Tell me please.

My problem with the debate between strong federal powers/weak state powers and weak federal powers/strong state powers is that the states are too darned small in today's world to be any but "pissant" powers in the real world. I can see the sense of drastically weakening federal powers if there were strong confederacies of regional groups of states, because oftentimes the problem with federal government is that it tends to ignore regional concerns. But otherwise, if you just weaken federal powers and expect the states to make up the difference, I think all you'd succeed in doing is making the U.S. too weak to have an important role in international affairs. Colorado can't very well negotiate on its own with say, China.

AspenValley wrote: My problem with the debate between strong federal powers/weak state powers and weak federal powers/strong state powers is that the states are too darned small in today's world to be any but "pissant" powers in the real world. I can see the sense of drastically weakening federal powers if there were strong confederacies of regional groups of states, because oftentimes the problem with federal government is that it tends to ignore regional concerns. But otherwise, if you just weaken federal powers and expect the states to make up the difference, I think all you'd succeed in doing is making the U.S. too weak to have an important role in international affairs. Colorado can't very well negotiate on its own with say, China.

We are not speaking of doing away with the Constitution. We still have a federal gov't. But our mission of trying to control the whole world simply must stop. The whole mess in the middle east is due to a country (Britain) meddling with a region and making a mess of it. The U.S. has been trying to keep that British mess functioning. This type of foreign influence must stop.

major bean wrote: We are not speaking of doing away with the Constitution. We still have a federal gov't. But our mission of trying to control the whole world simply must stop. The whole mess in the middle east is due to a country (Britain) meddling with a region and making a mess of it. The U.S. has been trying to keep that British mess functioning. This type of foreign influence must stop.

I wouldn't disagree with you there. And it's only gotten worse since the Neocon agenda took hold.

But I do think that some people want to go a lot farther than just stopping foreign intervention. It's pretty plain there is at least a militant minority who want to pretty much limit the power of the federal government to not much more than being a glorified extension of the Pentagon. They argue hard that that was all the founding fathers envisioned. I kind of don't see the point of having a Congress and a Supreme Court and an Executive Branch that is supposed to do nothing more than concentrate on national defense, so I am not in that camp.

I do think that in addition to getting the heck out of the affairs of foreign countries, there are some other businesses the federal government would probably do well to get out of, but I can't go along with practically dismantling it in favor of the theory of state's rights, because as I said in the earlier post, I don't think they're geared up to taking over most of the current role of the federal government in today's world.

It is my belief that those who want a strong centralized gov't do not want it for reasons of foreign relations, but, rather, they want it for domestic policy. They want inner control of our population and society. They want to control our culture. They could care less about our influence as a world power.

This is the great evil of all governments; control of a country's population. This was the great concern of the framers of our Constitution.

major bean wrote: It is my belief that those who want a strong centralized gov't do not want it for reasons of foreign relations, but, rather, they want it for domestic policy. They want inner control of our population and society. They want to control our culture. They could care less about our influence as a world power.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I don't think the federal government should have a role in controlling our culture, other than perhaps as part of the 'glue' that gives us a national culture. When you go abroad, you don't say you're a "Coloradan", you say you're an American. I also think it serves an important role in keeping states from getting too unequal, which might lead to civil wars. There are quite a number of states that receive more in federal funds than they give, and I'm okay with that because, among other things, it means when I drive through states down south that don't have a lot of money I don't have to do it on a dirt road.

As far as controlling the culture, in terms of taste, and religion and values, I think the media has 100 times more influence than the federal government does.

major bean wrote: It is my belief that those who want a strong centralized gov't do not want it for reasons of foreign relations, but, rather, they want it for domestic policy. They want inner control of our population and society. They want to control our culture. They could care less about our influence as a world power.

This is the great evil of all governments; control of a country's population. This was the great concern of the framers of our Constitution.

:thumbsup:
All they really have to do is say screw it all will worship whom WE say you will, and They will HAVE the population under control...

I repeat, "Religion is control,faith is freedom!"-S.Seidenfeld

jmc wrote: What country would you prefer to live in with a weak central government and strong regional powers? Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan? Why do you want a federal government that has such limited power when the world that follows that model is the worst of the worst. Curious. Do we want tribalism?

Forgive me if this has been addressed already, I have been out of town since Friday and just now have an opportunity to participate. I will read the rest of the posts and comment as I go, but I figured I should start with the OP and address its flawed premise.

Our Constitution was written to address the very problem of a weak federated government. The original compact, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (how many here have ever read that document?), was indeed found to be too weak to be an effective instrument. That is why the Philadelphia Convention was convened - to find a way to fix what wasn't working. What the men who convened in that Pennsylvania summer concluded was that there was no way to fix that document and so they drew up a new compact where the federal government was very strong in very limited areas. Had they not done that, then jmc's premise might be accurate - we would have had such a weak federated government that we were in the same league as Somalia, Yemen or Afghanistan and it too would have failed with the result of having the separate, independent and sovereign states at each others' throats until the confederated states abandoned the federation and warred between themselves.

