by BrenBarn | 2026-01-01 05:51:19+00:00
I like the way you've stated your position, but I do have some questions.

> Lastly, I don't know of the union has a chance of lasting if we can't allow states to enact ridiculous laws we don't like.

I can understand the idea that people in one state may enact laws that people in other states disagree with (although see below), but saying we must allow ridiculous laws seems to be stretching it a bit far. It seems to me that the purpose of having different levels of government is that more local levels can enact their own policies, while at the same time higher levels can restrict those local jurisdictions from egregiously misusing their legislative power.

It then just becomes a matter of what kinds of laws are "too ridiculous" to be allowed. Maybe this is and maybe it isn't, but if you allow that any laws within one jurisdiction can be overridden by laws from a larger encompassing jurisdiction, then you must accept the underlying principle that the will of the whole can override the will of a part. Of course we can also debate what threshold must be met (e.g., will you require a supermajority of some sort at the federal level), but still the underlying principle holds. And I think we must all accept this principle, because the alternative is to accept that state law can do literally anything (e.g., execute people at random) as long as it is duly enacted by the state government.

The debate is then no longer about the theoretical balance between state and federal governments, but about the concrete question of whether this particular policy is too ridiculous to allow. As I'll say more about below, I tend to think that this is where almost all arguments about federalism lead. Unless you are prepared to allow one level or the other to have untrammeled power, it always comes down not to procedural questions about jurisdictions but to substantive questions about the actual content of the policies involved.

> The mere subjective opinion that the moral character of texans would be corrupted (as if! lol) by the content should be enough. why? because democracy, that's why. it's what texans keep voting for, states should have some level of self determination, otherwise they're just federal provinces.

Do you believe that this specific policy (or various others) in fact reflect the will of the people of Texas? The reason I ask is that I believe there are many policies (in some cases "policies of omission") at the state and federal levels which do not reflect the will of the people. As an example, polls, consistently show overwhelming support for universal background checks for gun purchases, and yet that is not the policy we have. It seems that the reason for this is that people have attached themselves to certain procedural characteristics of government (e.g., the constitution, certain mechanisms of legislative districting, etc.) rather than to more basic principles like "democracy".

If we're going to resort to fundamental principles like "because democracy", then it is hard to see why we should not insist that all policies directly reflect the will of the public in this way. I think indeed our system would benefit from removing certain anti-democratic features (e.g., the absurdly high bar for amending the constitution). But at the same time there is legitimacy in the desire to "lash ourselves to the mast" and declare certain policies off-limits ahead of time. Thus again we are really arguing not about "democracy" but about the substantive content of the laws and whether certain laws in their substantive content warrant some kind of special procedures or consideration.

Moreover, there is an interaction between the two points I made. If we allow that "ridiculous" laws should sometimes be allowed, and we also want democracy, then why can we not allow the larger jurisdiction (e.g., the federal government) to pass a "ridiculous" law restricting the actions of smaller jurisdictions? In other words, if 51% of Texans want to pass such-and-such a law, but 51% of Americans don't want any jurisdiction to be able to pass such a law, which democracy wins? It is hard to decouple the philosophical notion of democracy from concrete questions about where the boundaries are in which you're counting votes.

> You may have a strong opinion on this, as do I, but if the democratic government of texas chooses to levy burdens on adults to protect children (at least in their view and belief), why should outsiders intervene or have an opinion on it?

> I think a lot of the core issues we have in the US are caused by a now entrenched culture, where states are required to have similar laws.

My question with these issues of federalism is always the same: why is it particularly a concern when this is about state governments and federal governments? What if the democratic government of the city of Podunk, Texas wants to do something, while the democratic government of Podunk County (in which Podunk sits) wants the opposite? And then what if the Texas government wants something else and the federal government something different yet? And what if even within Podunk there is a neighborhood of four square blocks or so where the residents overwhelmingly disagree with the majority view within the city?

People often try to answer such questions by referencing the constitution, but I don't consider that a legitimate answer if we want to take seriously concepts like "democracy". If democracy is our goal, we need to be prepared to question whether the US Constitution achieves it, and so be willing to engage with the entire mess of how we resolve "51% vs. 51%" disputes of the type I mentioned above.

> Let's say you're a mormon or something and want to raise your kids in a strict state, if states can't age verify, what choice do mormons have left?

Let's say you like pork and want to eat some bacon, but most people in your area consider pork unclean and have banned the production and import of pork. What choice do you have? Or let's say you think 5G towers cause cancer, but most people in your area disagree and have allowed the construction of 5G towers. What choice do you have? Let's say you want to build a small nuclear device (for research purposes only, of course!), but the people in your area have decided to ban the possession of plutonium. What choice do you have? Let's say you're a member of a certain cult and want to raise your kids in a really strict state where you're allowed to beat them with a heavy stick if they fail to recite the Flying Spaghetti Monster's catechism with perfect accuracy. What choice do you have?

My point is simply that there are endless questions of this sort, and the answers people are comfortable with ultimately have nothing to do with "states' rights", because people disagree more about certain matters than others. People think of some things as "well that's not for me but that's cool if you want to do it", and other things as "I don't think anyone should do that but I guess it's your choice" and other things as "No one should ever do that and I am prepared to forcibly intervene to stop you from doing it if necessary". You cannot resolve these questions with an appeal to "federalism" without considering the substantive content of the policies. (And when you do, you then can run up against the universal-background-checks problem mentioned above, where you have a policy that everyone seems to want but is somehow blocked by a tiny minority.)

There is no getting around the fact that sometimes if you are in the minority you are not going to be able to do what you want. We can try to make allowances and provide protections, but still there is going to come a point at which the majority will say that the minority position is "too ridiculous" (or "too burdensome") and simply will not be accommodated.

And this has nothing to do with federalism! The issue is just that the consensus within a group of people may not match the consensus within every subgroup. Federalism is just our word for talking about a very particular instance of this, which we have convinced ourselves has some special status because a piece of paper written many years ago uses the word "state" a lot. But if we want to think about democracy we need to broaden our view a bit.