6 ms·

Why can't the states rights people do something to expand rights, not shrink them?

by lebean 3y ago

olliej 3y ago
Because the people who claim "states rights" only ever do so when they're being forced to treat other people equally. Recall they vigorously opposed any state allowing same sex marriage, and even got DOMA passed so that if a couple got married in a state that allowed same sex marriage, the marriage would not be recognized anywhere else. You know, standard bigot stuff. Anyway, the overlap between people shouting "states rights" and people claiming the south did not start the civil war, and that the civil war was not about slavery, is large enough that anyone who comes out with "states rights" as their presumptive argument is automatically suspect to me. If you can't come up with an argument for your position beyond "because I [believe I] can", that's a BS position.
- everforward 3y ago
  I don't think that's quite fair, I think there are reasonable reasons to be for state rights. Or, in my own words, it's less than I favor state rights and more that I disfavor federal rule. Federal rulings are winner-take-all. It doesn't matter if 49.9% of the country disagrees, everybody is now bound by the new rule. There is no fallback for them; they can't move to a city or state that has the rules they want. Being bound by rules that you don't agree with, that your city doesn't agree with, that your state doesn't agree with breeds resentment and culture wars. We're a country of 300 million people with vastly different backgrounds and beliefs. We are unlikely to reach a national consensus on contentious issues. We can either rule by tyranny of the majority and piss off everyone that disagrees, or give people more self-determination by running things state-by-state where their vote is worth like 50 times more than at the national level. I won't pretend it's a panacea. Terrible things have been done in the name of state's rights. I don't agree with what Alabama is doing, but I do understand this outcome is important to the people of Alabama. They should have as much of a right to direct their government as anyone else. Even if they want to do things I don't agree with. California or New York are likewise free to do what they want. Frankly, they could probably offer some kind of publicly funded "state relocation" program to give people from conservative states the funds to relocate, and they'd probably profit off of it. I also think most of the federal rights crowd is disingenuous. I didn't hear anyone complaining about state rights when California legalized weed or gay marriage. Many states are still defying the federal government with legal weed. Really, I think whichever side has a majority in the federal government supports federal rights, and the loser supports state rights. Federal rights are popular among liberals because they've been successful at getting the rules they want (for the most part until very recently). Everything is well and good when the tyranny of the majority is on your side. I think if that flips and conservatives become dominant at the federal level, state rights will become much more important to liberals.
  - davkan 3y ago
    I don't generally see widespread support for federal rights as an ideal in the same way. I rarely see the argument "the federal government should be able to do whatever it wants within it's domain" which is the analog to states rights. Typically people just want individual legislative efforts and for the federal government to accomplish it. The result may be similar in terms of focusing power but it's not really coming from the same place. The extremes of state's rights folks would happily tell you the federal government should be abolished outside of a standing military. There really isn't an opposing side that believes state governments have no place at all. Diminished power sure, but it's not quite the same. Apart from gun legislation and social programs to some extent, most people on the left don't seem to be pushing for illiberal policies from the government that would amount to forcing their views on others if they succeed. Many leftists support a federal government simply because it's the only reasonable method to do such things as protect the environment at scale, and provide social programs like medicare for all and UBI. And it's all tyranny of the majority at any level. How else would you describe this ruling and the legislation that allowed it? That's how democracy functions. Even at states rights it's the elites in the big cities deciding how the people in the rural counties live. The only other options are tyranny of the minority (read: bad) or a lack of any governance at all. And it's fine if you believe in the sole dominion of the individual, but lets not pretend that states rights is some sort of ideal rather than a step on the spectrum towards the desired state of the dissolution of any effective government.
    - everforward 3y ago
      > I rarely see the argument "the federal government should be able to do whatever it wants within it's domain" which is the analog to states rights. You don't see that argument because it's the status quo, there's no reason to argue for it. Through some combination of the 3 federal branches, they literally can do whatever they want. There is unambiguously no higher power in the US to tell them no, short of the states calling a constitutional convention and agreeing to stop it, and even that is subject to Supreme Court interpretation. The broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause leaves virtually nothing that isn't within the federal domain. > The extremes of state's rights folks would happily tell you the federal government should be abolished outside of a standing military. There really isn't an opposing side that believes state governments have no place at all. Diminished power sure, but it's not quite the same. This view absolutely exists, they're just quieter about it. Those arguments take the form of "if state X won't do what I want, we'll make a federal law and take the power to legislate that away from them". There's no need to overtly disenfranchise the state when