Subtitle: Federalism Thwarts Consolidated Government.
Federalism describes the vertical division of power between the national and state governments. When Constitutional government is limited to its enumerated powers by a federal senate, the states are free to develop and retain their uniqueness and to keep their largely homogenous interests, habits, and mores. This is diversity. THIS is how republican government is sustained across a vast continent. Federalism keeps consolidation at bay and makes diversity a reality.
However, overnight, the Seventeenth Amendment transformed a stable and federal republic into a wild and unstable democratic form. Being unanchored by senators formerly loyal to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, the last hundred years of social justice warrior scotus judges midwifed America’s transition from a republic of republics into the near-consolidated mass expected long ago by the Anti-Federalists.
Imagine a Return to Federalism. So what if Massachusetts amends its constitution to promote homosexuality through its public schools? While I know it harms society, I don’t live in Massachusetts and shouldn’t have any say in how the Bay State treats its culture. Just as I have no business reaching into and affecting another state’s traditions and mores, neither may the scotus reach down into fifty societies and order them to engage in societal destruction. What scotus increasingly does, when it casts diktats affecting the family, and thus society, has more in common with foolish despots described in Part I. Unlike wise despots, our scotus is too dense to understand that corrupting common and beneficial traditions through nationwide court decisions often stokes disgust and hatred for the federal court system.
Perhaps some states understand that Christianity is the bedrock of society and the American republic and decide to promote it through public institutions. Other states might not. Those who do not accept this are free to move to states where public Christianity is banned. Thanks to the Warren Court, many people chafe at the nationwide uniform restrictions on most public displays of Christianity. The newest Associate Justice, Neil Gorsuch will soon sit on another case regarding religiosity v. homosexual rights. It needn’t be this way. These endless courtroom battles unnecessarily roil American society when such matters rightfully belong at the state level if they are justiciable at all.
With the help of scotus, congress taxes the people, and offers their money back contingent on state compliance with one-size-fits-all federal policies. If states refuse the deal, their citizens’ money will be sent to the citizens of other states. Emblematic of this assault on federalism is Common Core, a horrid nationwide scheme designed to dumb down a generation of youngsters in exchange for big bucks from the Department of Education.
Not only are the states competent and entitled to operate their systems of public education, but Washington violates Article I Section 8 when it bribes or coerces the states with their own citizens’ money. Taxes are raised to “pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the US.” Money taken from a state cannot go to a program that wholly withholds benefits, because such a program is not “general,” but rather partial. Spending programs that do not benefit every state, those that are conditioned on state “cooperation” are arguably unconstitutional.
Michigan’s famous Hillsdale College, which avoids federal funding of any sort, is one of a few uncorrupted colleges that teach the tenets of western civilization and American exceptionalism. I assert more institutions of higher education like Hillsdale would emerge if Uncle Sugar got out of the student loan and Title IX businesses. Nationwide standards and rules suffocate education and freedom.
The list of natural differences among the people in different climates, economies, and traditions going back hundreds of years is endless, and all were accommodated in the Framers’ federal design. I asked in the opening sentence to Part I, “can a large nation keep free government, promote diversity, and avoid centralization?” As demonstrated before 1913, before ratification of the 17th Amendment, the United States avoided unified government, and promoted freedom and diversity through federalism. Through an Article V COS we can do so once again and avoid suffocating centralization.
We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Now, it is our turn. Be proactive. Swing for the fences. Be a Re-Founder. Join Convention of States. Sign our COS Petition.