Re: CHAT: Gale Norton (was Californian secessionists)

Quoting Andrew Chaney <adchaney@...>:

> on 02/10/01 18:27, Thomas R. Wier (trwier@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU) wrote:
>
> > In any event, in the more conservative parts of the country,
> > such as the Mountain states and the South, the pre-1860 notion
> > of "state-sovereignty" is still surprisingly widely held, as
> > Bush Interior Secretary, Gale Norton, reminded us all so
> > stunningly this year.
>
> How so? What did Gale Norton do?
She said something to the effect that the States had lost lots
of their original sovereignty since 1865 -- which is true -- and
that that was a Bad Thing.  I don't remember if she went so far
as to disparage the 14th Ammendment (which obligated the States
to maintain at least the same individual rights that are guaranteed
in the Federal constitution), but it was widely cited among those in
the media that are left-leaning like, say, Salon.com as proof
positive that the Bushies are reactionaries in a very literal
sense of the word.  Partly that's true, but it's partly that many
people on the left instinctively and reflexively want to federalize
everything, to concentrate more power into the hands of a now
massively powerful federal government, and are naive enough to
think that that will on the whole lead to fewer abuses of power
than if that power were decentralized to the States. (Which is
not to say the States won't abuse power; but when they do so they
won't have as many people to abuse, and won't be as capable of
doing it as systematically as the Feds could. There's a middle
road to be found somewhere in there.)

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III

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