States' Rights

I have been thinking about this Texas Governor Perry and how he's suddenly a convert to "States Rights," despite his rather poor record on "States Rights." Back when Civil Rights was an issue and the Democratic Party essentially ejected the Dixiecrats, who wanted segregation and that was about "States Rights," which was an issue pretty much settled in the Civil War, it was a Democratic stance. In fact, the Democratic party originated the whole "States Rights" movement around the time of Lincoln.

But how did we do when the states were supreme? Not too well. In fact, on September 17, 1787 we had a top secret meeting of non-elected representatives of the various states who met in a gathering they later called a Constitutional Convention (to cover the non-elected part of their "representation") and hammered out a whole new form of government "in Order to form a more perfect Union."

Here were the facts under "The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" which was our first Constitution:

• Congress requisitioned money from the states.
• No state paid all of their requisition.
• Georgia paid nothing.
• A few states paid the U.S. an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more.
• Nothing was paid toward the interest on debt owed to foreign governments.
• By 1786 the United States was about to default on its contractual obligations when the principal came due.
• Most of the U.S. troops in the 625-man U.S. Army were deployed facing British forts on American soil.
• The troops had not been paid; some were deserting and the remainder threatened mutiny.
• Spain closed New Orleans to American commerce; the U.S. protested, to no effect.
• The Barbary Pirates began seizing American commercial ships. The U.S. had no funds to pay the pirates' extortion demands.
• States such as New York and South Carolina violated the peace treaty with Britain by prosecuting Loyalists for wartime activity.
• The U.S. had no more credit if another military crisis had required action; during Shays' Rebellion, Congress had no money and General Benjamin Lincoln had to raise funds from Boston merchants to pay for a militia to put it down.
• Congress was paralyzed. It could do nothing significant without nine states, and some legislative business required all thirteen.
• By April 1786 there had been only three days out of five months with nine states present. When nine states did show up, and there was only one member of a state on the floor, then that state’s vote did not count. If a delegation were evenly divided, the division was duly noted in the Journal, but there was no vote from that state towards a nine-count.
• States, in violation of the Articles, laid embargoes, negotiated unilaterally abroad, provided for armies and made war.

Not a pretty picture. So the "States' Rights" folks want us to go back to this? They keep quoting the 10th Amendment, which says:

"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."

So what does this mean? I looked, and found information that must have come as quite a surprise to a Republican President, as this was decided in August, 2008:

In the case of County of Santa Cruz v. Mukasey, originated in 2003 when Bingham McCutchen LLP and the Drug Policy Alliance, along with private attorneys Gerald F. Uelmen and Benjamin Rice, sued the federal government for raiding a Santa Cruz-area medical marijuana cooperative, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, relied on U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski’s opinion in Conant v. Walters and ruled that by "Utilizing selective arrests and prosecutions, the federal government has sought to sabotage California’s reasoned approach to medical marijuana use."

A calculated pattern of federal enforcement can render state medical marijuana laws effectively inoperable, which violates the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Essentially, the Federal government has laws that say that marijuana is a Schedule I drug, as defined in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which means there is no applicable medical use for it. But certain states have passed laws allowing for its use by cancer patients, as it stops them from wasting away, due to the fact that cancer treatment drugs cause nausea and tend to cause patients to not eat.

In this, the 10th Amendment is allowing states to overrule federal law, but the federal government can still prosecute under the law. The state has to prove that there is a systematic pattern of enforcement that is designed to make the state law inoperable.

That's a bit of a stretch from "States' Rights," and I note that most of the "States' Rights" crowd didn't really like that ruling. After all, it's the "pinko Liberals" who want pot legalization.

We fought the Civil War to disallow the States from nullification and to disallow them from dissolving the Union. The United States didn't take the "States' Rights" crowd very seriously. In fact, during the Civil Rights era, the "States' Rights" crowd didn't fare too well, either.

So, now, I hear the Party of Lincoln crying "States' Rights." Yeah. As if.

Entitlement "reform?"

This is an open letter to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

I was watching you just now on MSNBC and I am confused.

You referred to a need for "entitlement reform." And, for some reason, I was having trouble understanding why one needs to "reform" something that someone has earned. Because that is what the word "entitlement" means. And, at the age of 56, I feel that I have sufficiently earned certain entitlements from my government that will protect me when I get older.

Currently, my 80-year-old father is receiving Social Security. I am certain he benefits from Medicare. By "reform," do you mean to take away my father's benefits that he had worked hard all of his life to receive? Currently, my older sister is receiving the Social Security disability entitlement. By "entitlement reform," do you mean to take away her income just because she has a disease that will eventually kill her? Do you think she ought not receive the benefit because she is, somehow, not worthy of receiving the entitlement she worked for?

Everyone in the workforce today is paying in to the Social Security system, unless they are a member of the clergy who has opted out of the system.

Not too long ago, I ran into a National Guardsman. He had been deployed to Iraq two times and Afghanistan once, so far. He told me that we needed to do something about "these entitlements." Knowing that he, too, pays into the Social Security and Medicare system, I asked him where his uniform came from. He stood a little straighter.

He told me that the Guard issued him his uniform, as they issue the uniforms of everyone else in his unit. I told him that he has to do something for that uniform and asked what he did. It was then that he recounted his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, the training he went to on weekends and so on, as well as all of the military training he had, thus far.

I told him that he was entitled to wear that uniform because of his service and his sacrifice. The uniform is an entitlement. He has earned it. He told me that he now thought that maybe we ought not mess with entitlements.

Are you suggesting that our soldiers should supply their own uniforms?

Entitlement has become the new Republican "dirty word." But an entitlement, Senator, is earned. And it sounds to me like you are interested in taking what Americans have worked hard for and have paid for away from them. And I just don't think you would really want to do that.

Can you please explain to me what "entitlement" means to you?