Politics
Out of context: Reply #7084
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- TheBlueOne0
BattleAxe, while I think the questions of where federal power ends are always worth pursuing, the fact of the matter is that alot of what that site uses as a basis for as justification for it's argument was decided 140 years ago, and the country we have had since then is the result of that violent conclusion of that argument. One of the early paragraphs:
"Most of us have been taught the idea that nullification, like secession, is unconstitutional; and further, that it is a discredited political doctrine. The federal government is absolutely supreme, thus the states are subordinate entities that must obey federal edicts — this is the reigning dogma in American politics, and one of the pernicious ideas that the elites are laboring to teach to school children. If you ask for proof, the supporters of this dogma (generally federal officials and those who benefit from the favor of same - surprise, surprise) will usually throw a quote from Abe Lincoln at you and tell you that ideas like nullification and secession died at Appomattox, Virginia in 1865. Why? Well, because that’s the place where Lincoln and those who supported his authoritarian ideals finally wore down those who disagreed, and forced their surrender on the battlefield. Thus, nullification and secession are ‘discredited’ political doctrines largely for the same reason that your claim to your wallet can be ‘discredited’ by a mugger in an alley."
Oh, I see. the attempted secession from the Union by the Confederacy, the consequent defeat and surrender of the South and the total defeat of the State's Rights movement based around those issues is now a "mugging in an alley" by that authoritarian thug "Abe Lincoln".
There have been 140 years of sour grapes from the South about this, and the bitter stump of this "debate" about the 10th Amendment in this manner is really just trying to refight the Civil War.
So, unless you really want to go back to 1861 and are seriously advocating for the ability of individual States to initiate secession from the Union, it's a silly argument.
Other than the Civil War, the main place this has been fought is in the courts, in respect to the rights the Commerce Clause gives Congress in regulating the States, and their have been a succession of cases form about 1850 onward that support this.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/…
I'm just saying that the idea of returning to some "pristine" idea of the American Republic where the States where sovereign is a form of American Utopianism that doesn't really reflect how reality has played out in this country.
But, hey man, Fight the Power.