Repeal the 17th Amendment. Restore Liberty.
Decentralization is an essential element for restoring self-government (and good government in general) in the United States. And U.S. senators chosen by state legislatures would be a tremendous boon to decentralization. Repeal the 17th Amendment; restore liberty. All citizens would be the beneficiaries.
Decentralization: For Humanity’s Sake
Studying the rise and decline of empires has long been instructive for Americans, and for decades, historians, philosophers, economists, diplomats, statesmen, and others have warned against the American Empire.
Glenn Beck, States’ Rights, and the Myth of the Libertarian Dictator
The entire point of freedom is to protect the right of someone else to do something you think is stupid, or even wrong. Otherwise, when the winds of popular opinion shift, who will protect your right to do the same?
Obama Asks Governors to Commit Sovereignty Suicide
If history has taught us anything, it is to beware of “cooperative partnerships†between the federal government and states. They invariably result in an expansion of federal authority and reach at the expense of the states
“Race To The Top” is fixed: just say No!
The Obama administration’s “Race To The Top†(RTTT) stimulus grant program should really be called the “Race to Nationalize Educationâ€. Like the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind†program, it is nothing but another measure designed to enable the central government to take over control of our local schools and establish a government of occupation in the territory that exists between our children’s ears.
Federal Law is Always Supreme. Right?
Those who eye a nationalist agenda, desiring to finally complete the subjugation of states to mere mid-management levels, have long embraced the notion states are subordinate while the federal government is supreme.
The Drug War vs the Bill of Rights
In America, our liberties our ostensibly protected by the U.S. Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights. How much has the drug war compromised our Constitutional rights? Let us consider a countdown, starting with the Tenth Amendment and moving to First.
The Vision of the Founders: Dead and Gone
Bill of Rights Day is Tuesday, December 15th. But as Kevin Gutzman points out in this article, it’s not a day of celebration. Instead, it should be a day of mourning for the death of decentralized self-government.
Kevin Gutzman: Freedom vs the Courts
In this podcast, Kevin Gutzman talks about the Incorporation Doctrine and why liberty is best protected under the founders’ vision of federalism.
Obama’s Fake Federalism
Friends of federalism cheered last month when the Obama administration reversed the Bush policy of prosecuting medical marijuana cases in states that have legalized the practice. Welcome though that change was, let’s hold the applause.
Choosing Federalism, Choosing Freedom
We are going to need an acute dosage of federalism to even begin ridding ourselves of the disease destroying the body of our once-great federation.
The Hollowing Out of American Federalism
Reviving America and restoring liberty to Americans won’t be simple because we are too far down the road to serfdom for simple unwinding and backtracking. It is not self-evidently obvious what a true Restorative Revolution would look like but the civil rights movement offers a model that may be the last best hope we have before passing a point of no return.
The Left vs. the “Tenthers”: On Getting States’ Rights Wrong
It is no surprise that America’s renewed focus on the separation between state and federal authority has created an almost hysterical rage on the Left. Collectivist ideologues are always necessarily threatened by divisions of power.
Keep it Local!
Does it not seem wrong that the mere few hundred politicians in the Federal Government have the power to control 300 million people?
A Note to the Huffington Post: Federalism Is Not ‘Progressive’
HuffPo’s version of the Constitution. Heads they win, tails you lose.
Jefferson’s Union
Jefferson’s account of the nature of the Union–a voluntary contract among free and independent States in order to establish a common caretaker for few and enumerated things–contains a great deal of common sense
California Senate to Feds: Back Off!
My home state of California usually interacts with the federal government by genuflecting. But, on a few issues – very few, that is – they’ve got plenty of backbone.
Federalism: Structured for Change
Federalism was the ideal model for improvement because it acknowledged each state as a laboratory of ideas. No state had a monopoly on good public policy. States retained autonomy over education, business, religion, over how to address healthcare or poverty.
Phony Originalism
Democrat or Republican, politicians in D.C. can’t be trusted to follow the Constitution. Column by Kevin R.C. Gutzman
Massachusetts Sues Feds Under the 10th Amendment
Massachusetts, which legalized same-sex marriages in 2004, claims that the federal definition of marriage under DOMA violates its authority under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution to define marriage as it sees fit.
Support The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act
It is time that we allowed our unique federalist system to work the way it was intended. Patients and their state representatives should have the authority to enact laws permitting the medical use of cannabis — free from federal interference.
