This is from a comic commission by the George Wallace campaign for governor in 1960. (Hat tip.) For the slower (willfully and not) people out there, the rhetoric about protecting the innocent states from the all-powerful federal government—rhetoric that would have basically every stalwart Republican and Libertarian out there pumping his fist in solidarity—is referencing Alabama’s “right” to prevent black people from voting, with violence if necessary.
It’s important to have long memories, because the language about “small government” and “states rights” is with us today, and there’s no reason to think the basic meaning has changed significantly from the days when it was about stopping black people from voting. “States rights” dresses itself up as anti-tyrannical language, but it’s actually pro-tyranny. It’s about crafting a nation that makes it the easiest to use government power to override individual rights. Remember this picture every time you hear someone waxing on about the inherent nobility of “leaving it to the states”, because odds are they’re beating the same drum they have since the South lost their war to preserve slavery.
90 Responses to “What they mean when they say “states’ rights””
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Well certainly it doesn’t mean the right for states to do anything that could be construed as LIBERAL considering the Bush administration is arguing that California can not enforce stricter controls against air pollution than the federal government mandates.
In many ways the modern states’ rights crowd is even worse than Wallace. Can you imagine a modern Southern “states’ rights” politician promising to increase spending on old age pensions, highways, and education?
http://www.ep.tc/georgewallace/14.html
Three out of four ain’t bad.
That is, three out of Wallace’s four promises ain’t bad.
States’ rights has always been a selective virtue, especially for the right wingers. Gay marriage, medical marijuana, voting rights, drug laws, environmental concerns, dairy product availability (can anyone find powdered whole milk in your state?,) and drinking laws don’t get a consistent set of answers based on states’ rights claims. Federalism and states’ rights have their good sides in theory (experimentalism in the government is a good thing, since Alabama isn’t Alaska isn’t Massachusetts isn’t Nevada, etc.,) but in practice it’s been a greater force for the status quo than any dynamo for progress.
But in the end, whenever I hear “states’ rights” I picture firehoses and attack dogs.
Funny, “states’ rights” never seem to include medical marijuana, right- to- die laws, or gay marriage.
State’s rights is still an old canard of the southern wingnuts who still believe the confederacy really didn’t die; it just got squashed by Lincoln and that damned old Fed.
States rights goes all the way back to antebellum times when the monied plantation owners in southern states were fighting to control their ‘way of life’ which of course included slavery, against the rest of the country’s and the world’s increased pressure to end slavery.
Many in the south still see themselves as seperate from and above the law of the rest of the country. I know some may see it as a stretch, but over years of observation, I think that the southern evangelical movement has sprung from this sentiment, hence their apparent disregard for the popular concept of democracy.
lightning: it’s only the states’ right to curtail the liberties of noncorporate citizens that needs to be protected. Because, remember, everything not specifically permitted is forbidden.
Wow, it’s like a full-color, segregationist Chick tract!
I think you’re unfairly categorizing the bulk of the folks who do believe in “states’ rights.”
No, we’re not. I don’t know how old you are, Vegan, but for someone of a certain age like me, the phrase “state’s rights” is irretrievably bound up with the machinations of bigots. It was code for organized suppression of black people’s rights, and it can no more be scrubbed clean than a phrase like “the Jewish question.”As for Wallace, toward the end of his life, he admitted (or at least maintained) that the bigotry early in his career had been a matter of political expediency. IMO, that made him even more despicable.
‘States Rights’ is another ruse for the people that will fall for anything.
‘Why, Yes, I stand for states rights (wink) (wink)’.
It’s code words… It’s all cover… There are so many faux words, code words, that mean different things for different groups. It’s like ‘voter fraud’ which involves the idea that blacks should be able to vote for the democrat that they wanted to vote for rather than the republican who needs the ‘help’ to stack the deck for their ‘win’. Ie: Florida in the 2000 selection.
I’m 25, and yes you are. Your personal experience with the people you’ve come in contact means nothing to me on an argumentative level, and doesn’t prove your point. Plenty of quasi libertarian socialists view states’ rights as a mandatory step towards their ultimate goal of a state-free society.
Bored now. Sorry that we won’t play with your racist dog whistles.
“Plenty of quasi libertarian socialists view states’ rights as a mandatory step towards their ultimate goal of a state-free society.”
Did you help Jonah Goldberg write his “book”?…
I’m 25, and yes you are. Your personal experience with the people you’ve come in contact means nothing to me on an argumentative level, and doesn’t prove your point. Plenty of quasi libertarian socialists view states’ rights as a mandatory step towards their ultimate goal of a state-free society.
