, or flag-burning, or whatever. I can find no compelling reason.

I do understand the need for varying governmental involvement, but believe that it could be accomplished even with much stronger homogeneity between the states. For example, the public high school that I went to in Kentucky was in a rural area where farming was prominent. As a result, our school district decided to invest a tremendous amount of its resources in its agriculture department. High tech industry was not nearly as prevalent, so math, science, and particularly technology were not given the same resources. This allocation was decided based on the perceived needs of the community: more and better farmers, not so many teachers and engineers. And so the district was able to make that decision, which I believe is vital to the strength of the country.

So who’s with me: eff the states’-righters, the Constitution be damned!

2

Isn’t this something of a contradiction? The Constitution is the most enduring thing to maintain uniformity in laws amongst the states. It’s just hard to change. States’ rights is the historical result of how the country was formed. Still, it’s been changed in many ways to make things uniform. And, of course there’s a whole slew of federal laws.

3

Aside from the fact that people tend to vary form state to state, you’re talking about replacing an experiment in space with an experiment in time, so you can basically squash everyone down into a mold for your own convenience.

The distinct and awesome advantage of state primacy (at least in day-to-day life; the Constritution specifies the full relationship of stateto federal government) is that people can make different choices. This is a very good thing, although I’ve noticed most lefists are fundamentally incapable fo comprehending this.

Say you have 50 states like we do. Doesn’t matter what country they’re in. Now let’s say they all have a wildly different tax system. What happens? Well, first off, you’ll notice that some will ruin themselves, probably 10%. Some will deal very wellwitht he problem, like 10%. A lot of others will muddle in the middle (This is a Bell Curve distribution). Now, we have an experiment in space. This allows us to use the TIME element more efficiently.

After a few years of crisis, the worst 10% (probably more states, even) will try and change their tax laws. They’ll look to more successful states to see what’s different. Middling states may look at whether the laws or underlying culture/economy/infrastructure/whatever needs to be improved. Even the top performers may have alternative examples to look at and improve themselves by.

Imagine this being replicated with every aspect of a state system: social security, tax systems, public infrastructure, university systems, etc. It’s not as fast as we’d like, but there’s a clear evolutionary process.

Now, under your concept, we all have to move lockstep. This creates three problems. First, we have no comparisons, except to look at other countries, which contans the serious problems of national culture, size and scale of the country, the vagaries of international diplomacy, etc. This is not really that good an option. And because of this we have to basically sit around waiting, endlesly complaining about the problems of the system, but not nowing ultimately whether we’re better or worse or why.

Second, I’ve noticed that for all that they tend to be inefficient, corrupt, and venal, state governments are more willing to make changes. For whatever odd reason, they don’t seem to have as many interest groups. This is probably due to the fact that any national interest would have to lobby in 50 different states in order to advance its agenda; seperating the issues out dilutes their influence.

The third problem is that you have completely failed to improve the odds of getting a good result in the first place. What would be the purpose of your desires? Your own convenience?

Finally, as to one snarky comment you made. Changes made to appease California can’t be judged to be accurate. They often do some pretty wild things and the legislature is among the most useless collection of human beings on the planet. Frankly, the state is probably too large to goven effectively and needs to be cut in half, but that’s life. They quite often to big public “we’re-looking-out-for-the little-guy” schticks which are wholly opposed by science and/or common sense. They’ve been known to require manufacturers to make products or include features which, if not wholly impossible by the laws of science, are at least clearly far-fetched. And they’ve been known to declare a product toxic when it is no such thing, jockeying to benefit from public outrage over something which may be quite harmless. Sort of like a few years back people claimed that they were sickened by high-tension power lines. It even made it into a mediocre Eddie Murphy movie. Comes out it’s total hogwash and the whole issue dropped.

4

Another good reason for States’ rights is that it increases freedom. If laws are applied at the state level, those who don’t like the law have freedom to move to a state more suited to their lifestyle. People make this choice all the time.

Most importantly, devolving power down to the states helps minimize the tyranny of the majority. If everything is determined at the federal level, there’s too much chance that low population regions will be dictated to by more populous regions. The U.S. was initially formed precisely for this reason - being small and geographically isolated, the British colonists in America had little representation and were exploited by Britain. So they revolted. The U.S. constitution was written with the express purpose of preventing the recurrance of the kind of government that led to the American Revolution in the first place.

5

The concept is NOT explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. There is no such thing as States’ Rights. States have powers, not rights. Individuals have rights.

6

What I meant was, I want to discuss whether or not allowing all the sates to do their own thing is a good idea, and not the Constitutional issues involved.

I should have been more clear.

7

What’s a ‘lefist’ ? :wink:

8

These are the reasons that I support states’ rights. Essentially, I think it’s a reasonable way of dealing with the vastness and diversity of our population.

