So.. I am reading about European Internal Market Law for my course... and the issue of State's rights keeps popping up in my head. From my television biased childhood, relying on the media and outdated text books for information all I can remember gleaning about states' rights was that it was always a devisive phrase used by typically southern conservatives barking about some federal mandate imposing some sort of legal standard (usually about black people) and that is about all I remember.
But now, I am starting to consider things differently. Get to the source. Actually what does the term mean. So, started with wikapedia.
Searched on : States' rights
"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from States rights)
States' rights refers to the idea that U.S. states possess certain rights and political powers in the politics of the United States and constitutional law. These rights are guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, under the United States Bill of Rights. The states' rights concept is usually used to defend a state law that the federal government of the United States seeks to override, or a perceived violation of the bounds of federal authority.
The principle of federal powers over those powers held by the states was laid out by John Marshall, the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the seminal case of McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall asserted, based on the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution, that the laws of the federal government were generally paramount over the laws of the separate state governments. The debate surrounds the issue of what powers Congress possesses and can grant to the federal government, and whether the States nonetheless possess those powers to the exclusion of the federal government even if the Constitution does not explicitly grant them to the States." (above quote taken from wikapedia web page sourced)
Living in Ohio you see the problem of the US completely. If you don't have the funds, you got nothing! You are down hard! I currently live in a region that is loosing population and has been for awhile. Maybe we should turn the state back into farm land, forget our brief (~100 year) industrial history. If we as a State can't "compete" on a national scale then throw in the towel. But... "it", states' rights is in the constitution, be it an amendment, but it remains to keep these, rights of the people of a particular state in place, the rights of the state to legislate it's own matters within the envelope of the federal level.
In my studies, the European Union internal market, this is the balancing act that is being attempted. So I ask, what the heck happened in the US? It started off pretty sweet, and got all jacked up in the process.... Sure, it might be good in Oregon or Texas, but I don't live in Oregon or Texas now, should a "Federal" policy then be created, to eliminate economically "lagging" states and just return the land to nature? Where is the market's "invisible hand" to get this state out of it's financial dispair........oh yeah, that "hand" will be pulling the lever on some new slot machines.
