Federalism and the End of Tyranny

I’ve been a reader and contributor on several blogs for many years and it never ceases to amaze me how much everyone has bought into the Liberal premise of the supremacy of the federal government over state governments, a premise that directly contradicts the Constitution and the Founders’ intent.

Rarely is there a blog post or article that challenges this premise, when in these increasingly lawless and extra-constitutional times a challenge is desperately needed.

It is my opinion that if we are to have any real chance of reducing the size, scope, and reach of the federal government we must start at the state level by electing constitutional conservatives to our state legislatures and governorships. We must elect people who acknowledge, understand, and will fight to seize back from the federal government the states’ rightful, constitutional powers that have been steadily usurped since the end of the Civil War.

Even the most conservative and successful Republican governors have failed to adequately challenge the supremacy of the federal government and instead dutifully accept the conventional view that the federal government is the ultimate authority.

For example, twenty-six states have sued to stop Obamacare. The fact that they are suing the federal government rather than just ignoring what is a clear violation of the Constitution, specifically the plain text of the 10th Amendment, is evidence of the institutionalization of the premise.

What would the federal government do, what could they do, if all twenty-six states submitted the PPACA to their respective legislatures for them to vote on the legislation’s constitutionality and if found unconstitutional, simply refused to implement it or allow its implementation? The federal government is not the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not constitutional.

What would the federal government do, what could they do, if energy producing states simply ignored the diktats of the EPA?

We all know our history and we know that the federal government is a creation of the states and that many, if not most, of the states would not have ratified the Constitution if they knew that their states would one day become subservient to the diktats and whims of the central government. The purpose of the federal government was as a means for the states to speak with one voice when dealing with the rest of the world. Internal affairs were to be the province of the states.

There are clear historical reasons that the Founders specifically enumerated the powers of the federal government and explicitly stated our inviolable rights in the Bill of Rights; they feared, rightly, an all powerful federal government. Recent polls show that the public is more fearful of a powerful central government than they are of any other large institutions. The public would support states reasserting their authority.

Just this morning I finished reading an article about the EPA’s vision for its future as an organization dedicated to sustainability. Sustainability is one of those words that will mean whatever the EPA says that it means and it represents an enormous power grab by an unelected and dangerously unaccountable bureaucracy. An EPA whose mandate is sustainability would have the authority to dictate where you could build your house, how you should build your house, what appliances can be installed in your house, design your city’s sewage system, and countless other details clearly outside their jurisdiction.

From where does the EPA derive this authority? When will states stop allowing the EPA and other bureaucracies dictate to them how they will manage their natural resources, provide for their poor, build their roads, care for their seniors, educate their students, etc?

It’s obvious that the federal bureaucracy has been captured by the Left and that they are using the bureaucracy to implement all of their socialist policies to the detriment of our liberty and our economy. Only be seizing back their rightful power can the states neuter the federal government and end the spreading tyranny.

The Left needs centralization to succeed. They can’t control us if power is dispersed among the fifty (seven) states and we can’t escape their tyranny if power is centralized.

Imagine the environmentalists having to fight battles in all fifty states rather than a single battle in Washington? Imagine an Alaska in charge of its own natural resources without the meddling interference of San Francisco Liberals who’ve never seen Alaska except on the Natural Geographic channel.

Imagine a Texas that didn’t have to worry about a lizard shutting down oil drilling in all of west Texas.

Although it is important to continue to fight to elect conservatives to federal office, it is more important, in my opinion, to elect hungry, 10th Amendment conservatives to state offices. So, when you start evaluating candidates for state office for 2012 ask them where they stand on the 10th Amendment and dive into their responses. Don’t allow them to espouse platitudes, look for a history of supporting federalism in their record, hold them accountable, and ask them what specific actions they will take to restore power to your state.

This must be a multi-pronged fight if we are to win and drive Liberalism into the same ash heap of history as Soviet Communism.