# What does "State's Rights" really mean?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-states-rights-really-mean/781103>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 1, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-states-rights-really-mean/781103 "2017-03-01T13:23:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 29

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-states-rights-really-mean/781103/29 "2017-03-02T00:50:34Z")

</div>

> [@Iggy](#):
>
> If you believe in the rationale the court provided in _Wickard v Filburn_ then, yes, the federal government can regulate marijuana production and sale that does not have any other interstate nexus other than hypothetically affecting the price of the commodity in interstate trade.
> 
> And since Jeff Sessions has strongly supported the position taken by the federal government in \*Wickard \*we can conclude he is a proponent of a strong centralized government and very much against state’s rights, right? 😛

Not necessarily.

I’ve described this problem as the Free Parking Rule Paradox, although it’s not a paradox at all. The name just sounds good.

> [@To the liberals who utterly dominate the season-ticket holding ranks for the Wash Nat Opera](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/49):
>
> When I was young, we had the board game “Monopoly,” as did many of my friends. My friends almost universally played with a “house rule,” in which the money collected from fines, and sometimes even from house and property sales from the bank, went into the center of the board, and was claimed by landing on “free parking.”
> 
> That’s not how we played when my house was the locale. Our “house rule” was the actual Monopoly rulebook, which clearly provided that Free Parking was just a resting spot, and garnered the player no money or other benefits. I would argue, when playing at someone else’s house, that we should follow the actual rules of the game. Often I would be outvoted, and the game would use the money-in-the-middle/Free-parking rule.
> 
> Taking the money, if I then landed on Free Parking, is not hypocrisy.

The same reasoning may apply to Secretary Sessions. He may simply conclude that although he disfavors the reasoning in Wickard, he will not place himself at a disadvantage in a framework where only his opponents can use the rule. If the law is as Wickard says, then he’ll play by that law, even though he favors a different outcome.

Or, he may simply adopt whatever reasoning advances his desired outcome with no regard for principles. Dunno. Yet.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-states-rights-really-mean/781103)._