I think Amanda said it best: States don’t have rights; they have powers - and duties, to the federal government, other states and American citizens. But we do live in a federalist system in which, historically, state governments did have more power than the federal government. This obviously changed after the Civil War and then again during the New Deal, but the U.S. Constitution was written to declare explicit federal powers, with the idea that remaining implicit powers belonged to the states or individuals themselves.

A constitutional amendment that was never adopted (duh) was the Corwin amendment. Proposed not long after the first seven states seceded from the Union, it prevented the federal government from interfering with the “domestic institutions” of states (meaning the feds can’t abolish slavery). I mention this, because if the whole “states’ rights” argument carried legitimacy THEN - when states did have much greater power (nevermind the supremacy clause of the USC) - why wouldn’t this amendment have been ratified? Instead, the 14th amendment was ratified 7 years later which codifies the exact opposite sentiment:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The U.S. Constitution is saying that states have to guarantee equal protection under the laws to all American citizens. That pretty much gives the shaft to the notion that the federal floor of civil rights can be further eroded by state government discrimination, even if it comes in the form of direct democracy or representative democracy.

States rights are apparently ok, as long as you are promoting a “conservative” social agenda. And states rights is never (snark) a euphemism for bigotry.

“States rights” is a dodge dating back to before the Civil War. The 9th and 10th Amendments are continually cited whenever there is a Federal policy or law that a particular out-group finds odious; fine, let the Federal government declare their policy, but if we get control of a State we have the right to refuse to obey the law or to set our own policy.

The only reason “States rights” is cited by conservatives on any issue whatsoever (abortion rights, gay marriage, or whatever) is when they know that they cannot enshrine their preferences in federal law and indeed face the prospect of the opposite position being or becoming the law of the land. Then they will scream bloody murder about how it’s a States Rights issue and the Federal government ought not to be in the business of overruling the States.

I doubt that any of them actually truly believe in States’ Rights, as a Constitutional theory.

It’s trite because it’s written into the US Constitution. The idea that individuals, not governments, have rights has been around for a good 200+ years, and acting like it’s something new and special that libertarians just thought up is pretty ridiculous.

How many of them realize that they’re echoing an argument that was reinvigorated to deny black people the right to vote? How many of them feel twinges of guilt, and how many would probably get on board with the idea that the state should be able to deny the right to vote on the basis of race? I am honestly curious about this.

At least among the younger libertarian set - the ones who gave Ron Paul most of his money and who you see on streets, handing out literature - I’d say it’s pretty low on the “realize what they’re echoing” score. Mostly (90% maybe?) they don’t know about that history, so it seems perfectly benign and they can’t figure out why anyone WOULDN’T agree. They don’t particularly dislike minorities, and if dropped back in time to the 50s and 60s, would oppose using states’ rights to deny them their civil rights. A plurality of their douchebaggery, I’d say, in unintended and comes more from ignorance than maliciousness.

While local government may be convenient from a management perspective, is there any significant* right that one state could confer that another state could deny?

(IMO, local government by geographical watersheds makes a hell of a lot more sense than the arbitrary state borders we mostly have. )

*(here’s the sticking point, eh? What’s ’significant’?)

Speaking as someone who comes from a country where the knee-jerk first solution to social problems is to expect the government to at least help fix them, and we have a healthy distrust of private sector “solutions” at best, I’d be cautious about expressing this sentiment as a universal generality. The United States governments may be blunt instruments; I’m not entirely sure that’s true of governments at large.

The correct (IMHO) approach is simple, uniform laws that aim at leveling the playing field rather than achieving a particular social outcome. Within the level playing field people will be able to choose what seems best for their particular situations.

Not that I’m accusing you of this, togolosh, but the problem I have with the “level the playing-field” approach is that all too often the subtext is actually “I know we’re all standing on a 60% slope in the freezing cold, but nonetheless, I hereby declare the playing field to be level and toasty warm.” Nearly all of the right-libertarians, Randians and conservatives in libertarian clothing I’ve come into contact with are of this ilk.

That said, liberalism suffers from an interventionist predisposition towards social problems that can have unpleasant side effects. Government is inherently a blunt instrument, which makes addressing social problems in detail all but impossible. The correct (IMHO) approach is simple, uniform laws that aim at leveling the playing field rather than achieving a particular social outcome. Within the level playing field people will be able to choose what seems best for their particular situations. That means marriage ought to be treated as merely a special form of contract binding people together, with the details left to the parties involved. No requirements on gender, division of property or responsibilities or any of that stuff. In a way we are already headed in that direction with the increasing use of prenuptual agreements which modify the standard legal contract. Between now and the future Utopia of liberal limited government, however, we are stuck with an intrusive and rigid system of defining marriage, and the only way from here to there is expand the definition one little bit at a time.