Well bless your heart you want to give the state rights and then abolish it. So cute.
Leaving it to the states?
You mean fighting the brown menace from abroad?
You mean stopping abortion?
You mean stopping those cancer-ridden potheads?
You mean right to die?
You mean national ID cards?
You mean Patriot Act?
Leave it to the states is old-school.
Ask Rush. Modern conservatism means king-like executive branch, and obeisance from the peasants.
Cheeky, Amanda, really, Homeland-Security-Department-attention-attraction cheeky, Amanda.
WTF is a “quasi libertarian socialist”?
States’ rights are also much hated by corporate McTools, who desperately want to curtail, say, California’s interest in stringent environmental standards. It’s so much easier to cut the legs out from under pesky regulations when you only have to send lobbyists to DC instead of numerous state governments.
Vegan, I don’t want to condescend to you, but honestly, when someone half my age lectures me about “libertarian socialists” (now there’s an oxymoron) and the necessity for “a state-free society,” it makes me smile. There hasn’t been “a state-free society” since mankind climbed down from the trees.
States’ rights only count when you can fuck over poor and/or minorities.
Its not a states’ rights position itself that allows for shit like that, its individuals who use that position. You can’t paint the states’ right view as racist unless I’m allowed to take that line of reasoning and then paint the federal society view as wanting to kill Jews (Nazi Germany) and slaughter the Chinese (Imperial Japan).
It boils down to local control. Most of the people supporting “states’ rights” just want more local control over their everyday lives.
Yes, this is exactly what “states’ rights” means. It’s not a libertarian value. It’s true, some libertarians (Vegan?) have been fooled into using this terminology, and certainly there are plenty of right-wing authoritarians who for some reason falsely claim to be libertarians. It’s trendy in Republican circles.
However I think most libertarians would claim to stand for individual rights, and that states do not have rights, and that at least it was wrong of the Alabama government to enforce segregation with the power of the state. They might disagree with most Pandagonians about much of the Civil Rights Act, for example, but there’s a big difference between “states’ rights” advocates, such as George Wallace and Ron Paul, and most libertarians.
If you view states’ rights as an end goal then yeah…..but not if you see it simply as a tactic.
Right, but people have posted about a dozen things in this thread alone that prove pretty conclusively that advocates for states’ rights do so highly selectively. It’s not the that they hold the same views Wallace did on state’s rights in general, it’s that they hold his views selectively. They’re perfectly willing to jettison those views when it suits their purposes, which means they didn’t really hold them in the first place and “state’s rights” was just a smokescreen to begin with.
The stateless socialist-types you referred to earlier might also want local control, but they go about it very differently: cooperative living, buying local food, townhall meetings, etc. Not by gutting the Voting Rights Act or by trying to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Right, but people have posted about a dozen things in this thread alone that prove pretty conclusively that advocates for states’ rights do so highly selectively. It’s not the that they hold the same views Wallace did on state’s rights in general, it’s that they hold his views selectively. They’re perfectly willing to jettison those views when it suits their purposes, which means they didn’t really hold them in the first place and “state’s rights” was just a smokescreen to begin with.
The stateless socialist-types you referred to earlier might also want local control, but they go about it very differently: cooperative living, buying local food, townhall meetings, etc. Not by gutting the Voting Rights Act or by trying to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Sorry if this double-posted. My browser is very upset right now for some reason.
If your “tactic” is just to move oppression from the federal level to the state level… well, that doesn’t make much difference to the people on the bottom. MAJeff has it about right at 9:33.
“…but not if you see it simply as a tactic.”
Oh, it’s a tactic all right…
Well the state in and of itself is oppression. But its easier to fight a smaller, more local enemy than one gigantic one.
And Joel, you’re right in one sense. But for people on the bottom, its easier to organize against a smaller enemy than a larger one.
What if Vegan here was using the term decentralization instead of ’states’ right’, would he still be automatically branded a racist?
You know, last election cycle I actually sat down and read through a copy of the Texas Republican Platform. One of the laws they wanted to instate was a disclosure clause that forced Child Protective Services to release the name and contact information of informers to the parents they had reported.
For some reason, every time I hear the term “states’ rights,” I think about that plank.
I never laid claim to myself being a states’ rights advocate. I do lean closer to it, in a sense, than the federalist viewpoint, but….my big problem was that an unfair “they’re all racists” generalization was used to paint an entire political ideology.
Numad, good point.
