talkpolitics | The new States' Rights issue...

Well, not really new, so much as it is coming into its own, apparently.

Washington and Colorado both passed measures effectively legalizing recreational marijuana use.

What's most interesting, or perhaps amusing to me, someone who already thinks this should have happened and nationwide, and a long time ago, is how those who reside on the political left will couch the terms of this on the national stage.

I've experienced in the past, the phenomenon that even the mention of the phrase "States Rights" elicits cries of "you want to go back to the days of segregation?!?!?" before one can even get to the part where they describe what issue it is they're applying the term to. Kind of like a peculiar variant of Tourettes' syndrome. It's almost reflexive.

But essentially, that's the only phrase we have to describe the upcoming and all but inevitable battle between these two states and the Federal level. I want to gather thoughts on the left here how they view States Rights in this context, how it compares to when those on the right use it regarding things like social support structures. Why is it different, if it's different, in your eyes?

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Except that what this is *is* nullification. States decide that enforcing Federal laws is optional? Argument's over and done with. Doesn't matter whether I think it's a good idea or not.

Guess what? There are already local law enforcement branches that don't take enforcing federal marijuanna laws seriously.

Send in the national guard! We must have more prisons to fill with nonviolent offenders.

Strict and utter compliance with every federal mandate without question deprives the people of a valuable tool to change the status quo by leading by example. Often enough it's easier to show this at the state and local level than it is at the federal.

You're killing a demonstrably easier way for government to be adaptable to it's own people seemingly for the sake of upholding a self-justifying principle of compliance.

Not seeing how this fits with your admiration for Realpolitik.

States exist where they have a monopoly on force. Nullification, if allowed to stand, challenges that monopoly by merely existing. That you and he are reading what I'm saying as civil war is interesting but that's hardly necessary. Getting the courts to drop the hammer is far more effective and doesn't require jail sentences. But that requires nuance and appreciating that Realpolitik is not the same thing as "blood for the blood god."

Each level should have a monopoly within their own well-delineated jurisdiction. My argument is that the lines between those levels would be better served if the bulk of social spending and domestic policy was set at the state and local levels leaving only things like ensuring civil liberties outlined in the bill of rights, foreign relations, etc. to the federal level.

Variation and selection, and hey, no challenging the existence of the state, just redrawing and clarifying the lines between what level is entitled to which power.

All well and good in theory but it doesn't work in practice. We ditched the articles of Confederation which worked on this basis for a damn good reason. Only the people who've never heard of that time think it'd work any better in today's era of hundreds of millions of people in the USA, as opposed to a region larger than all of Western Europe with the population of contemporary Ireland.

You cannot sit there and tell me that every new institution the federal level has put in place since the AoC ended has to remain at that level when not even the idea behind those institutions even existed at that time of the AoC (social security, Medicare, Medicaid...

I'm not sure why I even have to point out in this case why the apple and the orange are different. Hell, next you'll be the one lecturing me on how the government right after the adoption of the constitution really is similar enough to today's variant that you absolutely are justified in comparing effects (despite the fact that I've already stated that two of the big changes made between the AoC and the constitution, that of centralizing the military and of normalizing foreign affairs, would not be touched). You might as well be arguing that healthcare is exactly the same qualitatively as a standing national army.

There is zero rational basis for making the comparison with the AoC for what I'm proposing.

When have I ever said that? Were you not on the Internet when I've made the points about having to retool programs made in the 1930s for the 2010s? Of which the New Deal programs mentioned are the primary ones.

There is absolute reason to compare giving 90% of all power in terms of government influence to the states, including (as libertarians would want) taxation, to the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. And the reason is that that *was* the libertarian concept of a government incapable of taxing to support itself. We abolished it because it didn't work. Then again nullification was settled 180 years ago, not that people still don't try to resurrect it whenever convenience demands.

"There is absolute reason to compare giving 90% of all power..."

Got a citation for that statistic?

"Were you not on the Internet when I've made the points about having to retool programs made in the 1930s for the 2010s? Of which the New Deal programs mentioned are the primary ones."

I'm offering a possible way to retool them utilizing much of the same infrastructure that already exists, but with a different level of autonomy in decision making and design in the power structure. Does that mean giving over control to smaller scale institutions when it comes to dealing with complex problems like health care,medicaid, and other things that interact directly with the population? Yes. But let's forgo the reactionary language if we can. I'm not now nor have I demonstrated a propensity towards relying on rigidly ideological solutions (at least not since I was in high school), but I do find favor with solutions which I see as practical. I'm the one offering a positive argument and alternative. You're the one now throwing around meaningless percentages that feel like they were pulled from some dark orifice, and relying on somewhat hackneyed stereotypes.

What I am proposing mimics evolutionary structures, you know, the kind that helped evolve efficient life forms from an an insanely complex universe? Only applied to institutions that face complexity, not individual life forms. Do you now deny evolutionary methods as an efficient way of dealing with the problems that arise from complexity, or is that a lesson that has to be sequestered only in anthropology and biology texts? There is at least something of a mathematical basis for making that link, worth investigating at the least.

But no, we can't do that, because you've already decided for me that what I really want is to eliminate every tax (rather than have a preference for a different kind of tax), revert to a decentralized military, and let states negotiate their own treaties with other nations or somesuch nonsense. I'm not going to argue that there are libertarians who want that, but if you're going to talk to me, talk to ME as a man capable of having my own thoughts and ideas.

You're the one who's always saying libertarians never offer any alternatives. Now I'm offering one, and a rational basis for one. The ball is in your court. Please tell me you've got something beyond the stereotypes and the knee-jerks to rebut with, because I've heard all that from you before.

Pony. Up.

The new States' Rights issue...

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