Do Republicans really favor states’ rights?

2005.06.12 — Government | Politics | by Derek Jensen

The Supreme Court's recent decision on medical marijuana underscores the conservative hypocrisy on the subject of states' rights. The ruling states that federal law regarding medical marijuana (and, by implication, everything else) trumps state law on the same subject. For 25 years, Republicans have enjoyed claiming that they favor a smaller federal government and greater states' rights. That used to imply segregation and Jim Crow, but today it implies anti-abortion laws and school prayer. But don't worry. They don't mean it.

When Ronald Reagan accepted his party's nomination for president of the United States in 1980, he went immediately to make a speech in the heart of Democrat country. It was at the fairgrounds outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, a few miles from the place where, in 1964, three men were murdered in one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the 1960s. It was there that he declared, "I believe in states' rights."

Those words—code words at the time, really, for "I believe in separation of the races"—were a politically brilliant maneuver that invited Old South racists into the Republican fold. That day started a shift in American politics that brought the Solid South under Republican banner for the first time. After all, this was the South that fought Republican president Abraham Lincoln and still hadn't forgiven the party after 120 years.

In the aftermath of Carter's wobbly centrism and economic malaise, the South was ripe for the picking, and Reagan's swaggering cowboy individualism was the right tool—never mind the fact that Republicans would turn the phrase "states' rights" to their own, more traditional meaning: "I believe states should be able to write laws that are morally offensive to other states and probably unconstitutional but which support abortion bans and government-sanctioned religion."

And never mind the iron fist of federal power Reagan would wield against the air traffic control union and others.

The truth is, Republicans like centralized power. Declaring that they favor states' rights and a smaller central government is a ploy to capture those closed-minded arch-conservatives who want to do things their own way in Texas, Mississipp, and Alabam—like getting rid of those nasty federal regulations requiring racial integration and separating church and state.

Look at President Bush (the Lesser). Even before he was sworn in, he was jokingly admitting that he'd like to be a dictator, not unlike Reagan's famous joke that he had outlawed Russia. Tee hee. Those darn neo-cons and their megalomania.

Junior went on to claim that states' rights and education are important in January 2001. But by January of 2004, he was being shown for what he really is, enacting the USA PATRIOT Act and, of course, interfering with states' education plans.

Are Democrats any more in favor of states' rights? Not really. Liberals do favor individual rights, so the idea is more compatible. But, when it comes to government, fighting or wielding federal power is easier than fighting or wielding gubernatorial power fifty times. But it is appropriate for states to control much of their own business and politics; all politics is local, after all, and it helps for states to act as testing grounds or incubators for legislation for controversial programs... like medical marijuana.

f e e d b a c k

Respond to this page by your e-mail client. Please be sure to mention the title of the article.

s i d e b a r