you can just overrule them whenever they disagree. That's the insidious part of broad federal power. States only have nominal power and domain, because the feds have asserted that virtually everything could potentially be in their domain. States no longer have unilateral authority over... basically anything. California can't really legalize weed all on its own because the feds have jurisdiction over intra-state sales of goods for... reasons. Abortion is only legal/illegal until the feds make a rule one way or the other. > Apart from gun legislation and social programs to some extent, most people on the left don't seem to be pushing for illiberal policies from the government that would amount to forcing their views on others if they succeed. Many leftists support a federal government simply because it's the only reasonable method to do such things as protect the environment at scale, and provide social programs like medicare for all and UBI. This is kind of what I'm talking about, though I don't mean to imply it's primarily a liberal problem (conservatives would likely make similar plays if they had the ability). Europe seems to get by OK with socialized healthcare at roughly the size of a state; they don't need to do socialized healthcare at the EU level (roughly the size of the US). Some variants of UBI can also work at the state level; hell, they could even work at the city level for cities with wide enough income inequality. That's not to say that there aren't advantages to doing it at the federal level, but I don't see anything that fundamentally requires the federal government (presuming the feds get out of the way and don't prevent your state from doing it). > And it's all tyranny of the majority at any level. How else would you describe this ruling and the legislation that allowed it? That's how democracy functions. Even at states rights it's the elites in the big cities deciding how the people in the rural counties live. Scale makes a massive difference in the tyranny of the majority, because of the impact a single person can have and the resultant hope or despair. Lets say you hypothetically decide to spend all of your time campaigning on your own for some cause, doesn't matter what. In a group of 10 people, you can talk to every person to try to convince them, and likely swing the vote. In a city, you could reasonably reach every person in the city with footwork and a reasonable ad spend. In a state, it starts to look very hard to do, but you could maybe grassroots a movement. At the federal level, you might as well give up before you start. Without an absurd level of funding and hundreds of other people, you're not going to reach even 1% of the population. The tyranny of the majority is never good, but it gets much worse at scale. Imagine a global government of some sort; the US would be where Idaho or Vermont are now. China and India combined would have nearly half the votes; no one would care what the US wants. Imagine if the US wanting to allow gay marriage hinged on cowtowing to other countries. That's how many US states feel now; they're not allowed to do what their people vote for, so they either suck it up or bow down to a more populous state. I would generally prefer that power was concentrated where the people most affected by it have the most ability to change it. In an ideal world without realistic constraints, I would prefer that cities had the most power, but that's not realistic for a variety of reasons. > And it's fine if you believe in the sole dominion of the individual, but lets not pretend that states rights is some sort of ideal rather than a step on the spectrum towards the desired state of the dissolution of any effective government. I do believe strongly in personal self-determination, but frankly if I were trying to dissolve effective government, I just wouldn't change anything. I'd let things keep going the way they are. The ever-growing culture war and divisions between the sides will dissolve effective government far faster than any kind of legislative action I could encourage. So long as we pursue winner-takes-all solutions at the federal level, there will be bitter fighting between the sides until it erupts in some kind of violence or revolt. Arguing for state's rights is, to me, a way of preserving effective government. Let the liberals do liberal things, let the conservatives do conservative things, and very sparingly force a consensus via the federal government when we absolutely have to. I don't even really see how state's rights dissolve effective governance. I'm not proposing we get rid of all the things the fed does, just that we give that power over to the states to do what their people want. California is free to make their own Medicare or Social Security, and Alabama is free to get rid of them. I suspect a few red states would promptly wreck themselves for a while, and eventually steady out. I suspect a few blue states would have to re-evaluate their budget a decade or two in, but they'd steady out as well. There'd be some things that might have to be re-federalized because they just don't function at the state level. In the end, though, I think everyone would feel far more in control of the laws surrounding them, and be more likely to chuckle about Florida's or California's shenanigans than to let it fuel a vitriol against them.
jfengel 3y ago
The term "states rights" is carefully coded. It doesn't "more rights". It means "The state has rights, and you don't". It's not a path to "individual rights"; it's exactly the opposite. The term gets bandied about most often when the federal government wants to guarantee an individual right, and a local majority doesn't want the individual to have it. The poster child for "states rights" is the Lost Cause mythology. What rights were the states demanding to have? They were very explicit about it: the right to own human beings, and ensure that they had no rights whatsoever. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

Why can't the states rights people do something to expand rights, not shrink them?

by lebean 3y ago

Why can't the states rights people do something to expand rights, not shrink them?