Vegan: isn’t it also easy for the people rest of the country (or at least the Supreme Court) to protect their own rights in the future by forcing the State of Alabama to respect the civil rights of minorities there? Isn’t that the whole reason the states are joined together in a federation, for free trade and mutual defense of the people of all the states, from enemies both foreign and domestic?
If the pro-segregationalists don’t like it, as far as I’m concerned, they can just move. Too bad they didn’t.
Numad: I’m not sure anyone has accused Vegan directly of being a racist, just of cluelessly endorsing a very loaded phrase. But in your hypothetical scenario, would Vegan suggest repealing the 14th Amendment?
Bitter Scribe:
Maybe Vegan is a Deadwood fan.
Fucking Yankton cocksuckers.
Vegan: If you need more evidence about whether “states’ rights” is just another code word for a peculiar Southern institution, take a look at this.
The amendments and the constitution are not in place to “protect rights.” They serve the purpose of limiting the oppressive nature of the state.
….if you wanted my take on amendments.
my big problem was that an unfair “they’re all racists” generalization was used to paint an entire political ideology
Amanda has correctly pointed out the historical background of the phrase “states’ rights” as a dogwhistle for racists; do you really think she is in error on this?
Of course there are people who think racism is evil but believe that, for example, the states should be allowed to set policy on marijuana that differs from the Federal policy. They still ought to be aware of the meaning that “states’ rights” had, and for that matter still has.
That’s why you don’t hear anyone rallying behind “states’ rights” for same-sex marriage, or against federal pre-emption of tort laws. They don’t want to be associated with that old evil.
The problem here is that what you call “most” is actually a tiny minority.
There *are* people who are consistently for states’ rights based on unwavering principles, but their numbers are vanishingly small.
It’s like the people who blabber about “judicial activism” while supporting warrantless wiretaps, free-speech zones and the “bong hits for Jesus” decision.
These terms are not neutral policy terms. Maybe states’ rights once was but it isn’t any more. Personally I’d like to see local governments have more control relative to the federal government, but I wouldn’t call that states’ rights because that term now denotes a specific set of policy views that goes well beyond the textbook meaning.
Look at some of Ron Paul’s supporters (since you can assume most are pro-states’ rights). Pro-choice, pro-equality, and pro-beafuckinhippie. Pro-letting states decide.
Amanda did make her point, and use history to back it up, but that doesn’t mean things haven’t changed. Historical examples can justify historical use, but they can’t justify the here and now.
“If you need more evidence about whether “states’ rights” is just another code word for a peculiar Southern institution, take a look at this.”
And no one here’s yet mentioned Reagan’s salute to “states’ rights” right at the heart of racial tension–Philadelphia, MS. I still can’t believe that the Thomas Sowells of the world like Reagan in particular.
Blogwhoring alert! I covered this in some detail recently at my place.
http://margalis.blogspot.com/2008/01/on-language-habeas-corpus-and.html
Federalist Paper 84 is a very interesting read. It’s really fascinating that our common view of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is almost exactly the opposite of the original intention.
Now what this has to do with repealing the 14th Amendment I have no idea…
I don’t think “libertarian socialist” is an oxymoron at all, sorry — Noam Chomsky self-identifies as one. On the other hand, he’s not using the term “libertarian” to mean anything like “Randroid.” In practical application, a libertarian socialist of this stripe would advocate letting the state do the things states are good at (like things that require mass participation and/or large economies of scale) and keeping the state out of things the state has no business in being in (see Pierre Eliott Trudeau’s famous “The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation” statement, for example).
That said, I’m not surprised that the concept doesn’t translate well to the US millieu at all; the literal concept of “states’ rights” doesn’t translate well outside of the US, either.
More directly to the point, the phrase “states’ rights” is almost always used as a coded dog-whistle racist phrase in US political discourse. The connotative meaning is, in fact, quite different to the denotative meaning. (Vegan seems hung up on denotation, and the rest of us are talking connotation.)
Look at some of Ron Paul’s supporters (since you can assume most are pro-states’ rights). Pro-choice, pro-equality, and pro-beafuckinhippie. Pro-letting states decide.
Look at the rest of Ron Paul’s supporters: right-wing authoritarian racist, misogynist, anti-choice, anti-gay, isolationist nativist xenophobes. The ones who think that Ron Paul is anything other than a far-right milita-nut nitwit are fooling themselves.
George obviously is suffering from adjective absence: he left out “white” between “the” and “people”. Or possibly noun substitution: “people” instead of “racists”.
That’s funny, when I look at Paul supporters and I see upper middle class white men and people who have cash dump into World of Warcraft.
