Monday, April 27, 2009

Interesting point...

...raised by reader and blog-friend Bob S., in comments here:

I think we need to try to reframe the debate from "states rights" to limiting the power of the federal government.
States rights has a very negative connotation, limiting the power of the federal government on the other hand is something easier to understand.
I also see a conflict with the argument we gun owners use for the 2nd amendment. We state that the militia argument isn't a 'state's right' because states don't have rights, they have powers.
Just my two cents.

A good point indeed. I am quite surprised that no one's called out the advocates of that argument yet for in effect arguing out of both sides of our mouth. But then that's largely a semantic argument, from my perspective anyway. I guess one could say "states' rights" is a ham-handed attempt at shorthand for the Tenth Amendment, but it would be a better idea, as Bob says, to argue that certain things are better left to the states than to be micromanaged by the federales, than to argue something with such a negative connotation as states' rights. Either way, though, sometimes I think the people are just going to have to see for themselves the consequences of that Leviathan federal government the Founders warned us about. Which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't want to drag those of us along who didn't vote for that monstrosity.