Hi Hec. Not quite true. Liberals and Conservatives are both hypocrites on States rights. Reactionaries loved the fugitive slave law, and today DOMA. Liberals invented the idea of state nullifcation and early abolitions supported free states withdrawing from pro-slavery union. Ultimately the conservative position is the aristocratic one. The consistent thread in conservativism in the U.S. is not states rights but maintaining hierarchies so that if you are not an aristocrat you can still have a lower class to spit on and can go on supporting aristocrats.

Left and right both oppose and support centralization and decentralization depending on how it affects outcomes.

Unless of course you're even now on your way to bust out a moppet from the clutches of The Man(droid).

Well, that's an emergency.

Say, what's the big deal with the debate about centralized government, or the different concepts of liberty, freedom and citizenship. Or the federal system. Or the place of religion. Not to mention that some states are much, much younger than I thought they are.

Well, often as not, "states rights" is code for "don't tell us what to do with our nigras".

The individual states upon founding generally meant "freedom to practice OUR religion" when they mentioned "freedom of religion".

And when the nation announced its "Freedom of Religion" that was a) so the states could carry on as-is; b) because they weren't going to have a king -- the two went hand-in-hand at the time. The soverign's religion was the country's religion. If it changed you had wars; and c) the religions were generally various flavors of Protestantism.

(Which is why it cracks me up when people talk about this country being founded as a 'Christian Nation'. There wasn't much sense when we were founded of eccumenical Christanity. You were Puritains or Anglicans or whatever, not "Christians")

This is why I love studying. It makes sense of the world, and makes the world so much richer with meaning.

Love this. May I tag?

How do you like The Wire, Shir??

BWAH! I KNEW erika would pipe in about The Wire. I love when I can count on something.

Love this. May I tag?

Sure! My pleasure.

And The Wire is awesome. Gold. I still love Buffy better, though.

Now, I really got to go. But I'm marking this discussion, to come back with more knowledge and to actually understand your arguments better later.

I missed you all. So much.

"states rights" is code for "don't tell us what to do with our nigras".

Or our wimmin.

I've always found that the more I study about US history the less it makes sense.

Sometimes the hypothesis that ADHD is so much more prevalent in the U.S. than in Europe is because so many of the colonists must have had it - those traits that make for an uncomfortable fit in an established hierarchy may motivate a person to leave, and might actually be useful traits in a colony - makes a lot of sense. Way too damn much "ooh, shiny" in our leaders and in the people who elected them.

Say, what's the big deal with the debate about centralized government, or the different concepts of liberty, freedom and citizenship. Or the federal system. Or the place of religion.

That's a complex question. Or several complex questions. I think I can only manage to expound upon the bit about centralized government. The Articles of Confederation were hastily thrown together (well, really, a year of debate while there was a war on, and there was very little in the way of other governments to model the U.S. system on, that's really not a heck of a lot of time to stitch together an entire government from whole cloth). At the time, the former colonies transformed themselves into States, and much of the thinking was that the United States was not a single nation, but a confederation of several, separate allied States (independent countries on their own account) - a big centralized government was perceived to be a threat to the sovereignty of those States, little better than the British Empire whose tyranny they were working so hard to free themselves from. Of course, there were those among our Founding Fathers who advocated for a strong central government, because they saw the advantages of a closer union. The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation became strikingly apparent during the Revolutionary War - Congress had the authority to make certain decisions, but no authority to actually enforce them, and no authority to do simple things like collect taxes to fund the fledgling government - but it took ten years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence for the pressures of conflicts within and between States to become so great that a Convention (the Annapolis Convention) of State's representatives called for another Convention to form the next year in 1787 for the purpose of modifying and improving the Articles. At the Philadelphia Convention, delegates met ostensibly for that purpose, but quietly drafted a new Constitution, reorganizing the government of the United States into one that had much more authority. Under the Articles, Congress could tell the States to do something (for example, send money or soldiers) but the States could ignore the request, leaving the Confederation unable to do fun things like win battles (Seriously, how the heck did we win? Oh, that's right, Britain was more concerned about other bits of the Empire and didn't really care all that much.) or pay the army. Under the Constitution, the Federal government could collect taxes, enforce laws, develop a single military rather than attempting to run wars with armies and navies from individual States, regulate trade, make decisions about disputes between States, and develop a stronger foreign policy.

Many people said what I was hoping to convey much more succinctly than I managed. For all I like to think of myself as a big picture person, sometimes I can't describe the forest because I get stuck on the trees.