Also, if Ron Paul supporters are pro-choice, they need to pick a different candidate. Paul is decidedly pro-life.
Sorry, sorry, I misunderstood there what you were saying there. Paul supporters are for choice in general, just not that choice. Got it.
Amanda did make her point, and use history to back it up, but that doesn’t mean things haven’t changed.
So Amanda made a point and showed that “states’ rights” has an ugly historical usage, and you argue things have changed because…some Ron Paul supporters are completely ignorant of what Ron Paul actually stands for? What did I miss?
…Ron Paul’s supporters (since you can assume most are pro-states’ rights). Pro-choice, pro-equality,…
If that’s the really the description of his supporters, then they’re supporting the wrong fuckin’ candidate.
Sigh. Leaving aside the troll, I wanted to respond to this comment, near the beginning, from kate:
States rights goes all the way back to antebellum times when the monied plantation owners in southern states were fighting to control their ‘way of life’ which of course included slavery, against the rest of the country’s and the world’s increased pressure to end slavery.
Even that is buying into their frame of thinking. In antebellum times, the south was actually against states’ rights, in that they had a real problem with states like Pennsylvania making an end-run around the Fugitive Slave Act. (The Federal Act made slave-catching a part of local police officers’ jobs - Pennsylvania couldn’t just say no, but it did say that they wouldn’t pay salaries to the cops for the time they were doing that service, since it was their STATE’S RIGHT to determine how to pay their police force.) South Carolina REALLY didn’t like that.
States’ Rights really only became a rallying cry for the South around 1890, when they were allowed to redefine the war on their own terms.
Realityfighter: They’re for allowing people to choose to live in states where the local oppression best suits them, unless those people are Mexicans.
Among my Libertarian acquaintances, state’s rights rhetoric is highly offensive under the thesis that states have no rights, only people do. States have at most powers and duties. More to the point, Libertarians and the Libertarian Party organized and identified as such largely in reaction to state’s rights wingnuts whom they could have joined but instead opposed. Cheech and Chong are closer to being the Libertarian reality than George fucking Wallace, may he rot.
I refer you gently to the last 15 times I have made this same speech here in your blog comments some weeks, months and years ago, and incorporate those speeches herein by reference. Cheers.
Let it be noted that Ron Paul defeated a much better Libertarian in Russell Means for the LP nomination, and later found his true party, the Republican Party. A little lazy to tag this post “Libertarians” and not “Republicans” since that is what Paul has been for many Congresses.
By his departure he increased the average IQ and decency of the LP without noticeably lowering those of the GOP.
“Numad: I’m not sure anyone has accused Vegan directly of being a racist, just of cluelessly endorsing a very loaded phrase.”
I kind of read Amanda’s last comment as accusing Vegan of cluefully endorsing a very loaded phrase.
In any case: what Interrobang said.
While I would avoid the phrase “states’ rights” for exactly the reasons Amanda has outlined, that doesn’t taint the thing that states’ rights people were pretending to be.
Subsidiarity - the concept that politicial decisions should be taken at the lowest appropriate level - is a liberal concept. Devolving power, taking it away from central institutions and moving it to localities, has been a liberal cause for centuries.
Perhaps because the USA is so decentralised compared to other countries, the need for subsidiarity is not a progressive cause over there so much as in the UK where I live. I suppose something like rate-capping (national legislation limiting the taxes that can be raised by local governments, and thereby removing all freedom from the local government to make meaningful decisions) would be unimaginable in the USA.
Vegan, I think the point to take away from this discussion is that the specific phrase “states’ rights” is a racist dog whistle and reliably a right-wing frame.
Thus, the term would wisely be avoided by left-libertarians.
Those libertarian socialists like Chomsky who are still swimming in the classical liberal idea pool might say that while devolution of the federal union might be a practical step, humans’ rights nevertheless naturally precede “states’ rights”. In our present situation, the Constitution and Amendments would have to be incorporated to all the states before any devolution, to prevent the South from repealing black people’s voting rights, etc. By the same reasoning that Bruce points out above, “states’ rights” is a bad term for left-libertarians, from yet another angle.
Don’t defend it, because you’re working in a right-wing frame when you do. Defend “human rights” instead.
Subsidiarity - the concept that politicial decisions should be taken at the lowest appropriate level - is a liberal concept. Devolving power, taking it away from central institutions and moving it to localities, has been a liberal cause for centuries.
There is a paradox here. Somehow strong central institutions are necessary to secure civil liberties. Sometimes the lowest appropriate level is the central government - the whole country.
