states rights

The False Argument Of States Rights

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The move by Attorney Generals in many states to try to prevent enforcement of the Health Care Reform Act is a disgrace, based on the false doctrine of states rights!

States rights and secession were settled by the Civil War one hundred fifty years ago! Are we about to go back to the times of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis? Are we also to go back to the times of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace?

The fact is that the US government and Constitution are supreme, and whether we like it or not, all Americans are required to obey the laws passed by Congress!

We are required to pay federal income taxes. We are required to pay Social Security taxes. We are required to pay Medicare taxes.

We are also required to obey the law regarding racial integration, and when Arkansas under President Eisenhower, and Mississippi and Alabama under President Kennedy refused to obey federal court orders, the National Guard was called in under federal control.

The fact that everyone will be required to have health insurance is not something to be argued about, as when people end up in emergency rooms, we end up paying much more than if they have insurance. No one can think that he or she, at any age, will not need insurance protection. This is now a requirement and a good one, and just like anything else, a way has to be found to do what needs to be done: protect yourself against accident and illness!

So, the false use of the Tenth Amendment is just an excuse to bring back an idea which was resolved long ago; the states may NOT disobey federal law!

The Texas Secession Movement

Ronald 1 Comment

Texas Governor Rick Perry must be regretting last April 15 when he decided to show up at a meeting in the state capital of Austin organized by secessionists who advocate Texas breaking away from the United States, and going back to being a separate nation as they were from 1836-1845.

Perry, who is seeking reelection as governor after the longest stint of any governor presently in office (ten years), made it seem that states rights and secession was acceptable language. In other words, the terms which remind one of South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, the Civil War, Ross Barnett and Mississippi, George Wallace and Alabama, and the Ku Klux Klan, is acceptable doctrine in 2009.

A Civil War which killed 620,000 men supposedly settled the issue of states rights and secession–that it was illegal and would be met with force. Now just this past weekend, Perry was absent when these crazy secessionists met again in Austin and declared that bloodshed, violence, and war were likely to be necessary in order for Texas to break away for separate nationhood. They quoted Thomas Jefferson about the need to spill blood to cleanse a nation, taking the great Founding Father and President totally out of context, but does that really matter to dangerous crackpots who advocate the use of violence?

Even then Governor George W. Bush had the sense to use the state police force to crack down on a dangerous secessionist sect that advocated violence in the mid 1990s, but apparently Rick Perry, though absent this time, seems not to feel that he can or should oppose such a radical sect of nuts.

It will be interesting to see if Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who crazily has decided to take on the burdens of the poorly run state of Texas by running for Governor in the primary against Governor Perry, will be able to use this issue against Perry and win the nomination and probable victory in November 2010, and hopefully restore sanity to Texas state government. We can wish her good luck, as it would be a break for Texas!