ongoing racist bullshit in arizona thread

i'm canadian, dog

one of the greatest things abt the constitution is the way it attempts to balance various powers with different interests against one another as a means of preventing any single power or interest from dominating government. tripartite fed, for example, or house v senate, fed v states. really fucking smart. while i'm not opposed to federal governance, nor am i inclined to uncritically support its growth at the expense of states' rights.

pretty much totally agree with this. federalism means 'state vs local' as much (or more) as 'federal vs state.'

fwiw i think the term "states' rights" is pretty unfortunate and misleading, since it isn't a question of 'rights' so much as proper apportionment of power.

but when has it ever been invoked in American history sincerely for that purpose? i am asking this sincerely; i know you know a lot more about American history than i do.

balance various powers with different interests against one another as a means of preventing any single power or interest from dominating government. tripartite fed, for example, or house v senate, fed v states.

yeah but... what is the "power" or "interest" being prevented from dominating government by the "house v senate" or "fed v states"? why do we need those "balances"?

i feel like the two most resonant invocations of states rights in this country's history were 1) proslavery arguments and 2) mantaining-segregation arguments.

what is the proper apportionment of power xp

what have states done for me lately? the federal government emancipated slaves and ended Jim Crow. South Dakota keeps trying to ban abortion. yay states' rights!

medical marijuana

*burns constitution to light joint*

i vaguely know that thomas jefferson had some reasons for being all about federalism that were probably legit (like i believe he cared about federalism qua federalism), but i still think the legacy of that decentralizing force in american politics has been pretty negative.

medical marijuana

― buzza, Friday, February 10, 2012 7:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay, well-played

horseshoe is pro-forced bussing

i admit it

i vaguely know that thomas jefferson had some reasons for being all about federalism that were probably legit (like i believe he cared about federalism qua federalism), but i still think the legacy of that decentralizing force in american politics has been pretty negative.

― horseshoe, Friday, February 10, 2012 7:48 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

who cares what some dead person thinks

haha well i was going to say, i'm pretty sure he was wrong, but then i was like loooooooooooool i should stop pretending i know shit about shit like i'm some constitutional scholar. i just think people should be forced to do things!

but when has it ever been invoked in American history sincerely for that purpose?

1) kentucky and virginia resolutions (passed in opposition to the alien and sedition acts)
2) several states attempted to reject the fugitive slave law (passed at the behest of the slave states, despite their supposed hatred of fed power)
3) medical marijuana
4) no child left behind

I am interested in the thoughts of a lot of dead people fwiw

particularly the ones they had when they were not dead

xp haha just teasing ya, "some dead guy thought this so we can't do it " is the wool that scalia & thomas et. al have been pulling over everybody's eyes for awhile now

I am interested in the thoughts of a lot of dead people fwiw

― plee help i am lookin for (crüt), Friday, February 10, 2012 7:53 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah but when it's like "people get to buy AK-47s to-day because some guy in the 1780s could buy a blunderbuss", I'm like fuck what that dead person thought

1) kentucky and virginia resolutions (passed in opposition to the alien and sedition acts)
2) several states attempted to reject the fugitive slave law (passed at the behest of the slave states, despite their supposed hatred of fed power)
3) medical marijuana
4) no child left behind

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, February 10, 2012 7:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

200+ years of states rights and this is the best list you can come up with?

the first three are certainly all instances where the federally-passed law seems wrong, J.D. it's just that the principle in question isn't really states' rights. it's individual rights in all cases. (so fine, not always racist/homophobic.)

no child left behind is tricky, and i know obama has allowed some states some leeway from it, which is good, but the main problem with it imo is that it holds public schools to a certain standard but those schools are funded unequally. if it funded poor schools such that they were as well funded as schools in wealthy districts i think i would mostly be okay with it? allowing for more varied evaluation?

xposts oh totally, I was just making a throwaway comment. I have been hanging back from serious political discussion ever since earlier today when I misguidedly responded to a facebook friend sharing a Michelle Malkin article & got sucked into a vortex of loonies.

and didn't penalize already struggling schools financially

lol what is this thread about again?

ongoing "states rights" bullshit in arizona

horseshoe otm states p much useless

let's get rid of counties and cities too. fuck 'em all

no cities are cool

I propose we divide the US into the original best form of democracy, the polis

it's just that the principle in question isn't really states' rights. it's individual rights in all cases.

or maybe the principle in each case could be described in a more specific way. sometimes i feel like american rights discourse itself is the problem, like "states' rights" rhetoric is some grotesque parodic outgrowth of our political culture.

let's get rid of counties and cities too. fuck 'em all

― plee help i am lookin for (crüt), Friday, February 10, 2012 8:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no cities are cool

― iatee, Friday, February 10, 2012 8:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol saw this coming

4) no child left behind

more on this one?

i think he meant that no child left behind is a federally imposed statute that various states experience as counter-productive and restrictive? and might indeed invoke "states' rights" as a reason it should be repealed.