You all know about slavery and racism in the US. In modern India, there is a similar story. You have heard of the “caste system” in India - IMO, a lot of what you have heard is mythical, however the fact of groups of people dominating and oppressing other groups is not disputed. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar were leaders committed to demolishing this. However, Mahatma Gandhi was very much a advocate of subsidiarity - I think I have mentioned it here before that he sometimes envisioned India as a coalition of half-a-million villages, (perhaps as a reaction to a couple of centuries of centralized colonial rule?). When it came time to write the Constitution of India, however, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar prevailed - he wanted a strong center to guarantee the rights of the oppressed, he was worried about having to fight the same battle for rights half-a-million times.
On the other hand, sometimes subsidiarity might lead to greater protections than what the center is able to provide. (e.g., states providing for gay marriage long before the center did, or legalizing abortion or contraception before the center did).
I therefore don’t think there is any easy answer here. The appropriate level of subsidiarity cannot be determined ideologically or theoretically but rather should be determined practically by the history and stage of development of a society.
Interrobang, I thought Noam Chomsky was an anarcho-syndicalist…? Certainly when I saw him speak he described himself as an “anarchist”. A very different thing. The “libertarian socialist” you describe sounds very much like a Social Democrat, a Christian Democrat, or any of the other members of the wide range of reasonable-minded statists to be found anywhere in the world outside the good ‘ole US of A. I’m not sure why any such social democrat would want to tar themselves with the incredibly ugly and smelly shit-brush that is the word “libertarian”, but I suppose it takes all sorts…
This sort of reminds me of when I was reading A Suitable Amount of Crime by Nils Christie. A fascinating book, and a call to radically lower jail times and so on. But I think he was a bit blind to some realities. Part of the world he presented was about having criminal courts be a lot more local, as people who know each other recognise each other as human, and would then not be so quick to label each other as “criminal.” It’s an intriguing prospect, and the point towards the criminal justice system is well taken, but here’s the thing: being judged by my neighbours, rather than a cold and uncaring state, terrifies me. I don’t believe for a second that the justice system is fair, but within that system, you can at least work to make sure that people are not judged for who you are. If your neighbours don’t like you, you’re pretty much fucked.
State’s rights is quite similar, while the idea of bringing power to a more local level is admirable, the potential of being oppressed far more harshly by the people who “know” you is that much greater. A law is not automatically better because it’s local. In fact, in a non-homogeneous society with a majority with a self-interest of keeping the minority down, the laws are likely to be worse. See the Salem witch trials, slavery, segregation, abortion, women’s rights. The federal govt. is far more likely to protect you than the local govt., which “knows” you, and hates your guts.
May I assume, then, that you are opposed to the current states’ rights movement to overturn federal environmental policies?
I’ve never seen Vegan do anything except troll boards claiming to be a leftist while defending right wing talking point. I suspect we have ourselves a concern troll. My guess is that Vegan’s a crazy racist wingnut who named himself “Vegan”, figuring that was one of those crazy Marxist lifestyles that would buy him an audience, and he parlays the sympathy that buys him into getting people to take right wing hatred seriously. My suggestion? Ignore the concern troll. Seriously—he’s defending racist dog whistles about denying people their right to vote.
I hold up our resident crazy racist misogynist Dana as an example. As you can see, he’s physically incapable of using the term “states rights” except as a wedge to try to return the power to deny the vote to black people to people like George Wallace, using every last ditch effort that he can. (Arguing in this case that the environment should only be protected as a matter of anti-black ideology, not on its own terms.)
I never laid claim to myself being a states’ rights advocate. I do lean closer to it, in a sense, than the federalist viewpoint, but….my big problem was that an unfair “they’re all racists” generalization was used to paint an entire political ideology.
You’re being unfair. I never argued they’re all racists. Some are just naive, which is why I feel duty-bound to educate and force the issue. I fully believe, for instance, that a lot of people supporting Ron Paul don’t realize they’re supporting a petty tyrant who hates women and black people, but once they learn that fact, then their excuses—like yours—should fade away and they should switch their allegiances or they will be held accountable—like you’re being held accountable—for their racism and sexism.
With that, I return to ignoring the concern troll.
“May I assume, then, that you are opposed to the current states’ rights movement to overturn federal environmental policies?”
If you’re referring to the EPA’s decision to deny California’s raising of air pollution standards above what the EPA has set, no, I’m not opposed to “states rights” in that situation.
The reason is because California (and the other states involved) wish to have stricter environmental protections. If they wished to have lower levels than Federal, that would be wrong because pollution affects everyone.
