State's Rights

1. Differences between the states can be settled by the national government's supreme court or another federal government just like with many other state issues. I would like to remind you that cases like the Water Wars in the south east are being handled this way and cases like Dred Scott in the 1800's was handled like this. If the states have more rights, misunderstandings will still be handled like this. Nothing will change. 2. Your argument on the gay marriage item also resembles Dred Scott. How it will be handled will not change. You seem to think that this will be a new problem anyway. There are already conflicts with this gay marriage conflicts. Furthermore, the issue can also be seen in how different states handle guns. We Americans already deal with this and we will continue to deal with this just like we have been. 3. I will refer back to the period from 1815-1860 to respond to your third point of argument. Beginning in 1815, America was extremely nationalistic. However, as the nation continued to pass nationalistic laws, the states from all over seperated into sections and started to either dislike the other sections or dislike the federal government. This constant attempt at nationalism actually caused severe sectionalism and eventually a war. If the nation would have simply allowed sectionalism without trying to impose federal authority over the south, there would have been no issues and the likelyhood of a war would have dropped significantly. Think about it, if the Federal Government just gave the states what they wanted and allowed them to have power themselves, why would they have felt like the country had conditions in which they "simply cannot survive." Arguments against nationalism: 4. Nationalism has a history of creating strong divides. Think about it, if you squeeze something too hard, won't it eventually bust? This is what happened before the civil war. If you start with sectionalism, there will be no squeezing and everything will remain together because it is better for them economically to stay united. 5. Nationalism lumps everyone together like they are all the same. You wouldn't put all children into AP classes just like you wouldn't put all students into remedial classes. Different students have different needs and talents. Accepting nationalism is the same as putting all students into one class. The Northeast has developed a service industry. The Midwest has created an agricultural industry. Image the nation passing a law that places a tariff on all goods imported. This will help the service industry the Northeast is known for; however, it will kill the economy of the midwest. Why not just let New York and Pennslyvania and other Northeastern states pass the tariff and leave the midwest alone? Imagine that you live in New York, where gun control might be effective(just might though), and imagine Georgia where gun control will increase crime and will be catastrophic. If the nation passes a law to ban all guns, New York may prosper but you will see a rise in the number of families that get massacured in Georgia. Why not just let New York ban the guns and Georgia can loosen the gun control? The only reason not to give the states more power is to give more power to the central government so that it may be tyrannical and it can control the people more. 6. If one national leader is corrupt, it trickles down to everyone under nationalism. If the president takes a bribe from a car company to institute a tariff on all cars produced overseas, car companies all over America will shut down and the car American companies can have a virtual monopoly on cars. This corruption by one person hurts all fifty states. Now, if a governor took this bribe, it would only effect his own state. This is damage control if anything. 7. Under nationalism, the smallest economic problem could magnify and be catastrophic to all the other states. Under nationalism, if one problem arises, every single state all over the country will be hit extremely hard by this. However, if there is state's rights and one state messes up, the worst that can happen is that it messes with the states around it, not the entire nation. State's rights will stabilize the country. Given these reasons, it is simply illogical to support a strong national government and weak states.