200+ years of states rights and this is the best list you can come up with?

look, it's ilx, i'm not going to write a book

another big recent accomplishment at the state-by-state level that probably would have been impossible at the national/federal level = gay marriage

in a world w/o the senate, electoral college, etc. gay marriage would have already been feasible at the national level

you can't just make up hypothetical otherworlds and say that they would be better just because it can be imagined that they might. sure, in a completely dictatorial, top-down system, anyone could have imposed any laws they might have wished. but only very recently has gay marriage begun to seem palatable to a majority of americans. it seems to me that this has been a product of the fact that a few states did pass such laws, among many other things. the existence of gay marriage at the state level made it seem less impossible, demonstrated that it wasn't gonna destroy the fabric of american life in a heartbeat.

and a simple way of thinking about the value of state governance is local governance. states can make decisions for themselves, as decided by their own populations, in ways that respond to their unique cultures and situations. a fully top-down government would likely have a much harder time efficiently and sensibly making decisions for every area within the country.

another way to think about this is the value of the stasis generated by opposed powers. i used to work for the VHA (veteran's healt admin) in DC. it was a horribly stagnant and inefficient place, with endless layers of bureaucracy and redundancy that prevented anything from ever getting done, or so it seemed. at first this pissed me off, because it seemed so wasteful and demoralizing. in the long run, though, i came to see a certain wisdom in it. the VHA, you see, is run from the top down by a presidential appointee and the senate. so its management is highly politicized and in constant turmoil. it changes completely every few years, and the new management always wants to overhaul everything, clean house, even simply figure out what's going on. that flux at the top threatens the ability of the organization to do the day to day work to which it's dedicated. so its apparent inefficiency is in a sense defensive. it's what preserves the VHA's ability to work at all.

state vs fed is similar. the fed would like to be able to dictate police everywhere & for everyone. why not? if you have a good idea and a mandate, why let it go to waste? same with the states. they'd like to handle their own business - with federal help & largesse, sure, but without federal interference. by opposing these desires, you generate enough systemic stasis/inefficiency to limit the "helpful" meddling of whoever happens to be holding the reins at any given moment.

several errors, key among them "police" = "policy"

we are arguing about whether states are good things or bad things and there really isn't any way to do that without making up hypothetical otherworlds. are there some progressive policies that can be passed on a state-level and eventually might benefit the whole country? yes. sure. does that make up for the contributions statehood has to our fucked up politics? no. not even close.

none of that good gov't shit even matters because it doesn't come anywhere close to making up for the inherent democratic and economic distortions that come w/ statehood. the alternative to statehood doesn't have to be a fully top-down government, there are flexible middle-ground possibilities where you can ensure that local and regional leaders have independence without ensuring that people in wyoming get 70x the democratic representation as people in california.

Seems to me that "states" are this weird, arbitrary creation that doesn't really have a lot of relevance in the 21st century. City/county governance makes a lot of sense, seeing to the needs of a small area, governed by people who understand the specific needs of that area. National governance also makes quite a lot of sense, governing on matters that should transcend borders, i.e. the civil rights of citizens. States exist in this middle ground that was very important when simple information took days to travel a few hundred miles, but just doesn't fit into the way the contemporary world work anymore.

xpost like the man said

contemporary world works

yeesh

i personally think that state-level governance has been quite successful in the US, though it has often provided safe haven for bigots and hampered the fed's ability to impose what i view as necessary national policy. then again, like gay marriage, the fights for the social policies i really value have often begun at and boiled up from the state level. i mean, local government just makes sense. one of the reasons we didn't have massive starvation and chaos following our revolution (as has happened so often elsewhere) was that there wasn't anybody trying to set agricultural policy for the entire nation. when it comes to agriculture, to continue the example, a lot of our most asinine and backwards policies are those enacted by the fed. i'm not saying it's a perfect balance, but it's far to easy to write off state-level governance as a mere smokescreen for bigotry - though it certainly can be just that.

there are flexible middle-ground possibilities where you can ensure that local and regional leaders have independence without ensuring that people in wyoming get 70x the democratic representation as people in california.

― iatee, Friday, February 10, 2012 11:11 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay, yeah, this i agree with. the present system is deeply flawed.

a lot of our most asinine and backwards policies are enacted because rural *states* have disproportionate political influence at the federal level

yeah, that too, state reps gaming the system. point taken.

and again, the alternative to states isn't 'barack obama makes every law in america'. there are lots of ways to do regional government that would be more efficient, democratic and logical.

take california. that is a huge place. it should not be 'a state'. it should be 5 states probably. ignoring everything else, the fact that it is 'a state' creates thousands of problems. there's no reason why bakersfield and san francisco should be governed by the same regional body, and there is no flexibility in the state-model to fix that problem. likewise there is no reason why kansas city should be governed by two separate regional bodies.

Absolutely. I grew up in metro0east St. Louis, and it is absurd that East St. Louis, IL is governed by the same regional laws as Chicago, instead of St. Louis, MO, seeing as how the operate as the same metro area.

I mean, this is all Poli Sci 101 flights of fancy, we all know that the current states will exist until the Nuclear/Climate wars of 2073 split the USA into 76 distinct fiefdoms, but it's worth discussing anyway.