(Having lived in California my entire life, I can testify as to the importance of having strict anti-pollution standards. And ask Arizona and Nevada how they like sniffing California’s polluted air…)
The Federal standards should be considered a minimum. If a given state wishes to have stricter regulations, no harm done (except to themselves if business is affected). Their citizens, their choice, their consequences.
OTOH, if Missouri wanted to dump tons of toxic waste into the Missouri river - they would be negatively effecting their own citizens as well as all Americans living downstream, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. That’s wrong.
Why is that so hard to understand, Dana?…
It boils down to local control. Most of the people supporting “states’ rights” just want more local control over their everyday lives.
Of course. Local control over the non-white people’s everyday lives.
The best thing about the term “states rights” is that it serves as a guaranteed marker of who the racist motherfuckers are.
States’ rights: In 1869, Wyoming granted full legal suffrage to women. In 1870, Utah followed suit, but the United States Congress removed the right of women to vote in Utah in 1887. Colorado and Idaho also allowed women to vote before the passage of the 19th Amendment. Surely you do not disapprove of that exercise of states’ rights.
The amendments and the constitution are not in place to “protect rights.” They serve the purpose of limiting the oppressive nature of the state.
Laws aginst murder are not in place to “protect lives.” Thgey serve the purpose of limiting the killing nature of murderers.
The notion that the more local government is, the better, seems to make sense, but I don’t think it is borne out by practical experience. I have personally (if briefly) met one of my US Senators (the one I like, Barbara Boxer) and my Representative (Lynn Woolsey). I used to have more frequent contact with my State Senator and my Assemblymember, true, but that’s because Natasha was involved in disability politics that happened to be handled at the state level. And California is a state of 30 million people. I have also met my County Supervisor but I don’t like him because he is a Christian Dominionist Republican. And he’s been in office as long as my Federal representatives who have no term limits, and longer than any of my state reps who get termed out; there is no dislodging him. Fortunately he’s in the minority on a Board dominated by Democrats–but here in Sonoma County the Dems are the Establishment and they are mostly the kind of Democrat who might be Republican elsewhere–bidnessmen. Buncha realtors.
In general, I think we really find that the more local the politics in this country, the more petty corruption; the more it is an old boys’ network; the more subservient it is to moneyed interest. In contrast to the folksy adages that say local government is closer to the people, it seems that actually what makes government responsible and flexible is being accountable to a broader range of constituencies. When vast numbers of people are aggregated, even very small and marginal minorities can gather together and develop some clout to protect their interests. Vice versa the more local and limited official power is, the more the real basis of power in a hierarchial society like ours, based on structural (as well as overt) violence and intimidation, comes forth. Local authorities, who may themselves also be the big landowners and big wheels of local business, or at any rate tend to be closely aligned with these, can be quite tyrannical–what tends to check them is the higher units of government, and the anonymity offered by larger populations enables the weaker people to evade private, unoffical retaliation outside the formal process of government (however enlightened that process may be on paper–and without empowering the powerless as mass democracy can do, the formal structures tend to be quite outrageosly skewed against the little guy as well as the basic economic structures these corrupt regimes represent.)
After all, however well the local town meeting might have worked in New England in colonial days or on the frontier, today we are a nation of 300 million, mostly living in cities with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. How can we subdivide such inherently integrated, massive conurbations without destroying the economic interdependence modern industrial society depends on, into units small enough for pure face to face interaction to dominate? On a realistic scale of most communities that most modern Americans (and people in the world in general) live in, “local” government is practically just as distant and impersonal as the US Federal government or even some world government would be.
But in fact, people at the lower levels of society especially tend to at least know who their large-scale representatives are, and somewhat follow what they do, much better than who their state or county or town government is or what they are up to. Everyone knows who the President is (though some of us spend most of our lives groaning at the knowledge); most people have heard of their Senator and probably their Representative and certainly their Governor. But we tend to know less about our state legislators, and less still about our county, and may have no clue who runs the town–unless we get engaged in some specific issue. This is clearly because the national, indeed global, scaled media constantly feature the big-scale politicos, but as we go down, the quantity (if not always quality) of journalism goes down.
This is why I believe that the cult of locality has inherently reactionary tendencies.
Amanda wrote:
Except I never argued that, nor could I: the Fifteenth Amendment holds:
Thus, by the proper legal channels, the federal government assumed the power (as ratified by the states) to hold that not only could states not prohibit blacks from voting, but that Congress had the specific legal authority to pass enabling legislation if necessary.
States’ rights in regard to voting properly allowed the states to set the other conditions: sex (until the 19th Amendment) age (until the 26th required states to set the minimum age no higher than eighteen, though a state could, if it chose, set it lower), registration requirements and the like.
