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The Gaffer's Philosophy:
Part 88 States Responsibilities:
February 2, 2004:
Everyone talks about states rights, but no one talks about states responsibilities. Let us look at both, beginning with so called states rights. Perhaps we can best do that by looking at the ninth and tenth amendments to our constitution.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
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, the ninth amendment in particular points out that the people retain various rights not mentioned in the constitution. It makes no such point as regards any rights of the states, nor does the tenth amendment. The tenth amendment does reserve certain powers for the states or the people. Now what are these powers and do they belong to the states or to the people? The tenth amendment is unfortunately vague on that point. A reading of the entire constitution and the 27 amendments gives us no further enlightenment on the powers or rights of the states. So, under constitutional law, no specific rights are guaranteed to the states.
Given that, let me candidly suggest , as regards the people, the states have no rights. They do have responsibilities which they have, by and large, abdicated to the federal establishment. For the most part, except in very petty affairs, the state governments act as administrative and enforcement arms of the federal establishment. They simply beg, kowtow, and butt kiss as they go along with the big guys in power. They do not represent the people. They represent the Washington bureaucracy against the people. I don't believe that is the way it was supposed to come out.
All of this non-issue of states rights can again be traced back to the issue of slavery and the dishonesty of the southern states when America was founded. Of course, I do not condone the dishonesty of the northern states in their willingness to go along with the charade. Regardless, as a consequence, the concepts of separation of states rights, peoples rights, and states responsibilities remain somewhat vague. I think a lot was assumed about the powers and responsibilities of the several states.
I will insist again that no government body has rights. Governments are, after all, only the administrators of communities established by and for the people. People, and only people have rights. Governments have responsibilities. If we were to replace the word power with responsibilities in the tenth amendment as regards the states, it would be clearer. Another amendment could do the same thing. It could say:
The responsibilities 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.
This would have the added idea that people too have responsibilities to the community and the other people of that community. We have the responsibility to help make the law and to obey it. We have the responsibility to respect our neighbors by being good citizens. We have the responsibility to understand that our rights as citizens are a result of us honoring our responsibilities to the community. Without responsibility, no one has rights.
As regards the state governments, they have only responsibilities to their citizens. These are indicated rather obliquely in article IV of the constitution. Section 2 offers some guarantees to the citizens as they move about the country.
The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
Section 4 specifies that our state governments must be representative although it does not specify the forms they may take.
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
So, these sections do, by implication, establish some responsibilities for the state governments. They imply that the states must establish just laws and offer equal justice to all of their citizens and the citizens of other states. They imply that the states must honor the rights of all citizens as defined in the constitution. However, we find on examination that too many states do not do that. All states that I know of continuously violate the rights of their citizens under Amendments I, II, and IV of our constitution. Please correct me if you are sure of an exception.
What started as isolated events in the marginally civilized and marginally democratic southern states like North Carolina and Texas has spread. Now, the cops of every state in the union are joyfully into illegal search and seizure. In addition, the states systematically interfere with the peoples rights of free speech and assembly and the right to bear arms. They insist on ramming fundamentalist religious philosophies down the throats of our kids in school. They also continue with illegal arrests on the flimsiest of evidence.
Now, constitutional law is not the end all of law. It is simply the basis of our law and sets the limits of our behavior. The state governments also have responsibilities in law. To fulfill that they must consider morality and ethics. This has to do with how we behave toward other people. Although we may say the constitution is vague in some areas, it is certainly not vague as regards human rights. So. it is up to the state governments, as representative of the people, to establish a just system of law within their jurisdictions.
Beyond that, the state governments have a deep responsibility to protect their citizens from unwarranted intrusions of the federal establishment. For that we must take a hard look at the balance between states responsibility and federal responsibility. To be sure, we must stop state governments from violating the constitutional safeguards like those protecting us against illegal search and seizure. At the same time we must reverse the massive accumulation of power in Washington. That must be undone. Just to be clear, I am a Washingtonian type of federalist, however, I am not in favor of dictatorial power or any massive accumulation of power at the federal level.
So, we must specify which government bodies have power or authority
over any specif issue. If we discard the smokescreen of states
rights, this becomes relatively simple. I have visited this concept
before. We must simply assure that no issue is allowed to be addressed
above the level where it can be effectively resolved. Although
this may sometimes be difficult in practice, it is never impossible.
We only need honest, non-selfish people in government Then, when
we make an error and try to resolve something at the wrong level
we can notice the results and make corrections. We need not leave
a power grab by the feds stand. We have abdicated our power to
the feds and we can take it back.
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