Okay, so I admit, this is going to be a highly charged article from me (more so than normal) and I'm going to go full on hyperventilating SJW on this one, but I've been seeing this argument a lot in defending some of Trump's positions on things.
Many of these arguments supporting conservative positions on things are framed in a form of separation of powers, pushing the "states' rights" and bashing the federal government as a tyrant for getting involves in peoples' business and telling them what to do. I'm here to say this: SCREW STATES' RIGHTS!!!
States rights are what was used in this country to defend FREAKING SLAVERY in this country. The feds wanted to say, hey, you know you should recognize brown people as human beings and the southern states were like "no, we should be able to own slaves all we want, federal government butt out." And then the feds and the states went to war and said "no more slavery for you". And you know what? They were absolutely right about it.
I'm sorry, but when people try to defend human rights abuses as "states' rights", I'm going to say "screw states' rights and screw you too." And it's not just slavery. Jim Crow was defended as a states' rights issue. Segregation was too. And once again, the feds had to go down to the south with guns and tell these people, NO YOU HAVE TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS TOO!
The federal government is what is protecting people from the state governments stopping them from getting abortions on demand. This is actually what sparked this conversation. Some Trump supporter was defending Trump shooting down Roe v. Wade and all as a "states' rights" thing. If the states want to get between a woman and her reproductive rights, screw states' rights.
Gay marriage. The feds recently stopped the states from being able to keep that illegal. Now it's legal nationwide. Thanks, federal government! But the states' rights people think they should be able to make it illegal again.
And then we have more economic issues like the minimum wage and obamacare's medicaid expansion. Without the feds having a minimum wage, half the states wouldn't even have a minimum wage and people would work for peanuts. It would also spark a race to the bottom sabotaging the other half of the states from having a minimum wage too, because it would cause all business to pursue other opportunities elsewhere. Left wing ideas require a monopoly on government to implement, to stop these things from being able to be affected by market forces. Let the free market get their hands on determining minimum wage, or other regulations, or even taxes, and guess what, we all lose and the elites win. So screw states' rights there too. Screw states from deciding that letting poor uninsured people can die because they don't pass the medicaid expansion or water it down because they don't like it.
And I'm not even getting into the constitution. If not for court cases incorporating our constitutional rights to the states, the states would be able to violate our ability to have freedom of speech and crap too. I might not even be able to run for office without the feds here because if I'm not mistaken my state has one of those laws that prevents people from running for office if they don't believe in a deity.
So really, these people crying for states' rights can shove their states' rights up their ***es and try to dig them back out with a rusty coathanger, much like these people would like to see women do when they get abortions because they try to punish women for getting them (because let's face it, make it illegal and we're back to back alley abortions). Because guess what, the federal government isn't the level of government encouraging tyranny on so many levels. It's the states. The states have done awful things over the course of American history and have shown that without the feds putting reasonable limits on their power in areas related to constitutional and human rights, they can't properly govern themselves otherwise. Screw states' rights, because I'm for human rights, and that's way more important than a bunch of backwards people being able to impose their way of life on others.
On a side note, I will give a shout out to the ONE issue I know of where the feds are being overly intrusive. That is marijuana legalization. The feds are doing way too much to obstruct this due to their opposition to marijuana, and it is negatively impacting states that want to legalize it. However, I'm willing to tolerate backwards federal policy here if it gives people human rights on so many other issues.
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