States’ rights include all sorts of things, such as New Jersey’s recent decision to remove capital punishment from its books, to set different laws concerning all sorts of things, Nebraska’s right to have a unicameral legislature, and the different forms of public education funding in the various states.
Utah was not actually a state when women’s suffrage was removed. And they were not stopped from reinstating it in 1895.
That said, you are using spurious reasoning. Laws should be made at the proper level. Basic rights should be granted at the highest level possible, and most of the great conflicts have been when states have tried to oppose these basic rights.
That states can do right by their population is no reason why they should always overrule the federal government. Do you have any other examples like the non-state Utah having women’s suffrage removed for 8 years, where the federal govt. actually infringed on individual rights?
Bruce has it right. States don’t have rights. They have powers, powers explicitly limited by the individual rights of the people, as enumerated (and *not* enumerated; see Amendment IX) in the Bill of Rights.
There only two reasonable explanations for those who persist in using the term “states rights”: 1) they are ignorant of both the phrase’s nonsensical meaning with respect to constitutional law *and* the phrase’s status as a racist dog whistle; or 2) they are racist. Sorry, but them’s the only options.
Well, libertarian socialism is anarchism, and vice versa. If it’s described differently, it’s not being described properly. This is not to say that you won’t find certain anarcho-communists, for instance, who draw some differences between themselves and people they generally hear calling themselves libertarian socialists; there are probably some jargon-laden critiques of tactics that sound incomprehensible to most people. But I will venture that you will very rarely find an anarchist (a real anarchist, not some “anarcho-capitalist” proto-fascist shitfuck) who does not recognize libertarian socialism as generally a synonym. Any few who don’t will probably still acknowledge much alliance.
For instance, Chomsky makes no distinction.
Well, we had the name first, and some of us are still fond of it. I think it conveniently invites conversation toward why capitalism is incompatible with libertarianism. Using the distinctions “right-libertarian” and “left-libertarian” opens that discussion too.
What if Vegan here was using the term decentralization instead of ’states’ right’, would he still be automatically branded a racist?
Nobody’s branded him “racist”, per se. He’s been given the benefit of the doubt and branded “young”.
Whoops, my mistake. Amanda already knows him. So, call a fig a fig and all that.
Amanda, can I ask you to stop filing “states’ rights” stories under the “libertarian” category, since everyone here except the known troll has contradicted that idea? There’s no need to stop hating libertarians; it’s just incorrect. You might as well claim that all progressives are for eugenics, because a few of them were in the 19th century.
AndersH wrote:
It’s pretty clear that some states would like to decriminalize marijuana, and some have passed the (ridiculous to me) “medical marijuana” laws, only to see them overridden by the federal government; that example has already been given in the comments section here.
Other examples would be the coersion by the federal government which forced the states to raise the legal drinking age to 21 (via threat of cutting off funds); several states had drinking ages set at 18, 19 or 20 before the feds stepped in. The old 55 MPH speed limit was another example of the feds stepping in on what had always been states’ duties.
In general, I think we really find that the more local the politics in this country, the more petty corruption; the more it is an old boys’ network; the more subservient it is to moneyed interest. In contrast to the folksy adages that say local government is closer to the people, it seems that actually what makes government responsible and flexible is being accountable to a broader range of constituencies.
Mark Foxwell’s point here is spot on. It certainly has been my experience, having grown up in Miami and now living in Las Vegas, that local and state level politics are far more corrupt than at the federal level. They aren’t even subtle about it because they know full well that hardly anyone’s paying attention. I think it’s a matter of scrutiny. The entire country is concerned with the feds, so a far larger audience demands a greater level of media attention. But nobody cares about Nevada’s or Las Vegas’ corruption except Nevadans or Las Vegans.
This is why, as Mark points out, most people are able to at least identify their federal-level Reps and Senators, but they don’t know who is on their county commission, city council, school board, or zoning board.
And, as usual, trolling moron Dana tries to miss the point completely to make us look stupid, and ends up loking like the troll he is in the process. “States’ rights” is a racist dog-whistle. That’s the point of the post, not your OMG STATES RIGHTS IS GOOD CUZ A FEW THINGS STATES TRY AREN’T TOTAL ANTI-BROWN-PERSON bullshit. Your attempt to try and shift the point to make your idiotic arguments is trolling, and nothing more.
But remember, conservatives have more class.
