From: colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten)
Subject: Re: State's Rights (Was: Re: Destruction of the U.S.)
Summary: Federal vs state power
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 05:42:43 GMT

In article <C187rF.3HI@cs.uiuc.edu>, zygote@cs.uiuc.edu (The seed of all life) writes:
> colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:
> 
> >> Because in our history, it wasn't until somewhat recently that the Fed
> >> acquired all the power it now enjoys and can abuse.
> 
> >It acquired that power to counteract the abuses of the states.  If
> >we took away all that Federal power, what is to prevent all the
> >abuses from coming back?
> 
> It acquired that power because it got away with it.  You still missed
> the point, the Fed couldn't abuse power it was denied.

You're discussing HOW, I'm speaking of WHY, they are not mutually
exclusive.  Still, if the FED is so big and powerful and out of
control - how do you plan to "deny" that power?

> 
> >> You keep talking about THE majority and THE minority like they are
> >> monoliths.  Asking individuals to support minority rights becasue
> >> at some point they might be in a minority is really all we have to
> >> limit government.  Without concent of real live human beings, legal
> >> restrictions are just paper.
> 
> >It's a pretty lousy way to limit power.  From my experience, people
> 
> Its all we got, unless you wish to rule be decree.
> 
I'm advocating denying the right of State authorities to rule by
decree.  If that is not what they have done - why were some 
states free and others slave?  Why did some allow some their 
rights while others denied them. What I am advocating is what the
constitution promises - that as US citizens were are given the
same rights even if our state chooses to deny them.

> >Isn't that what YOU have been advocating?  That the states simply
> >ignore any Federal law they they feel limits their power?  You
> >want to play both sides of the fence. The states have unlimited
> >power unless they choose not to have it.  
> 
> No, not unlimited power, just most of the powers we delegate to govt
> in general.  The sum total of that delegated power does not add up to
> limited power. 
> 
It amounts to that.  If there is no appeal of state authority - what
limits it?  Based on history - nothing.

> >> So even when the Fed did something wrong, it is evidence that it should be
> >> given more power and the states less.
> 
> >No when the fed does something wrong, and it is shown that it is
> >merely supporting discriminatory and unconstitutional actions the
> >states have already begun, the concept of unlimited "States Rights"
> 
> It shows that your precious Federal protection does not work as well
> as you claim.  I keep saying that the state and Fed govts have pretty
> much the same mechanisms to check abuses (written constitutions and
> courts), the Fed govt is not any more immune from failure than any state.
> 
True - they do not always work as well as they could.  They work as
well as we make them work.  But does anything less than 100% success
does not mean that you scrap the system.  Just because the police
don't solve 100% of crimes doesn't mean you simply eliminate the
police force.   The success or failure rate between State and Federal
action varies.  But, as I've said so many times, if you eliminate
the federal appeal, how would slavery, lynchings and making blacks
ride in the back of the bus ever have ended?

> No state forced anyone to own slaves, they just protected the practice in
> the same way that the Fed protected it with the powers available to it at
> the time.

Interesting way to look at it.  Would you actually have gone up to
a slave and told him that "hey, no one FORCED anyone to own you."
I'm not concerned with whether someone was forced to own slaves, but
whether people were forced to BE slaves.

> 


marc colten

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