That about sums it up in the well known ’nutshell,’ doesn’t it? Is the federal government, supposed to PROTECT its citizens, or PROVIDE them with food, shelter, and all sorts of goodies which may be voted upon by a corrupt Congress?
A state government should be able to do anything it chooses to do, and this would allow a state compete with other states. If a state wishes to give handouts to the poor, illegal, or you name it, all the would be recipients of the handouts will move to that state, and the productive sector will move out, because taxes would be too high, as a result of the handouts. A state may make abortion legal, and draw all those want an abortion to that state. (Abortion has NOTHING to do with the Constitution, and should have never gotten into federal regulations, laws, or the Supreme Court!).
A state may not wish to give handouts to anyone at any time, have low taxes, and thereby draw the productive class, wealthy, and smart people. A state may want to rigidly control its borders and keep out all intruders. That state probably would have no slums, or abandoned homes in its cities.
On the other hand, if the federal government taxes and hands out to everyone, at the instructions of Congress, then it is impossible for a state to be independent or even competitive, other than perhaps scenery or weather. Aren’t Medicare, Social Security, and food stamps, a classic example of a federal government handing out to everyone, regardless of which state they may live in, whether they paid in or not, as applies to Social Security? Shouldn’t it be left up to the states to determine whether they wish to institute food stamps, Medicare, or Social Security? They could then become competitive.
Isn’t competition the backbone of freedom? The guy competes against other guys for the gal, GM competes with Ford, and businesses compete with each other in all fields. The intent of the Founders was to make each state an individualist, and compete with other states. The North had slaves, and sold them to the South. The South was in the process of getting rid of theirs, when dishonest Abe decided that he would hurry up the process, remove competition, and as a result, killed 620,000 Americans.
Various telephone companies, TV satellites, and yes, even precious metals dealers, all compete. Schools should compete, but since they are public, free, and unionized, they can’t compete. The United States did very well without public schools for the first hundred years of its existence. Parents paid for their kids education, and the kids were hundreds of percentage points better educated than they are now. No competition now, except home schoolers and private schools on the upswing.
But we have the Tenth Amendment, which some say gives the feds dominance over the states, if Congress passes a law to which a state may object. I say the Tenth Amendment was designed to make the states competitive, not subservient to the Congress. This is being tested now in the usually far left Ninth Circuit Court, ruling on Arizona’s attempts to control its own state. Is it true that a corrupt Congress can pass hundreds of laws, sensible or not, and have the feds come in and say, “We control that, and you cannot pass any law which doesn’t jive with our legislation?” Will the Supremes rule that the Tenth Amendment has been carried too far by the bureaucrats, and rule in favor of the states? The best thing that George Bush did, was appoint two great judges to the Supreme Court.
The Constitution gives government the obligation to protect us, and not overseas, in deadly, costly wars. They aren’t protection, but aggression. As I write this, it is the morning of probably the most important election in a hundred years. Will the Tea Party Republicans win? If they do, will they turn out like the last Republican Congress did, and continue to enlarge government and spend, spend, spend? If they are elected and continue as before, I suggest that we form an official “Tea Party,” and vote the current Republican party out, of which Dishonest Abe Lincoln was its first President.