Because the people who claim "states rights" only ever do so when they're being forced to treat other people equally. Recall they vigorously opposed any state allowing same sex marriage, and even got DOMA passed so that if a couple got married in a state that allowed same sex marriage, the marriage would not be recognized anywhere else. You know, standard bigot stuff. Anyway, the overlap between people shouting "states rights" and people claiming the south did not start the civil war, and that the civil war was not about slavery, is large enough that anyone who comes out with "states rights" as their presumptive argument is automatically suspect to me. If you can't come up with an argument for your position beyond "because I [believe I] can", that's a BS position.

everforward 3y ago
I don't think that's quite fair, I think there are reasonable reasons to be for state rights. Or, in my own words, it's less than I favor state rights and more that I disfavor federal rule. Federal rulings are winner-take-all. It doesn't matter if 49.9% of the country disagrees, everybody is now bound by the new rule. There is no fallback for them; they can't move to a city or state that has the rules they want. Being bound by rules that you don't agree with, that your city doesn't agree with, that your state doesn't agree with breeds resentment and culture wars. We're a country of 300 million people with vastly different backgrounds and beliefs. We are unlikely to reach a national consensus on contentious issues. We can either rule by tyranny of the majority and piss off everyone that disagrees, or give people more self-determination by running things state-by-state where their vote is worth like 50 times more than at the national level. I won't pretend it's a panacea. Terrible things have been done in the name of state's rights. I don't agree with what Alabama is doing, but I do understand this outcome is important to the people of Alabama. They should have as much of a right to direct their government as anyone else. Even if they want to do things I don't agree with. California or New York are likewise free to do what they want. Frankly, they could probably offer some kind of publicly funded "state relocation" program to give people from conservative states the funds to relocate, and they'd probably profit off of it. I also think most of the federal rights crowd is disingenuous. I didn't hear anyone complaining about state rights when California legalized weed or gay marriage. Many states are still defying the federal government with legal weed. Really, I think whichever side has a majority in the federal government supports federal rights, and the loser supports state rights. Federal rights are popular among liberals because they've been successful at getting the rules they want (for the most part until very recently). Everything is well and good when the tyranny of the majority is on your side. I think if that flips and conservatives become dominant at the federal level, state rights will become much more important to liberals.
- davkan 3y ago
  I don't generally see widespread support for federal rights as an ideal in the same way. I rarely see the argument "the federal government should be able to do whatever it wants within it's domain" which is the analog to states rights. Typically people just want individual legislative efforts and for the federal government to accomplish it. The result may be similar in terms of focusing power but it's not really coming from the same place. The extremes of state's rights folks would happily tell you the federal government should be abolished outside of a standing military. There really isn't an opposing side that believes state governments have no place at all. Diminished power sure, but it's not quite the same. Apart from gun legislation and social programs to some extent, most people on the left don't seem to be pushing for illiberal policies from the government that would amount to forcing their views on others if they succeed. Many leftists support a federal government simply because it's the only reasonable method to do such things as protect the environment at scale, and provide social programs like medicare for all and UBI. And it's all tyranny of the majority at any level. How else would you describe this ruling and the legislation that allowed it? That's how democracy functions. Even at states rights it's the elites in the big cities deciding how the people in the rural counties live. The only other options are tyranny of the minority (read: bad) or a lack of any governance at all. And it's fine if you believe in the sole dominion of the individual, but lets not pretend that states rights is some sort of ideal rather than a step on the spectrum towards the desired state of the dissolution of any effective government.
  - everforward 3y ago
    > I rarely see the argument "the federal government should be able to do whatever it wants within it's domain" which is the analog to states rights. You don't see that argument because it's the status quo, there's no reason to argue for it. Through some combination of the 3 federal branches, they literally can do whatever they want. There is unambiguously no higher power in the US to tell them no, short of the states calling a constitutional convention and agreeing to stop it, and even that is subject to Supreme Court interpretation. The broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause leaves virtually nothing that isn't within the federal domain. > The extremes of state's rights folks would happily tell you the federal government should be abolished outside of a standing military. There really isn't an opposing side that believes state governments have no place at all. Diminished power sure, but it's not quite the same. This view absolutely exists, they're just quieter about it. Those arguments take the form of "if state X won't do what I want, we'll make a federal law and take the power to legislate that away from them". There's no need to overtly