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by mikeash 2800 days ago
I think you’re underestimating just how useful those weak protections still are. The increase in freedoms over the past ~50 years has been gigantic, and a huge part of that came from federal intervention. The state I live in would almost certainly still have segregation and still outlaw my marriage, for example. Consider all the crazy shit that certain states have started doing since the Supreme Court struck down the preapproval provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

It’s far from perfect. States still try to violate civil rights and it still takes a long time to fix that, if ever. The feds sometimes push more restrictions against the wishes of states that want more freedom, like with marijuana. But overall, based on history, I think that giving the states more freedom would be a huge step backwards.
1 comments
dsfyu404ed 2799 days ago
I'm not saying we need to dissolve the federal government, I'm saying that if a lot of the stuff currently done by the executive branch (the alphabet soup of federal agencies) was done by the states there's really wouldn't be much of a difference from the individual liberty point of view.
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odonnellryan 2799 days ago
I agree in a way. Changing laws doesn't make people free. Changing culture does. Sometimes (often?) changing laws has an impact on culture for sure, but how much? It is indirect.
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mikeash 2799 days ago
I strongly disagree. In some states that would be the case. In others, there would be enormous regression.
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dsfyu404ed 2799 days ago
So why not let those states use their freedom to sink their own ship. If they do really have it wrong and you do really have it right then that will show and they'll come around in the long term.
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mikeash 2799 days ago
Because human rights are important and oppression is bad. States aren’t monolithic entities. This isn’t a case where people suffer the consequences of their own choices. It’s a case where some people suffer the consequences of other people’s choices. You’re proposing to allow millions to suffer indefinitely, hoping that those who rule them will eventually change their mind.

This is been tried already, and it didn’t work. What changed things was force, first military, then legal.

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odonnellryan 2799 days ago
I mean, newsflash that we're still stomping on rights in a lot of places in the US.

There's a huge culture problem in the US.

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mikeash 2799 days ago
Absolutely. It’s still way better than Jim Crow.
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