Conservatives must be made to understand there is no way to win with too much federal government even if its in the control of their kin. We can not swash the liberal tendency to dream of their utopia and want to implement it haphazardly. all we can really do is provide them a forum to test it with out hurting us in the process, so that they can see for themselves the consequences of their own collectivist views, given they clearly will not take our word for it nor will they learn from history.

In any case I do not believe we can trust a republican congress and president all that much more then a democratic congress and president, to seriously reduce their own power.

I think the liberals don’t align with the cause because politics has long been a game of winners and losers. They view the cause as a collective rant against their winner – i.e. sour grapes.

Sure enough, when the political tide changes back to Republicans, they will be looking for their rights once again.

Perhaps they think if they can just achieve a level of government able to put up an iron curtain like the USSR did they could prevent the skilled and otherwise labor from being able to flee to freer lands, and thus force them to submit?

I think this is our issue with socialism/collectivism as a matter of principle (Not Constitutionality) it’s not just the fact that their “ideal system” is a demonstrated economic disaster. Our issues with Socialism/collectivism is exactly the fact that it inherently crushes our liberty, as it attempts to make us all slaves to a government, that is it’s greatest and most intolerable of evils, inherit in its very nature just as it is inherent to a far more tolerable and limited degree in the very nature of government (Why Government is at best a necessary evil).

For those of us with principles know that to trade liberty for economic property is to trade everything for nothing.

What is needed is to convince the left of just what Brion wrote- that decentralization serves their purposes as well as those on the right and center.

The interesting thing, though, is that there’s a really strong presence there of people who believe in decentralized socialism – socialism for their state only..and don’t want to impose it on everyone else.

I don’t prefer or want that option, but that’s how the system works. They have their version there, other people have their own in other areas.

Disregard any comments that try to change the focus of your article. I’d like to see a cogent argument from anyone who disagrees with your central point. Thanks.