[voidfunc]

Yes, unfortunately "states rights" has become a rallying cry for racism and hatred, but the original framing of this country is that the state's are basically supposed to be much stronger than the Federal government.

I don't really know whether we can unwind the federal governments grasp on things without basically destabilizing the whole thing though at this point (and admittedly, I'm not sure the majority would want to).

[shadowgovt]

It's worth noting that the original plan was for even less Federal power, and that one fell apart almost immediately.

Power has been moving in a central direction ever since.

[jessaustin]

Not so much "fell apart" as "intentionally overthrown by capitalists when they didn't agree with policies determined through democracy". Madison and his co-conspirators didn't approve of the deliberate currency depreciation and other measures voted in by farmers who fought, unpaid, for years in a war that benefited rich elites and came home to find their farms repossessed by debtors and tax collectors. So long as the various states operated as competing democracies, they were subject to the wishes of their citizens. The constitution, written in secret by a cabal of rich white men, put an end to all of that, as it was intended to do.

[shadowgovt]

So long as the various states operated as competing democracies, they couldn't pull together into one country.

[jessaustin]

Yeah, that was the original idea. United States would menace the rest of the world a lot less if it weren't truly united.

[shadowgovt]

Alternate history speculation is a fool's game, but a fun one. ;) It's also extremely likely that the (states that make up the) United States would be the territory of other powers if it hadn't united.

It's interesting to speculate on how much of the colonies Britain would have won back in the War of 1812 if it hadn't faced a unified front, or what a powerful France would have done in world history if it had never made the Louisiana purchase sale to the United States because there would have been no United States to make the sale to (or, for that matter, what a powerful Spain would have done if France had made the sale to Spain instead, expanding the Mexican holdings). Or how long slavery would have lasted in North America if there had been no pressure of maintaining a national-scale rule of law to bring disagreements between Northern and Southern states to the point of a military conflict.

[deertick1]

Since when has "states rights" become a rallying cry for racism or hatred?

I'm really tired of people saying stuff like this : <insert vaguely conservative stance here> has become a rallying cry for racism and transphobia and bigotry.

Its really obnoxious and disingenuous. Give me one example of someone using states rights as a call for racism and hatred.

My guess is you probably only said what you just said because you've read enough articles by blue-haired liberal arts graduates with a sub 100 IQ.

[bloaf]

At least since the civil war.

> Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

> The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union...

> The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

[voidfunc]

> Its really obnoxious and disingenuous. Give me one example of someone using states rights as a call for racism and hatred.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_States%27_Rights_Pa...

[macintux]

> Its really obnoxious and disingenuous. Give me one example of someone using states rights as a call for racism and hatred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orval_Faubus#Little_Rock_crisi...

> In a 1985 interview with a Huntsville Arkansas student, Faubus stated that the Crisis was due to an "Usurpation of power" by the Federal Government.