The concept of “states’ rights” has a disgraceful history as the intellectual backbone of the Southern cause during the Civil War. One hundred years later, it was still being asserted as a legitimate, supposedly nonracist, reason for opposition to the civil-rights movement.
But there’s another historical thread, too: a progressive one that claims the states can be “laboratories of democracy.” The phrase comes from a 1932 dissent by Justice Louis Brandeis: “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
On the other hand, “Turn it over to the states” is a favorite dodge for national politicians of all stripes when there is an issue they want to duck. As if there were the slightest evidence that state governments are more efficient or less corrupt than the feds.
In fact, the evidence is quite the other way: If you had to choose between the federal government or the typical state government to handle your affairs, if you had any sense, you would choose the feds.
Look what they did to our Bonnie Blue Flag; this is the image used on the top of the article:
My comments on this article will follow later in another post.
Start with this, though: Statist bastards. They must be perturbed.
Remember Mr. Means, "Brevity is the soul of wit," and I opine you hit the mark.
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