States first, country second

When the United States formed, it was the states first and the Union second. The Union was supposed to be a convenience for states in order to protect their common interests from outside threats and to provide an area of free trade. The Union wasn’t supposed to pull it down into a fiscal nightmare or to overreach its constitutional limits. But it has.

The Supremacy clause didn’t mean that the federal government could just run right over the will of the states. And that’s what now happens. The federal government tells or tries to tell the states exactly what to do about everything, far beyond its constitutional powers. It’s (trying) to kill federalism. The Union will be worthless when the parts that constitute the whole lose their power.  The “”sovereign”” states will no longer be sovereign. A major check on the federal government will be lost. And local government, which is most responsive to the people’s interests, will be all but finished.

“”The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”” The 10th amendment no longer means anything to the federal government. But it still does to many Arizonans. We have powers that the federal government has tried to usurp.

This whole mess in Arizona you’re complaining about all began when the federal government failed to hold up its constitutionally mandated responsibility of protecting the states from foreign invasion (Article IV, Sect 4). Arizona has been forced to assert its constitutionally guaranteed power and sovereignty to force the federal government to get its act together.

I remember when people used to have pride in their independent “”wild west”” Arizona where people were be free do to do as they chose. People had pride in this. I don’t know what happened to Tucson that you’ve turned your back on state pride.

But alas, this is a free state still, so if you want out, hit the road. I know that “” … the heavily liberal population of Southern Arizona is fed up with Republican-dominated state politics,”” as you say, so feel free to leave this democracy and form your own. It’s more respectable (marginally) at least than the abomination that is the situation in Wisconsin.

I know Arizona has already dug its own fiscal hole (although it pales in comparison to the federal government) and it needs to get that ironed out but bitching about how Maricopa County has all the power won’t help you. There’s a reason. It’s because that’s where people live. A great percentage of them. And last time I checked, majorities still got to make legislation.

“”Baja Arizona”” would be so small that it wouldn’t have any legislative power nationally anyway. Its revenue would be minuscule and it would probably succumb to the same financial pitfalls our worthless politicians have gotten us into nationally and on the state level.

I’m sure Arizona, or Maricopa County as you all would suggest, will lose this federalism fight, but I’d rather go down swinging then succumb like a bunch of sissies. I wouldn’t want to dishonor our 100 years of history like that.

Oh by the way, I know you’re fans of West Virginia’s moves and of certain clauses of the constitution. How about this one? Here is some Article IV, Sect. 3 action for you,

“”New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.””

— Danee Garone

Arizona State University student