disenfranchise the state when you can just overrule them whenever they disagree. That's the insidious part of broad federal power. States only have nominal power and domain, because the feds have asserted that virtually everything could potentially be in their domain. States no longer have unilateral authority over... basically anything. California can't really legalize weed all on its own because the feds have jurisdiction over intra-state sales of goods for... reasons. Abortion is only legal/illegal until the feds make a rule one way or the other. > Apart from gun legislation and social programs to some extent, most people on the left don't seem to be pushing for illiberal policies from the government that would amount to forcing their views on others if they succeed. Many leftists support a federal government simply because it's the only reasonable method to do such things as protect the environment at scale, and provide social programs like medicare for all and UBI. This is kind of what I'm talking about, though I don't mean to imply it's primarily a liberal problem (conservatives would likely make similar plays if they had the ability). Europe seems to get by OK with socialized healthcare at roughly the size of a state; they don't need to do socialized healthcare at the EU level (roughly the size of the US). Some variants of UBI can also work at the state level; hell, they could even work at the city level for cities with wide enough income inequality. That's not to say that there aren't advantages to doing it at the federal level, but I don't see anything that fundamentally requires the federal government (presuming the feds get out of the way and don't prevent your state from doing it). > And it's all tyranny of the majority at any level. How else would you describe this ruling and the legislation that allowed it? That's how democracy functions. Even at states rights it's the elites in the big cities deciding how the people in the rural counties live. Scale makes a massive difference in the tyranny of the majority, because of the impact a single person can have and the resultant hope or despair. Lets say you hypothetically decide to spend all of your time campaigning on your own for some cause, doesn't matter what. In a group of 10 people, you can talk to every person to try to convince them, and likely swing the vote. In a city, you could reasonably reach every person in the city with footwork and a reasonable ad spend. In a state, it starts to look very hard to do, but you could maybe grassroots a movement. At the federal level, you might as well give up before you start. Without an absurd level of funding and hundreds of other people, you're not going to reach even 1% of the population. The tyranny of the majority is never good, but it gets much worse at scale. Imagine a global government of some sort; the US would be where Idaho or Vermont are now. China and India combined would have nearly half the votes; no one would care what the US wants. Imagine if the US wanting to allow gay marriage hinged on cowtowing to other countries. That's how many US states feel now; they're not allowed to do what their people vote for, so they either suck it up or bow down to a more populous state. I would generally prefer that power was concentrated where the people most affected by it have the most ability to change it. In an ideal world without realistic constraints, I would prefer that cities had the most power, but that's not realistic for a variety of reasons. > And it's fine if you believe in the sole dominion of the individual, but lets not pretend that states rights is some sort of ideal rather than a step on the spectrum towards the desired state of the dissolution of any effective government. I do believe strongly in personal self-determination, but frankly if I were trying to dissolve effective government, I just wouldn't change anything. I'd let things keep going the way they are. The ever-growing culture war and divisions between the sides will dissolve effective government far faster than any kind of legislative action I could encourage. So long as we pursue winner-takes-all solutions at the federal level, there will be bitter fighting between the sides until it erupts in some kind of violence or revolt. Arguing for state's rights is, to me, a way of preserving effective government. Let the liberals do liberal things, let the conservatives do conservative things, and very sparingly force a consensus via the federal government when we absolutely have to. I don't even really see how state's rights dissolve effective governance. I'm not proposing we get rid of all the things the fed does, just that we give that power over to the states to do what their people want. California is free to make their own Medicare or Social Security, and Alabama is free to get rid of them. I suspect a few red states would promptly wreck themselves for a while, and eventually steady out. I suspect a few blue states would have to re-evaluate their budget a decade or two in, but they'd steady out as well. There'd be some things that might have to be re-federalized because they just don't function at the state level. In the end, though, I think everyone would feel far more in control of the laws surrounding them, and be more likely to chuckle about Florida's or California's shenanigans than to let it fuel a vitriol against them.

jfengel 3y ago

The term "states rights" is carefully coded. It doesn't "more rights". It means "The state has rights, and you don't". It's not a path to "individual rights"; it's exactly the opposite. The term gets bandied about most often when the federal government wants to guarantee an individual right, and a local majority doesn't want the individual to have it. The poster child for "states rights" is the Lost Cause mythology. What rights were the states demanding to have? They were very explicit about it: the right to own human beings, and ensure that they had no rights whatsoever. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...