That said, the new federated government which the Constitution established was not intended, and is not intended, to be the vessel in which all power of governance among the member states is gathered that we have been steadily marching towards. We are now, and have been for some time actually, in danger of exactly the opposite - a single government that has continually and without exception resulted in the destruction of a once mighty and prosperous nation. Why do you think the empires at the time of our revolution for independence were engaging in perpetual wars with other nations? Why was it that Great Britain, and France, and Spain and Russia were constantly at each others throats and taxing the people of those nations so heavily? They were out seeking the means with which to fund the bloated central government's largess. It wasn't simply that these nations had monarchs, it was that all of them sought to govern entirely from a single location. Why did Rome fall? Why did Egypt fail? Why did Greece cease to be a powerful nation? The answer is the same. They attempted to rule a vast and diverse area from a single central location. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a one size fits all answer to governing. Colorado and New York can't be governed identically. The benefits of one socialized safety net do not provide the same safety for the citizens of those states for that very reason. The needs of the retired citizens of New York are not the same as the needs of the retired citizens of Colorado, so a single social retirement program does not, and cannot, serve them equally.

Look at the Declaration of Independence, where Thomas Jefferson so eloquently listed the causes that impelled the colonies to assume the separate and equal station among nations. Most had absolutely nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with the parent nation quashing of the ability of the colonies to govern themselves. This is precisely what our own federal government is engaged in at the moment. Consolidating sole power to govern within itself at the expense of usurping the ability of the member states to self govern according to what the sovereign citizens of those states deem will bring about the greatest amount of security and happiness.

The governments of the States and the federated government are supposed to be, were designed to be, coordinate powers of government. Each was intended to have absolute supremacy in certain areas with few, if any, powers outside of those areas. To the federated government was given supremacy in foreign relations - to include the relations between the states themselves. To the States were all matters that affected that state and only that state. The welfare of an individual citizen of New York, or Florida, is not a matter that affects the state of Colorado or its citizens. It is not a federated concern, it is a state concern.

jmc wrote:

daisypusher wrote:

jmc wrote:

daisypusher wrote: The weaker central government was the American experiment. We were unique and we could not hold onto our republic.

I thought the civil war defined that. Balance is everything." One Nation"? "United" States?

Yes. Exactly. The American experiment did die with the Civil War. Corporatism followed.

Curious, do think if a state wanted slavery, polygamy or denied woman the vote that should be fine? Can a state opt out of a war?

That is why the Constitution contains a way to be amended. If 75% of those that have joined the compact decide to end slavery in all of them, or give women in all of them suffrage, then it becomes a power transferred from the separate sovereign entities into the federated one. Women in certain states had suffrage prior to the 19th Amendment. Slavery had been abolished in certain states prior to the 13th Amendment. Prior to the torturing of new meaning from the text of the Constitution, the states were indeed capable of having its own citizens decide such issues. When an overwhelming majority of citizens of the several states decided that such should not be the case on a certain issue, they chose, via amending the Constitution, to surrender that state sovereignty to the federated government.

Slavery was not ended by interpreting the text in a new manner or passing a federal law. Suffrage for women was not created by interpreting the text in a new manner or passing a new federal law. Social Security was created by this process, as was ending bans on abortions. The result is that, unlike slavery and suffrage for women, what was interpreted into existence can be altered in the future. Social Security and Medicare could be legislated into oblivion at any point in time because their entire ability to exist rests on interpretation of tortured new meaning of the text. What would we do if a future SCOTUS decided that these programs do not promote or provide for the general welfare of the union of states and in fact have the opposite effect and harm that mandate?

Do you see the federated government attempting to block an individual state from establishing marriage between two people of the same sex? Would it be proper for them to intervene on the issue of polygamy in light of this?

Nobody that matters wrote: For example:The Federal government should not tax us directly. They should tax the states.

That was tried with the original constitution of the nation - and failed. That is the main reason that Congress was given the power to levy and collect taxes in the Constitution and why the states agreed to cede their sovereignty by ratification of the new compact.

jmc wrote: But I did not make my original post clear. My point was that the rise of the U.S. as a world power came primarily after WW2, that also was the time when the increase in centralized power of the federal gov. happened(under both parties) My question was what world power did not have a strong central gov. Are they connected? Do we really want a decentralized system if history has shown that has never served a world power well?

The rise of this nation after WWII came as a result of economic unity of the states, not the consolidation of more power at the federal level. We were the only one left whose industry had not been crippled or destroyed. Our lend lease program had resulted in the transfer of large amounts of gold to this nation to pay for the machines of war that we built and then leased to the other nations. Our unified currency, provided for in the Constitution, is held as the reserve currency because the value of our currency was tied to a valuable specie that we held in abundance at the conclusion of WWII. The reason the value of our currency is so fungible at the moment was we abandoned that tie to inflate the amount of the currency in circulation to pay for the Vietnam War and the Great Society initiatives.