Pleading The Tenth
By Mitch Berg
As we noted last month, some states – and legislators in more states, including Tom Emmer here in Minnesota – are getting just a tad uppity on behalf of the Tenth Amendment.
(For the benefit of the liberals in this audience who may have been told that the amendment legalized slavery, it actually reads as follows: 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. In other words; “If the Constitution doesn’t say a power belongs to the fed, it does not belong to the fed!”
The continuing battle in Nebraska over a resolution (not even a bill!) that would push Nebraska’s government to issue a non-binding objection to federal intrusion into the state’s sovereignty highlights the highs and the depraved lows of the subject:
“My goal here is to shine light on the fact that the federal government is overstepping its bounds,” said State Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln. “We would be making a statement on behalf of Nebraska.”
The tension between states’ rights and federal authority has been a repeated theme in U.S. history, starting with arguments among the founding fathers.
The struggle turned bloody when Southern states seceded, citing states’ rights on the question of slavery, and the Civil War ensued.
Of course, slavery was an issue that cut straight through to the founding of this nation, the meaning of its constitution, and the legal definition of humanity. It was an issue that was going to have to be resolved one one extraordinary means or another – splitting the nation, fighting a war, or an unprecedented-in-human-history rapprochement between rival points of view that changed not only attitudes, but laws on the subject, by national consensus, virtually overnight by political standards.
As opposed to, say, enforcement of federal wetland easement requirements.
But there’s no way of telling that to those who cling to the notion that the Tenth Amendment is just…plain…wrong. Note to the wise: if you’re looking for a way to get me to beat you about the head with a baseball bat (rhetorically – and literally, maybe), this is a good way to start:
State Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln said the proposals sound disturbingly similar to the states’ rights arguments made in defense of racial segregation and laws blocking blacks from voting.
“The history of this movement is rife with racism in the name of states’ rights,” he said. “I’m not saying that the people making the case now are racist, but I don’t think Nebraska needs to be getting in bed with these kinds of resolutions.”
On this issue as few others, liberals are stuck on stupid. Tying every affirmation of state sovereignty makes as much sense as equating mundane government spending (let’s say “the Farm Bill” for a nice boring example) with the Gulag.
Colleagues denied links to that history. Fulton, an Asian-American, said he has no intention of promoting racism or segregation.
Right, but as everyone knows, no expression of racism or sexism is unacceptable if the target is a conservative minority or woman…
