Wow, I am just not sure what to say about this...
Lawmakers across the country are sponsoring resolutions — most of them only symbolic — asserting state sovereignty, in effect the right to ignore any federal law or policies they deem unconstitutional, including the stimulus bill, the No Child Left Behind Act and any new assault rifle ban.
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Some in New Hampshire wish no one had thought of it. Richard Hesse, professor emeritus of constitutional law at the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, said Itse's resolution could strip authority from state leaders, as well as from Congress and the president.
"When you think about this claim that if a state believes a federal law is unconstitutional it can just ignore it, then I presume if a county believed a state law was unconstitutional it could just ignore it," Hesse said. "Really what's implicit in this is an unwillingness to recognize a lawful authority."
Unwillingness to recognize a lawful authority? Anybody wanna bet this con-law professor and those like him were all about fighting the power the last 8 years and that they'd be championing these bills if it were a Republican president and Congress in charge? I bet you at the very least that if it had been a Republican president and/or Congress in charge, this professor would have observed — as he damned well should have here — that the question of to what extent one recognizes a "lawful authority" in charge is a more than worthy one to ask. Lest we forget, King George III and his agents were the "lawful authority" here back in 1776. And at the risk of having Godwin's Law invoked on me, Adolf Hitler and his agents were the "lawful authority" in Germany back in the 1930s and early 1940s. And then, you see this professor seems to automatically assume that any and all laws or policies passed to the states as federal mandates are constitutional, as the professor makes nary a mention of debating the constitutionality of said laws. Or maybe they think the same thing Pittsburgh city councilwoman Tonya Payne thinks, specifically, "Who really cares about it being unconstitutional...This is what’s right to do..." Of course that's also up for debate too, no matter how many of us want to sweep that inconvenient discussion under the rug.
"...the time is ripe for changes, there's a growing feeling, that taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due..."
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