One of the biggest challenges being a Libertarian is talking about States’ rights. First, it takes an act of Congress (pun intended) to get people to even consider the possibility that the Founders did not want the Federal Government to have total control of all the States. Even the most basic argument like…”What’s the point of the Tenth Amendment then?” becomes a rat hole of opinions and altruism.
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.
This says it all. The Federal Government has an insignificant role to play in the management of the United States. Outside of collaborating with States to raise an army for defense, managing the post office, representing the States as a unified voice in foreign relations…the Federal Government is actually pretty useless.
To ask someone what’s the purpose of the Tenth Amendment in today’s world, it would seem the most accurate definition would that the States have reserved the right to do what the Federal Government tells them to do, because for the most part, that’s all we’ve ever seen our whole lives.
But while many have overlooked human nature when it comes to the separation of powers, those who would seek power and wealth have not. One of the easiest and widest abuses of the Federal Government is to offer the States money in exchange for this program or that program. The States, once addicted and reliant on that funding after having established an infrastructure of buildings, contracts, employees, recipients (read voters) and other stakeholders has ultimately become the Federal Government’s bitch – and this was the Federal Government’s intention.
How do we know? Because story after story after story, from Obamacare to Common Core Education Standards to Highway & Infrastructure Funding and Medicaid and now to Syrian refugees always boils down to one, quiet, subtle, insidious threat by the Federal Government, and it goes something like this…
Do what we tell you, and do it now, and do it with a smile on your face, or we stop the millions in Federal dollars your entire system now depends on from Program “A” or Subsidy “B” to keep the doors open every day, without which, you will find yourself surrounded by voracious angry voters with pitchforks demanding your heads on a pike for denying them their “right” to benefits, or failing to meet the moral superiority they require you to engage in, on their behalf – so they don’t have to.
To make it worse, the States cannot print their own money like the Federal Government can. So while the States feel the actual, and very real crush of the longest recession in history, with State revenues declining as taxpayers lose their jobs, or take lesser paying jobs or as companies go out of business or leave the country, or citizens have to slow down spending and the sales taxes they produce in order to pay for higher personal and family costs across the board…the Federal Government can print as much money as it wants and dangle it in front of the States in return for their subservience.
When times were good, States took Federal Funding for roads or schools or social programs or other infrastructure projects which freed up the money the State would have had to spend on those projects for something else. In this manner, for all intents and purposes, States surrendered large swaths of their financial responsibilities to the Federal Government – and like Don Corleone, that comes with a price. At some point, the Federal Government will call on you “for a favor” and they will “make you an offer you can’t refuse,” since refusal would mean the evisceration of one or more programs or infrastructure projects that so many of your voters depend on or support.
And since the parts are as corrupt as the whole, this strategy for tyranny is very effective. The entire system rots from the core.
In this way, the Federal Government is the cocaine dealing Pablo Escobar of “free” money for the States who are very much in need of “just one fix,” and willing to do anything to get it including screw you over, every day, twice on Sunday and all while snorting their cocaine subsidies through a rolled up Constitution.
And that leads us to today’s headline, “Obama Administration Reminds States They Lack Authority to Block Syrian Refugees.” Do States really lack the authority? No. Not really. Not according to the Tenth Amendment and the Constitution. But before we can even talk about the Constitution, we have to talk about the pimpin’ and ho’n…
States that do not comply with the requirement would be breaking the law and could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension or termination of the federally funded program, according to the letter, signed by the director of the federal resettlement office, Robert Carey.
States. Whores to the Feds. Until the States kick their pimp to the curb, the Constitution and the 10th Amendment will never apply. It might as well never have been written.
Consider, for a moment, how scary that truth really is and what that means for the country.
Categories: Big Government, Discrimination, Gov't Workers & Unions, Government Failures, Government Tyranny, Individual Rights, Libertarianism, Socialism, Statism, Terrorism, Welfare State
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