No, I’d say it perfectly appropriate to hate libertarians, seeing as how many (especially in the comment threads around here) are far-right jackasses who think that corporate control over everything is better than anything that calls itself government. Never mind the fact that corporate control would BE a government.Mark Foxwell: I’d like to take your comment at #65, bronze it, and send it to all my libertarian friends. Very well put.
It seems to me that the notion that there is an appropriate division between powers exercised by the central government and those exercised by national subdivisions (states, municipalities,etc.) is adequately labeled by the term “federalism”. We can therefore discard the term “states’ rights” altogether, recognizing the historical baggage it carries, without sacrificing this concept of the structure of government.
libertarian socialist … now there’s an oxymoron
yeah, i don’t get it. i thought it was a random made up term but apparently noam chomsky calls himself that? i don’t know what the fuck that’s about…
“States’ rights” might be a code word, but more than ever liberals need to take that principle back. It’s virtually impossible to get real progressives elected to the Senate or the Presidency. Most members of Congress are completely entrenched. They represent completely safe districts and don’t need to do anything than provide a little pork now and then to please their campaign donors.
If any real progressive change is going to happen in this country, it has to happen from the ground up, which means that it has to happen at the local and state level. Why do you think that so many important movements right now (in marriage equality, drug reform, and environmental protection) are happening at the state level?
Yes, the Republicans are hypocrites for opposing states’ rights when it suits them, but Democrats are fools for expecting the white knight of the federal government to save the day. Corporate influence is too entrenched.
Haven’t read all the comments here but I’m sure it’s been mentioned.
Republican presidents love “state’s rights” when the state agrees with their agenda to disenfranchise the middle-class and crush the poor…
But God help the state, like California, that wants higher EPA standards, or Oregon with it’s Death With Dignity law…
Then all of a sudden, the Federal Government knows best.
What a bunch of lying, deceiving hypocrites the Republican leadership it!
You slur libertarians by insinuating that our desire for limited government is racism….why don’t you talk to actual libertarians? I believe that the Federal Govt. has the duty to step in when the rights of citizens are being violated at the state level (as in the Wallace example you begin the post with), but I also believe that the distinction between the state and federal levels of government are part of the seperation-of-powers that protect our liberties; the same seperation-of-powers that the Bush Admin. has worked so hard to destroy.
BTW,Ayn Rand made the same arguement against state’s rights as you; odd company, indeed.
I’m sorry, I must have missed that part–maybe I vomitted on it after her libertarian “hero” raped a woman in order to gain ownership of her.
In my experience, people make arguments for states’ rights when they want to deny the individual rights recognized in the Bill of Rights.
people make arguments for states’ rights when they want to deny the individual rights recognized in the Bill of Rights.
Bingo.
BTW,Ayn Rand made the same arguement against state’s rights as you; odd company, indeed.
Uh, she made the argument against both “the state”, not “states” as in the sense it is used in terms of “states’ rights”. She wanted no control by the state because that brought about some utopia where John Galts benevolently ran well-oiled machines of industry and paid their workers, who were busy worker bees. That’s a fine description of the Gilded Age, except the John Galts were not benevolent (more like malevolent), and the workers were more like slaves who died from disease and overwork. Ayn Rand was a putz who didn’t learn from history.
Can we just refer people to the good articles on racist and other code words, the same way we refer them to the Feminism 101 site? One of the strongest weapons the right has is its continuity of funding and madrassa-like “think tanks”, so that the same lies get pushed generation after generation. But it seems progressives have to relearn the same skepticism every time…
Other examples would be the coersion by the federal government which forced the states to raise the legal drinking age to 21 (via threat of cutting off funds)
Gosh, I would think Libertarians would be super in favor of that one. After all, the states have a choice to refuse that money and do as they please.
While this thread is moribund, I saw this story in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, where Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) is incensed that the federal government is stomping on states’ rights:
And here I thought that anyone who was complaining about the federal government imposing its will on the states was doing so for racist reasons!
That nifty typeset lettering is appropriately reminiscent of EC Comics: http://www.tebeosfera.com/Documento/Articulo/Warren/pics/4.%20TalesCrypt_36_3.jpg
Tales from the Crypt meets Tales From the South.
And speaking of old-fashioned evil, thanks to Dana for fulfilling everyone’s expectations by blatantly misrepresenting what everyone’s been saying. You’ve done your duty, now go back under the bridge, dear.
Dana,
I don’t see any reference to states rights in that article. The senator is stating that states and the public should have more input into the federal decisions that affect them. His bill would require that the federal government consider the local impact of their actions. It does not say anything about the states constructing an electrical corridor; nor that the federal government should not construct it.