> You don't see that argument because it's the status quo, there's no reason to argue for it. Through some combination of the 3 federal branches, they literally can do whatever they want. There is unambiguously no higher power in the US to tell them no, short of the states calling a constitutional convention and agreeing to stop it, and even that is subject to Supreme Court interpretation.

What I mean by that is that when someone says we should federally allow abortion, they don't do it from a mental framing where they feel that it is the sole right of the federal government to decide to do such a thing. They do it from a position where the outcome they desire is for everyone to have access to abortion and the federal government is a tool to enable it. Like you say, it may only be possible to think in those terms because it is the status quo everywhere the supreme court hasn't deemed it not to be, and maybe if it weren't these people would be calling for it to be, but that's not an argument many are people are making right now as far as I see. It seems to be more about a desired result than a principled position regarding the role of state vs federal government.

> This is kind of what I'm talking about, though I don't mean to imply it's primarily a liberal problem (conservatives would likely make similar plays if they had the ability). Europe seems to get by OK with socialized healthcare at roughly the size of a state; they don't need to do socialized healthcare at the EU level (roughly the size of the US).

I don't typically think of programs like with UBI and M4A as a states rights issue, though I can certainly see how that is likely be a gap in my own perspective. I do agree such that programs runs contrary to my above statement about framing as these are typically presented as baseline necessities granted to all members of our country. Outside of the ideological aspect though, programs of these types almost invariably perform better at larger scales, similarly to how larger insurance almost invariably perform better than smaller ones. Remove bureaucratic messes like means testing and there's simply no way for a state run M4A or UBI to be as effective as a federal one.

>Scale makes a massive difference in the tyranny of the majority, because of the impact a single person can have and the resultant hope or despair. Lets say you hypothetically decide to spend all of your time campaigning on your own for some cause, doesn't matter what. In a group of 10 people, you can talk to every person to try to convince them, and likely swing the vote. In a city, you could reasonably reach every person in the city with footwork and a reasonable ad spend. In a state, it starts to look very hard to do, but you could maybe grassroots a movement. At the federal level, you might as well give up before you start. Without an absurd level of funding and hundreds of other people, you're not going to reach even 1% of the population.

I do agree this is a massive problem with our current representation at the federal level. I haven't given it enough consideration to have a firm idea of how to address it but having 1 representative to almost million voters is not tenable. The population has tripled since the last time we increased the number of house reps. At the founding a US house rep had as many constituents as a modern state rep does.

> Arguing for state's rights is, to me, a way of preserving effective government. Let the liberals do liberal things, let the conservatives do conservative things, and very sparingly force a consensus via the federal government when we absolutely have to.

That's not a stance I agree with but it's not unreasonable. I frequently find that people advocating for that level of state's rights can be pushed to reveal that they think governance itself is morally wrong, that taxes are violence, and that disempowering the federal government is only the beginning. Somewhat similarly to how some advocating for M4A do so without arguing their real agenda of nationalizing everything under the sun.