sailingaway
08-03-2011, 09:32 PM
They all seem to grasp the point of the 10th Amendment. As the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation says, it is to "protect our freedoms" and "prevent federal government power from controlling our everyday lives."
Liberals, by contrast, have never had any strong attachment to state sovereignty. Since the New Deal, they have regarded centralized power as the best way to advance the welfare state. They may favor state discretion when it favors their causes. But they don't pretend to be consistent on the issue.
Conservatives, however, do. Pretend, that is. When there is a conflict between state sovereignty and conservative policies, their reverence for the 10th Amendment abruptly goes by the wayside.
That became apparent several years ago, when the Bush administration asserted its power to prevent Californians from using medical marijuana after the state allowed it. It also tried to block an Oregon law allowing doctor-assisted suicide. Attorney General John Ashcroft had no qualms about mobilizing the fearsome resources of the federal government when states veered out of line.
He has new company among the GOP presidential aspirants, who support the 10th Amendment except when they don't. When New York legalized same-sex marriage, Perry first said, "That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me." But he soon reversed course, endorsing the Federal Marriage Amendment, which says marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
Bachmann has made a similar exception. Asked about same-sex marriage in New York, she said that "the states have the right to set the laws that they want to set." Then she threw herself behind a constitutional amendment to repeal that right.
Pawlenty? Romney? More of the same. The conspicuous exception is Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has a weirdly consistent respect for the principles of federalism.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/08/10th-amendment-and-phony-federalism#ixzz1U1lMuEi0
:cool:
Liberals, by contrast, have never had any strong attachment to state sovereignty. Since the New Deal, they have regarded centralized power as the best way to advance the welfare state. They may favor state discretion when it favors their causes. But they don't pretend to be consistent on the issue.
Conservatives, however, do. Pretend, that is. When there is a conflict between state sovereignty and conservative policies, their reverence for the 10th Amendment abruptly goes by the wayside.
That became apparent several years ago, when the Bush administration asserted its power to prevent Californians from using medical marijuana after the state allowed it. It also tried to block an Oregon law allowing doctor-assisted suicide. Attorney General John Ashcroft had no qualms about mobilizing the fearsome resources of the federal government when states veered out of line.
He has new company among the GOP presidential aspirants, who support the 10th Amendment except when they don't. When New York legalized same-sex marriage, Perry first said, "That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me." But he soon reversed course, endorsing the Federal Marriage Amendment, which says marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
Bachmann has made a similar exception. Asked about same-sex marriage in New York, she said that "the states have the right to set the laws that they want to set." Then she threw herself behind a constitutional amendment to repeal that right.
Pawlenty? Romney? More of the same. The conspicuous exception is Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has a weirdly consistent respect for the principles of federalism.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/08/10th-amendment-and-phony-federalism#ixzz1U1lMuEi0
:cool: