Proposed; a Bill of States' Rights

April 24, 1:43 PMDC Independent Conservative ExaminerJack Elgin

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I've begun a new project.

A notice to the members of the Congress of the United States of America;

Whereas the founders of the United States of America did conceive of a sovereign nation composed of many sovereign states, and;

Whereas the federal government of the United States of America has accrued to itself many powers over the years that are outside of both the letter and the spirit of ennumerated powers granted it under the Constitution of the United States, and;

Whereas the sovereignty of the states and the public welfare has suffered from the monopolization by the federal government of powers it has neither the right nor the ability to implement against the wishes of each state government;

We, the citizens of the United States of America and the states respectively, desire that the Constitution of the United States be amended with a Bill of States' Rights, in order to rectify the current and degrading situation by making explicit those rights of the states which our founders considered implicit.

Such a bill to be composed of five amendments;

- That the federal government of the United States of America shall not redistribute public funds, collected in aggregate from the general populace, to the individual states respectively, for any project or in any circumstance save in case of war, natural disaster, or grave and immediate public danger.

- That the federal government shall not in any way infringe upon the rights of any state to arrange matters of public education in such a way as the legislature of that state shall see fit, in keeping with the Constitution of the United States.

- That the federal government shall not in any way infringe upon the rights of any state to arrange matters of environmental protection and conservation in such a way as the legislature of that state shall see fit, in keeping with the Constitution of the United States.

- - That the federal government shall not in any way infringe upon the rights of any state to arrange matters of public health and human services in such a way as the legislature of that state shall see fit, in keeping with the Constitution of the United States.

- That the federal government shall not in any way infringe upon the rights of any state to arrange matters related to the taxing, sale and control of any substance, good or service in such a way as the legislature of that state shall see fit, in keeping with the Constitution of the United States.

You can sign the petition over here. I should note that others have come before me, but this is a new approach, I think.

This is neither a republican nor a democratic, neither a conservative nor a libertarian nor a liberal nor a progressive petition.

The founders of this country gave us, in the federal union, a very excellent mechanism for decentralizing power so as to make the rise of a tyrant impossible, and to allow each state test new methods of tackling problems of the public good in such a way that the merits of different solutions should become obvious by comparison. One can point to the fact that those states that allow corporal punishment in public schools generally have the worst or amongst the worst test scores, for instance, and whether you like it or not, this is a sound and objective bit of proof that fits into an argument for what public policy to take.

By collectivizing state decision making into the federal government on every issue, we, as a nation, have not only violated the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, but have harmed our ability to find the methods of tackling problems that work.

There are many sound arguments for the war on drugs being an abject failure, for instance- see here or here- but as long as the federal government is calling the shots, it's an all or nothing approach. A bill being debated in California, for instance, would result in the state losing federal highway funding- the reason for the redistribution of funds amendment, if you were wondering.

Anywhoo. This is one of those issues that I think most citizens agree on, but most politicians at the federal level ignore because it hurts their own power. But no matter what your political bent, you would benefit from this- if you don't like the way your state government is set up, you have a lot more freedom to move to a state with what you would consider a better model. This is already the case to some extent, of course, but there's been a steady slide for many decades towards conformity amongst the states, and the seizure of state powers by the federal government is the mechanism by which this conformity is enforced.

If you're interested, please sign the petition and forward it to your friends.

Post Script:

On a completely unrelated note, Chinese artist Kuang Hong's fantastically weird and beautiful contraptions can be found over here.