States rights and federalism--help me out.

[Skidmore]

The Rs ran throughout the 80s on a platform that states rights were tantamount and that federal involvement should be limited. Am I incorrect in saying that they have abandoned that platform and have embraced federalism, which I interpret to be the is the consolidation of all power in the federal government? They've only kept some of the rhetoric around states rights? How did this happen?

[davepc]

1. Fascism and corporatism requires centralized control

FDR needed a lot more centralized control of the nation to make the New Deal work, he was very much a federalist...It's not that Federalism is bad per-say...but when you centralize power then the only thing stopping you from abusing it is your motives.

In FDR's case he wanted to save the country from the depression and fight fascism. In Bush's case he wants to create a new corporatist state under the flimsy veiner of a republic. At the same time they want to tear down the New Deal and replace it with the Corporate Deal. But they have no desire to being about an anti-federalism that the "conservative base" talks about (and Republicans give lip service too but never actually do anything about).


Personally, I think the Democratic Party needs to become more anti-federalist in response. But doing that would fly in the face of 70 years worth of policy.

Point is, if you de-centralize government, its harder for one person..or one cabal or people to abuse.

[Name removed]

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[sandnsea]

3. Federal to protect individual rights, Bill of Rights

That's how we need to clarify the Democratic position on this issue. Our rights, first and foremost, are derived from the Federal Constitution and the States cannot implement laws that will violate our individual rights. It gets a little tricky on issues, like drinking water. But it seems to me that a Democratic federalism favors the right of the American Citizen to clean drinking water over possible local government corruption by a mining entity, etc. It gets tricky with unfunded mandates and the rest, but they're really nothing more than law protecting the individual first, in a Democratic Administration. That's how I see it anyway. I think that's the way the Constitution is supposed to be interpreted too, individuals have all rights not given to the State or Federal.

[davepc]

5. Our rights dont come from a peice of paper.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

I very much agree with your last statement. So does the Consitution:

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

[sandnsea]

6. You take it up with God

I'll keep fighting to have a government that protects my rights.

[davepc]

7. Whats god got to do with it?

Jefferson, Locke, and the rest of the Enlightenment didn't have much of a use for god.

cogito ergo sum

Our government doesn't have much do with god, Christ, Allah, Buddha, Gia, or any other deity.

We have rights because we exist. Our government exists not to *give* us rights (by writing them on some piece of paper) but to *protect* our rights (which we have no matter what) from men who would seek to deny us the exercise of our rights in order to control us.

[sandnsea]

8. It's either paper or God

If you don't believe our rights come from a document, then quote a document that says our rights come from a Creator, then the logical conclusion is that you think rights come from God.

WE write them down so that WE can come to an agreement and so that WE will not be inclined to change our minds or claim ignorance a few years down the road. Our rights do, indeed, come from a document because WE have decided WE are a nation of law.

[davepc]

9. please don't make the mistake conservatives do

and equate Jefferson's use of the word "creator" to mean Juedo-Christan Deity.

It's not what he meant. He didn't believe in it. Hell, Jefferson edited the New Testamet to remove every reference to divinity. He just happened to like the moral clarity of Christ as described in the bible. He wanted to cut out all the mystical clutter and focus on the (very modern day liberal) message. No miracles, no resurrection, no angels, no prophecy...Just a good man doing good things...loving his neighbor and all the rest.


If our rights come from a piece of paper then they can be created or destroyed with a #2 pencil and an eraser!

If a man stronger then you takes you against your will, places you in a cell and locks the door, writes on a piece of paper that you no longer have rights and that he is your master, then walks away, did your rights disappear? Or did your ability to freely exercise your rights become infringed?

If you believe that rights are man given, then the individual who put you in your cell decided what rights you do and do not have. Since he has power over you, thats that.

If you believe rights are a naturally existing byproduct of being a human being then your rights did not disappear. While your ability to exercise them has been restricted by a tyrant, the existence of your rights did not vanish.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are intrinsic things that all living breathing human beings have simply because they are living breathing human beings. If an individual wants to say that "God made us that way" then hey, great...but there is absolutely NO need for a divine supernatural man in the clouds for us to have intrinsic rights that supersede every human construct of government.

If rights come from some collective agreement, what is there stopping a majority from coming together and deciding that a minority no longer has rights? If the minority has rights *no matter what anyone else says* then their rights can never be taken away. The majority may be able to attempt to limit the exercise of the minorities rights, but they can not evaporate them.

I do not have any faith in the Nietzsche Ubermench or Hobesian Right of Kings, or any other system that suggests that men make rights and can grant them at will by simply decrying they exist or do not exist.

Rights supersede the ignorant spouting of tyrants, dictators, and mob majorities.

The most oppressed slave has the same rights as the freest man in the world. The only difference is their ability to EXERCISE their rights.

Governments job is to ensure that ALL men and women have the ability to have a free exercise of their rights and to prevent tyranny!

[Skidmore]

10. Well said. I'm going to copy this and keep it.

[sandnsea]

12. not well said at all

Way off the mark in fact.

[sandnsea]

11. Man invented the creator

Man invents every frame within which we live, be it our Constitution, any particular notion of rights, or even God. The best system found to date is one in which WE THE PEOPLE collectively agree to abide by the words in our Constitution. It goes left and it goes right, we get WAAAAY lost along the way, but in the end our collective good sense weighs out. It's the best we've got. That's why the notion of the right of the individual above all else cannot be minimized or marginalized with a federal/state debate. It totally misses the point. All Republicans do is shift corporatism back and forth, with a pencil and eraser. WE have to be diligent and point the people back to the Bill of Rights, along with the words you quoted. The fact that you quoted them is proof in and of itself that what is written on paper does endure.

[Skidmore]

13. Perhaps if you had said this to begin with we could

better understand you point. If those pieces of paper on which those rights are enumerated were destroyed, I highly doubt that all concept of human rights would immediately disappear from the face of the earth. What endures is the human spirit and sense of self worth. What limits both are the writings on paper. Writing something down serves only to preserve it. The act of writing is a tool. I do agree with dave though. Rights exist before the constructs of society and the law are overlayed. Corporatism is also a construct. The Bill of Rights embodies our understanding of what those rights are and are indeed our way of transmitting that understanding to future generations.

[sandnsea]

15. The OP asks a Constitutional question

Not a philosophical one. The right often frames issues as state's right or federalism when they're really a question of individual rights. That was the context that I responded in so I don't really know where the whole philosophical debate came from anyway.

[depakid]

4. They never believed in states rights (federalism) as a doctrine

just as they never believed in a balanced federal budget or term limits as a doctrine.

The usual MO with Republicans is to say whatever's convenient to justify whatever end they have in mind.

So, with physician assisted suicide- they'd prefer people to suffer if that's what it takes to impose their narrow religious beliefs- and so they have no problem removing the longstanding state power to regulate the practice of medicine.

On the other hand, since they're largely bigoted people, they don't believe (despite the 14th Amendment) that Congress should have the power to enforce desegregation against the states, so they holler "states' rights!"

So far as I can tell, Republicans have no cohernet theory of government at all, other than graft, corruption and the spoils system.

[davepc]

14. Neocon Republicans have a coherent theory of goverment...

its called fascism.

It's not the nation-state fascism of Hitler and Mussolini though...its globalized fascism.