[FlannelPancake]

> The tensions arise, such as with firearms laws, because states don't see eye to eye on those issues so they get to dictate exactly how things work in their own states

That causes some AWFUL problems for people traveling between states, which is incredibly common nowadays because of air travel.

Google for the myriad of really terrible stories involving people accidentally traveling to New Jersey with a firearm. In at least a few cases they were forced to travel to New Jersey because of an airline mistake (unexpected layovers, misplaced luggage, etc.). Reciprocity is a much bigger issue than you're making it out to be.

> The extreme example counter response is never far behind in political discourse.

"States Rights" almost always comes up as an argument in the context of human rights violations. I don't think it's too extreme to remind people of that.

> There's a whole host of other policies that don't though.

Where's that line get drawn? If I frame marijuana as a human rights issue (see: the racial discrepancies in conviction rates for drug offenses), does it become ok for the federal government to resolve then?

> They are crises because they have to be balanced.

Errr no? There are plenty of states that are "balanced" only because the federal government gives them copious amounts of money, well in excess of their GSP.

They're "balanced" but to call it anything other than artificially balanced is silly.

> There's a wide gap between those issues and virtually every other policy in the country being effected by a broad reading of the interstate commerce clause.

Those are the primary issues anti-federalists bring up when States' rights comes up as a discussion, both historically and currently (not slavery obviously, but same-sex marriage is an incredibly recent one).

If you're talking about things like the drinking age (which isn't even really a mandate, just an extreme carrot on a stick), then sure, whatever - but who cares? Those are trivial issues in comparison.

[joshuapants]

> Google for the myriad of really terrible stories involving people accidentally traveling to New Jersey with a firearm. In at least a few cases they were forced to travel to New Jersey because of an airline mistake (unexpected layovers, misplaced luggage, etc.). Reciprocity is a much bigger issue than you're making it out to be.

That's not about reciprocity so much as it is about NJSP thumbing their noses at FOPA (federal law since 1986) I think

[brightball]

Without quoting the whole thing I'll just reference.

Firearms/Jersey: That is true and it's one of the big reasons that if you are going to transport a firearm you have to know the laws. I'm not arguing that it doesn't have problems.

People disagree about things all the time. People argue about things. The way cities setup laws causes issues and confusion for people, especially travelers. It can be annoying but it's less annoying than having outside parties make those decisions for you without the local residents having a say in the matter.

States/Human Rights: Fair enough. I take no real issue with that outside of a branding/labeling political perspective.

Line: Honestly as often as possible. The line is supposed to be hard, difficult to overcome and argued to a point of undeniable certainty before the Supreme Court or to the point that it gets past both houses of congress AND the president. If something can't be argued convincingly enough to pull that off, it's left up to the states. Framing anything as a human rights issue would depend on backing up an almost total lack of demographic free will in order to do so. That's why a lot of Indian reservations are dry though. The native american population doesn't handle alcohol well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans). Doesn't mean the whole country shouldn't have it, but it makes complete sense for them to want to ban it locally.

Balance: Federal programs that create an exercise of redistribution are out of the hands of state budget control but the funds are still limited, budgeted and when the money runs out somebody is still left holding the bag.

Issues/Gap: There's a number of issues that go well beyond the drinking age and it usually has to do with aiming a federal monetary firehose at an industry with no regard for the after effects. The Farm Bill is a great example of this because of the disruption that it caused globally and played a huge part in Mexico's farming industry struggles, which had cascade effects eventually helping us get to the immigration issue we have today.

Others revolve around tax policies around businesses and the lack of understanding of how money flows in different areas. Tax policies are huge, especially when talking about business tax policies because the big guys who everybody envisions when talking about taxing the 1% or forcing businesses to provide benefit X can actually afford it. The smaller businesses caught in the middle are the ones that can't and they are your eventual potential competitors. Small businesses employ 2/3 of the people in this country and every tax increase hits them harder than anybody else because most of them are 1 or 2 bad months from going under completely.

We can look at how we got to the medical issues we have today, when the federal government incentivized businesses to provide health insurance and never gave citizens the same ability to simply pay for it directly pretax. That removed insurance from the consumer market and was the first big step in creating the cluster that led to needing an overhaul.

We can look anywhere from student loans and education prices in conjunction with national campaigns that made it undesirable to just learn a trade rather than getting a degree...ANY degree regardless of its ability to help you earn a living. Increase demand, create money out of thin air to pay for it and wonder why prices keep out pacing inflation...

Let's not forget military spending while we're on the subject.

We can look at housing prices and the issues on both sides of the federal isle that led up to creating that debacle.

These are not trivial issues. They are massive economic disruptions that happen when a federal financial firehose is aimed at a problem and they always have consequences.

Right now the TPP is squeaking its way through the system with barely a blip on the radar. That legislation is scary but all anybody on my Facebook feed cares about right now is rainbows and confederate flags - the issues that let people for one reason or another feel better about themselves.

The issues that have serious consequences that involve math, numbers and logical exposition of the worst case scenarios in trade agreements...those are boring. Those are federal. Those are out of reach and we don't immediately FEEL how those affect us. We'll deal with that when we have to.

Just like credit card debt.

Just like the 30 year mortgage that will result in paying more than double the price of the house but we could fit it in the cash flow.

Just like the degree with zero job prospects that we just took on $50,000 worth of debt to get.

Just like how we really stuck it to those greedy businesses owners to get them to give us stuff that we assume they can afford...because after all they own a business and by default, that makes them rich.