States' Rights advocates on a roll these days

They can also declare pi to have a value of exactly 3.

I am a strong supporter of "States Rights"....very strong.

This article showcases an annoying tradition at the New York Times. When one side of an issue is talking sense, and the other is talking bogus,the Times is hell-bent to "present both sides of the issue", rather than exposing the bogus to their readers. A look at article 6, section 4 of the US constitution is enough to debunk each of the particular states rights advocates they are citing.


Source

looks like we're starting to see the dissolution of the evil empire, i wonder which of the liberated states will be the first to engage in ethnic cleansing?

Change that to:

Some legal scholars say the new states’ rights drive has more smoke than fire, but for politicians on the make, just taking a stand can be important enough.

. . . and i'd agree.

You shouldn't set yourself up as an expert without first doing the study necessary to attain expertise. States Rights advocates point to the tenth amendment as the authority for their measures. The entire text of that amendment reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Now, you might argue that they are mistaken, but you really have not basis for your criticism of the New York Times--certainly the passage you allege supports your claim does not in fact do so.

More nonsense and just go to prove that politicians are either complete fools themselves and or consider the voters to be complete fools.

This issue was decided in 1865 once and for all.

Here is a statement of President Jackson in 1832 concerning this silliness and how can anyone not be aware that this issue is almost two hundreds years in the dead past?
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“ I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.[72]
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Oh well at least Obama will not need to call upon the states for the military forces to deal with this as Lincoln once needed to do and Jackson was ready to do as our standing army should be more then enough.

How silly can people be?

So...why do we have states then?

Setanta is right: it is the 10th Amendment that is and always was the sticking point and there have been arguments aplenty for what is reserved.
It is difficult to remove states rights from racism, particularly since most baby boomers were taught from history books that declared the cause of the Civil War to have been states' rights.

Anyway, be afraid. Once, MI had stringent sausage making standards. At the time, there was no federal standard but when Congress created a looser standard, MI's had to fall because it contradicted the nat'l standard.

Now, there is an odd mix of folks looking for a national education standard but I am not one of them because I ask, which state will set the standard: MA or AL?

My very liberal daughter, a teacher, wants a national standard as she hates stupidity and thinks few parents and few communities can be trusted to create a standard.

Surprisingly, many right winger do as well but harkening back to my college and grad school days, I remember that the leftists were in favor of teachers majoring in the subject(s) they wished to teach while righties were happy with education majors. I also remember leftists wanted a return to the seven liberal arts and higher standards in colleges and universities and it was the right that brought about the softening of language, math and science requirements.

In the abstract, you might have a point. But look at the specific assertions of states rights' made by the specific advocates in that article. Which ones assert a power not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, and therefore hold water? Certainly not the state claims against federal healthcare reform. Certainly not the bill condemning federal lands under state eminent domain laws. Certainly not the bills giving states the right to recall their national guard troops.

So which are the ones that, in your opinion, do hold water?

It seems that people who assert independent rights for local government would support the City of Chicago in the case currently before the Supreme Court to declare Chicago's handgun ban unconstitutional. Yet, many of the same people who insist on independent state powers want federal law to prevail in the case of handgun bans.

Yeah...there's that whole 2nd Amendment right getting in the way.

I want federal law to prevail regarding everything in the consitution. But I also think that states should be allowed to leave the union if they so choose.

The last "real" challenge to the idea that the Federal government laws are supreme was in my childhood and I can still remember watching on black and white TV the 101 airborne under the orders of then President Eisenhower with fixed bayonets reasoning with the states rights people of that era.

Of course, states rights people tend not to be too bright and therefore President Kennedy then needed to also reason with them is a similar manner.

Sorry that issue was settle beyond question on the battlefield at a cost of 800,000 lives 145 years ago.

I didn't say that I thought it was possible....just that it should be.

The constitution does not prohibit the condemnation of land under eminent domain. The constitution is mute on the subject of health care, and advocates of Federal jurisdiction in such a matter can only point to the feeble "promote the general welfare" clause from the preamble. The issue of National Guardsmen is difficult, since Congress is granted the power to call out the militia--but it is only given that power in order to repel invasions, enforce the law and suppress insurrections. It is a reasonable claim that the "militia" cannot be used in foreign wars, and that has been a subject of contention since at least 1812, when New York militia refused to cross the Niagara river to invade Upper Canada.

I'm not claiming that the rights states might claim under the tenth amendment trump all Federal powers. It is however, a subject for reasonable judicial debate, and with the current Court, it is not at all certain that the Federal government would automatically win every case.

By the way, Thomas, to save you some trouble, the National Guard was "created" as the organized militia, as opposed to the "unorganized" militia (anyone with the right to bear arms) by the Dick Act (1903? 1905?). To my knowledge, it has never been challenged in court.

Plenty must for the same reason we still had an Electoral College it is a let over from our past when we was more a group of independent states who citizens loyally was first to his or her state and second to the national government.

Most people now have little or no basic loyally toward the state they happen to be living in at least not compare to the national government.

I had live in four states in my own live and there is no way I would place the interest of any of them over the national government.

I am a citizen of the USA not the state of Florida!