Last Friday, Howard Dean was in Kansas. As the newly elected DNC Chairman, he was giving a speech about the current political climate.
http://www.ljworld.com/deanfordrudge.html
Dean also talked about the Republicans "diversion" on gay marriage. Yet Dean also reaffirmed the Democratic position on abortion. "The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do," Dean said.
Here's the connection: both abortion and gay marriage are issues that should be decided, not by the federal government, but by the states. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it give the federal government the authority to weigh in on social issues. However, the Constitution does have a much overlooked Amendment called the 10th: "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".
Personal preferences must be set aside, for the greater good. When states are the arbiters of social debate, if one does not agree with the principles of a particular state, one has the freedom to move.
Although I am pro-life and anti-gay mariage, I am just as against an Amendment on gay marriage as I am against the courts decision that states cannot make illegal abortion.
The Constitution was never intended to apply to the states. Here's Jefferson on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: "Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delgated to the General [federal] Government. It must then rest with the states. "
I think it's fair to assume Jefferson interpreted the Constitution correctly. Not that it matters. State's rights left with the Confederacy, and with it, the most under-rated compromise ever brought into existence.
The Constitution has brought us this far. Why have we ceased to listen to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers? Perhaps Dean and Bush know better how to govern this great land.
My money still rides on Jefferson.
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3 comments:
I think it's time we stepped out of the shadow of states' rights and into the sunshine of human rights.
I've always felt this whole discussion of federal vs. state powers was just a way to avoid real debate and discussion on these two extremely contentious issues (gay marriage and abortion).
State's rights is not a copout. How did Roe vs. Wade help in the "discussion" of abortion rights? It did not. Instead, the Warren court blatantly spit on the 10th Amendment.
Human rights? How about the right of the people to decide how the government should work in their lives, as opposed to unelected judges.
I think we should let people decide how the government works in their lives.
Why is the states deciding better than the feds? Why is it better than letting the county decide? or the city? Or the neighborhood? Why not make things legal, and let indiivduals decide?
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