In the humble opinion of this average Joe, the greatest casualty of the American Civil War was the death of the concept of free states bound together by common defense in favor of one big state called 'America'.
Would life be different here if The Peoples of The Great States of California, Texas, Florida, Rhode Island, etc had the same freedom of self determination as do The Peoples of The Great States of Cuba, The Bahamas, Japan, France and Iran do?
What difference should it make to The People of Missouri if The People of California want to legally smoke pot, enjoy gay sex and have abortion pretty much on demand?
If 75% of The People of The Great State of North Carolina want to set up a Nativity Scene on the front lawn of their capitol building, do the rest of us have the right to tell them that they can't?
We will never be free until we are "Many States (Nations) under (insert your preferred Deity here), bound together by common defense.
If 1% Muslims want to set up place for worshiping on the front lawn of North Carolina's capitol building, do we have the right to tell them no? After all it is freedom of Religion, not from religion. Lets just allow any deity do whatever the **** they want on public property.
The tail should NOT wag the dog! If 75% of The People of
Any Community want to set up an idol or alter to worship at, why should it bug the rest of us? Sure the 25% minority need to have their basic civil rights protected, but if 75% of The People of a community the size of a county or state are in agreement, how bad can it be?
Here's the issue I have and it's not neccesarily with states rights it's with basic civil liberties. We have a federal court system in this nation for a reason: to protect the basic rights and freedoms of the individual person that we as a whole in this nation find to be universal. These are the rights to free speech, bare arms, freedom of religion, life, liberty, etc etc. I'm not going to pretend that it's the federal government in and of itself that having total and complete power over the rights of an individual within it's hands would abuse such power. simply because history has shown this NOT to be the case.
The "literacy tests" created by southern states that kept blacks from voting in most districts is a prime example. The federal government was instrumental in striking such laws down and restoring voting rights to people of color. Now I'm not saying that the feds have a clean record either, quite the contrary. Plus, I'm all for states rights when it comes to the question of economic policy, in matter of fact I perfer it. If 56% of Missourians want, say a massive museum dedicated to swiss cheese... Hell if I'm willing to pay for it here in Maryland.
However, the federal government itself has a guiding constitution, which I think is a pretty good one, which protects civil liberties and freedoms and protects ALL of our citizens from having their personal rights taken from them. I think the biggest function of the supreme court should simply be insuring that all the states comply with the standards set by the constitution. I'm a huge fan of Roe v. Wade, think it's a woman's right to decide what goes on with her body, and that no government fed or state should have the "right" to force a woman to bring a pregnancy to term. That goes for women in New York and Alabama.
I honestly don't think any state should have the ability to restrict personal rights when it comes to prostitution, gambling, and prohibition either, but that's just me in my perfect little world. Unfortunetly in these areas it looks like the Federal government is on the worst end of those arguments, being that they've been forcing the states from restricting the rights of their citizens. The best way to handle this I think is to drastically cut back the federal government to three main functions: foreign policy, interstate highways (when absolutely neccesary), and civil liberties. For this we can almost completely eliminate federal income taxes maybe a flat tax of 10% would be neccesary, and I think government would function much more smoothly. I think the feds can handle only thinking about three things... maybe.
To address your point though about the setting up an idol, I'll suggest this to the 75% of the citizens of that state: get together yourselves and purchase the land from the state, and build the idol. Income tax dollars shouldn't be spent on such things, I'm not letting you pull money from my paycheck every year to build an idol I don't even believe in if I'm that other 25%. That's originally why the balance between the feds and the states had separate powers and the supreme court was supposed to be governed strictly by the constitution, so that that 75% couldn't force the 25% into paying for something like that.
I mean if your serious about using state dollars though to build your little "idol", I mean there's other ways besides income taxes to do it that are constitutional, fair, and the other 25% don't have to pay if they don't want to. Other state revenue could pay for it, toll bridges, tickets, fines, etc. Of coruse to me I'd still vote it down because it seems like a waist of state money, and I don't like waisting state money. Imagine if VA had just put up that money for a huge idol in Richmond, right before the snowmaggedon blizzards hit this year. Their state would be dead broke and there'd be alot of pissed off virginians, especially in northern virginia.
Yeah... it's better to just leave things like that to the private sector. The state should be more focused on schools and roads and such.
