South is wrong on 'state's rights'

[struggle4progress]

By Earl Morgan
For The Jersey Journal
on May 15, 2014 at 4:55 AM

... The South is not the only region of the country espousing a modern declaration of “state’s rights.” Several Western and Midwestern states are resurrecting this doctrine, but it’s in the South where daring new legislative restrictions against an alleged but undetectable voter fraud, aimed at minority voters, is flourishing ...

Presently, the U.S. Supreme Court seems a willing accomplice to this madness, refusing to dial back the craziness of allowing the carrying of firearms virtually everywhere, despite repeated mass murders in schools, movies theaters and even churches.

In the past weeks, we’ve witnessed a Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy, refuse to pay $1 million he owes in fees for grazing his cattle on federal land. We’ve watched as self-styled white militia types, brandishing automatic weapons, flock to join Bundy’s defiance, forcing a standoff with federal law enforcement officers, who were there to seize a recalcitrant Bundy’s livestock in lieu of payment ...

The saving grace here is that Obama did win the presidential election, then re-election, proving that there’s hope for the country beyond ethnicity, color and “state’s rights.”

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/morgan_south_is_wrong_on_states_rights.html

[SoLeftIAmRight]

1. No No NO

I wish it was this simple. Thank god that the states have some autonomy. Think about the few states that do progressive things. The federal government must fight to keep the red states from becoming darkage nightmares. We can not make it more difficult for states that make progress.

[struggle4progress]

3. Nobody is proposing eliminating the divided government the US currently enjoys

But "states rights" is a wingnut dog-whistle

[yurbud]

2. even the South and conservatives generally don't believe in states' rights

they believe in getting their way at whichever level of government they have to.

If they can do it at the federal level, they will. If not, then the fall back is states and lower.

It goes back to at least the Fugitive Slave Act. The South was willing to use the national government to get their slaves back even at the expense of Northern states' rights to help runaways.