Liberals Embrace States Rights?

Suddenly liberals, such as Renee Loth, columnist for the uber-liberal Boston Globe, are reading the U.S. Constitution and discovering the 10th Amendment. Her sudden burst of enthusiasm for constitutional rights should be understood for what it is, entirely situational. As she expresses fear that Donald Trump may invoke the 10th Amendment to rescind past liberal violations of the same, we conservatives who are genuinely pro-Constitution, ought to view this position as an opportunity to advance real freedom.

The 10th Amendment, known as the states-rights amendment, reads as follows: "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."

Loth fears that Trump might return federal government responsibility over healthcare, welfare, education, justice, and various social programs — responsibilities that were previously usurped by the federal government — back to the states. Her concerns are correct. President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress may very well prove to head the most Constitutionally oriented government since the days of Calvin Coolidge. Trump appears to possess a genuine belief in the ability of the American people to govern themselves through smaller structures of government.

Those of us who support the genuinely democratic principle of subsidiarity, by which the stronger government is the more local government, by which government is more directly accountable to the people, ought to come together with liberals such as Renee Loth who, we must keep in mind, is only with us because the shoe is now on our foot. Together, for example, we ought to encourage states to set up their own healthcare policies. Indeed, Massachusetts patented such a policy with Romney-care which has been relatively successful. If a state chooses to enact more liberal policies, reflecting the will of the people who elects legislators and governors to pass liberal laws, then so be it. That is how our federated republic is supposed to work. That is why Utah is a dry state and Nevada has legal gambling and prostitution. Why should, after all, liberal states impose agendas onto more conservative states and visa versa?

The possibilities of states rights are endless and exiting. Let the states rise and fall on their own ideas and policies. Indeed, states rights are as much a fundamental part of our system of checks and balances, of the separation of powers, as are the three branches of the federal government. Let the states set up their own welfare systems and let the states and the local communities re-assert control over public education. Certainly, for practical reasons, the states are more likely to do a better job in these areas and most others, especially when they must compete. FDR was right when he referred to the states as the "laboratories of democracies."

Chuck Morse is an author and radio talk show host. Chuck received the 2003 Communicator of the Year award from the National Right to Work Committee and was named a "Heavy 100" Radio Talk Host by Talkers Magazine. Chuck ran for Congress in Massachusetts against Barney Frank. For more of his reports — Click Here Now.