9

That is a decidedly incorrect statement. The Constitution maintains uniformity of a limited set of rights amongst the states (itself a relatively recent development - the Bill of Rights did not apply to state law until well into the history of the U.S.), and ascribes to the federal government the exclusive authority to make the law governing a relatively limited state of interstate and international issues. It does nothing to regulate the uniformity in laws amongst the states, except in those limited areas.

Sua

10

History says otherwise. States’ rights has generally been code for preservation of the ability to discriminate against some minority, or to preserve a tyranny of a particular majority.

For generations, of course, states’ rights was code for preserving racial inequality under the law. More recently, it’s been about discrimination against gays, and discrimination in favor of a particular strain of Christianity.

11

Of course, while the phrase “states’ rights” is not used in the discussion, “States’ rights” is why we have gay marriage in Massachusetts and gay adoption in several states, despite a national consensus against both. It cuts both ways.

Sua

12

Smeooen woh acn tyep. Better than me, anyway.

13

Well, let’s not take things so literally. The 10th amendment is clear about delineating the power of the federal government, and allowing the states to have broader powers. Powers ≠ Rights, but they work pretty much the same way-- if I have the power to do something, then I have the right to do it. Or, if you prefer, if the States have to the power to “X”, then the people in that state have the right to do “X”.

14

That’s right. And while it may not seem to be the quickest and/or most efficient way to effect social change, I think it is more effective in the long run to allow the people some control over codifying it. I believe it’s completely wrong for the Federal government…meaning, representatives from states such as Texas…to tell Massachusetts what it can or can’t do in terms of their marriage laws. For one thing, the people of Massachusetts should have control over what happens in their state. For another, it gives a “test market” in terms of helping other states determine whether or not such social change is desireable, rather than a sweeping declaration that all must follow despite their misgivings.

15

While your point is well taken, I wonder if that last example is a good one. Is there a “national consensus against” gay adoption? I think it’s OK (or not explicitly illegal) in most states. Link.

ETA: Better Link. Scroll down a bit and you’ll find that 57% of Americans are OK with gay adoption.

16

This is an example of selection bias. The idea that Federalism (because that’s what really allows State’s to craft their own laws, our Federal system) is responsible for discriminating against a given minority, preserving tyranny of a particular majority, discriminating against gays and et cetera is ludicrous. Pretty much every country has had some sort of unequal or discriminatory laws in regard to homosexuals within the past say, thirty-five years. This includes both states that have a Federal system like the United States and States that have a highly centralized form of government (like say, France–which is a country with a highly centralized government that does not have gay marriage and didn’t enact civil unions until 1999.)

The sovereignty of the States and the liberties protected by dividing our government up both vertically and horizontally are not often obvious to a casual observer. For this reason the misdeeds of the State governments are highlighted while the everyday benefits of State sovereignty are ignored. This type of analysis of State sovereignty/Federalism also tends to ignore the misdeeds of the Federal government and dismisses the ease with which one can inflict tyranny on a populace when you only need to control one, single government. In the United States you’d have to control at least 39 governments to truly do such a thing (the Federal government plus 3/4ths of the State governments.)

Also, history has shown quite clearly that when the country truly desires change, change happens. It was Federal law which broke the back of Jim Crow laws in the South. Discrimination of blacks under the law was a national problem up until around 1950, the only thing remarkable about the South is it held onto its anti-black laws for a few decades longer and was more intense in the persecution of blacks. But racism manifesting itself in our laws was a national problem, spanning both North and South, for decades after the Civil War.

While several SCOTUS decisions paved the way for the end of Jim Crow laws, the primary death blow to that system was dealt by Federal legislation and vigorous enforcement of said legislation by Presidents who realized the national consensus was against such laws.

Once the reconstruction amendments were ratified, the framework was in place for the Federal government to quash black codes, Jim Crow laws, segregation and et al. pretty much at its leisure. This did not happen because, up until at least the 40s racism was still pretty prevalent throughout the entire country (it’s hard to reconcile the Seattle of today with the Seattle of 1948, which was a city that forbade blacks from living in certain neighborhoods through the use of restrictive covenants.)

It’s the same reason gay marriage hasn’t caught on across the country, most of the country doesn’t want it. The Federal government clearly has never supported it (DOMA was a Federal law.) It has nothing to do with State’s being independent actors.

17

Mea culpa. I wanted to list a liberal example besides gay marriage in Mass., and tossed in gay adoption without researching it.

Sua

18

It wasn’t me who said it was “explicitly” mentioned in the Constitution.

19

Would that apply to such things as laws banning interracial marriage? I mean, I would respect your consistency if you were to think that, even while thinking you were going too far in undercutting Federal authority.

20

No biggie. A more obvious example might be, per the OP, prostitution. There is clearly a national consensus against it, yet it is legal in some counties of NV. It’s not a “mainstream liberal” example, but one would be quite liberal (or libertarian) indeed to support it.