Thread: Their View: States' rights: Good for some, bad for many

Their View: States' rights: Good for some, bad for many
By Michael Hays / For the Sun-News
Posted: 03/12/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

America is a democratic republic which enfranchises its citizens to determine the structure, functions, and laws of their government. Three fundamental American documents establish or reiterate the populist nature of this democracy.

The Declaration of Independence asserts, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

One two-word phrase usually goes unnoticed: among these. That is, other inalienable rights exist, and, as the following words state, the job of government is to secure-not, as our Constitution-invoking conservatives would have it, subvert-them. I have never seen a list of these other inalienable rights, but I imagine that they include Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear.

The Constitution already provides for the freedoms of speech and worship in its First Amendment. The freedoms from want and fear, which can touch the lives of all people, some more than others, are the continuing business of a democratic government. The Preamble states as much: We the People in Order to promote the general Welfare do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln was nowhere more American than in stating the nation's resolve that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. In the midst of the Civil War, first to preserve the union of the states, then to free the slaves, Lincoln linked this renewal of national freedom to the supremacy of the federal government, not its abolition or abridgement. As his earlier Emancipation Proclamation makes clear, he knew that the federal government is the instrument of freedom, not of tyranny, because it is of, by, and for the people, not, as we are redefining it today, for autocrats, the plutocrats and Dixiecrats.

The political struggle continues in more than celebrations of the Confederacy, re-enactments of the Civil War battles, or latter-day recrudescences of the Ku Klux Klan. It is most apparent in the states' rights movement predominant in the states of the former Confederacy, but also episodic in some other states. A distinguishing characteristic of, or universal truth about, states and individuals invoking states' rights is their resolute effort to uphold the rights of some people and undermine the rights of other people.

Some states like New York, Wisconsin and California have often been the advance guard of individual freedoms. Others like all the states of the confederacy - think, say, Virginia, Mississippi or Texas - have often been a rear guard of repression. States' rights policies always lead to or build on practices diminishing individual rights of women or minorities. States' rights talk is the code-word political jabber of prejudice.

For example, today, Arizona leads in asserting states' rights. Seeking to pre-empt the federal role respecting illegal immigrants, it invokes states' rights doctrine to justify efforts targeting Hispanics, infringing on their rights, and impeding access to their benefits. Most of Arizona's elected Republican and Tea Party officials, Constitution-thumpers all, seek to deny citizenship to those defined by the 14th Amendment as citizens by birth and to deny benefits to non-citizens despite long-standing Supreme Court case law extending benefits to all state residents. Arizona demonstrates the propensity of those accepting states' rights ideology and impulses to promote tyranny based on discrimination. By contrast, the federal government alone can and usually does ensure Constitutional rights and legal benefits to all.

States' rights doctrine reflects more than bigotry; it is also reflects callousness toward or contempt for those disadvantaged by natural deficiencies, educational inadequacies, economic vagaries or sheer bad luck. Many conservatives often disparage or demonize such citizens; characterize them as lazy, welfare-dependent, addicted, or retarded (more code words for prejudice); and thereby insinuate their unworthiness. Their cover for disregarding these people, diminishing their rights, and reducing their benefits is government size and financial stringency.

In the name of states' rights, Republican and Tea Party officials in about three dozen states are attempting to overturn recent federal health care legislation, with its benefits to the sick, the injured, the poor-many, of course, women and minorities, but many not-also those who have lost or been denied coverage through no fault of their own. Much as they talk about the tyrannical federal government, these states' rights advocates do not value the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of needy citizens in their states and oppress the down-and-out, for whom states' rights are harmful and mean.

Americans profess from many, one ; they should practice of many, one. States' rights doctrine is an elitist, divisive ideology of inhumanity to some.

Michael L. Hays (Ph.D., English) is a retired consultant in defense, energy and environment; former high school and college teacher; and continuing civic activist. His blog, First Impressions & Second Thoughts, appears on alternate Saturdays at http://firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com/ or lcsun-news.com.

http://www.scsun-news.com/ci_17594852

Talk about twisted logic!

The Tenth Amendment: 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.

Meaning any rights not expressly given to the fed belong TO THE STATES!!!!!!!!!! This article is based on a false premise... There is no "right to freedom from want". Americans aren't guaranteed success and happiness...we're just guaranteed a fair chance to obtain it.

Hays should have Retired from everything!

Where do these nut cases come from?