ALLIES OR JUDAS GOATS

by JIM BEERS

"World Net Daily"

"NEW YORK - As the Obama administration attempts to push through Congress a nearly $1 trillion deficit spending plan that is weighted heavily toward advancing typically Democratic-supported social welfare programs, a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level.
So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.
Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania
Rollback federal authority
The various sovereignty measures moving through state legislatures are designed to reassert state authority through a rollback of federal authority under the powers enumerated in the Constitution, with the states assuming the governance of the non-enumerated powers, as required by the Tenth Amendment.
The state sovereignty measures, aimed largely at the perceived fiscal irresponsibility of Congress in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have gained momentum with the $1 trillion deficit-spending economic stimulus package the Obama administration is currently pushing through Congress.
Particularly disturbing to many state legislators are the increasing number of "unfunded mandates" that have proliferated in social welfare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, in which bills passed by Congress dictate policy to the states without providing funding.
In addition, the various state resolutions include discussion of a wide range of policy areas, including the regulation of firearms sales (Montana) and the demand to issue drivers licenses with technology to embed personal information under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and the Real ID Act (Michigan)."
On one hand I am tempted to cheer about 28 states passing or considering "resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution". Twenty-eight states disturbed by "the increasing number of 'unfunded mandates'" and "the regulation of firearms sales (Montana) and the demand to issue drivers licenses with technology to embed personal information under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and the Real ID Act (Michigan)." This seems too good to be true;then again,what seems too good to be true usually is.
All of this bold affirmation of state's rights coincides with all but one or two Governors salivating at their recent Conference as they affirm the need for and worthiness of the "Stimulus" Bill being pushed by the Administration and the Congress. It coincides with the AWOL status and silence of state legislators and Governors as House Committee Chairman (and tax cheat) Rangel and Robert Reich discuss (in a Committee Hearing) how to keep state government "out of the process" as the $8-900 Billion "Stimulus" is formulated and then distributed (mustn't have anyone else interfere with the President and the Congressional leadership's prerogative of handing out what they took from other Americans). It coincides with state silence as the foregoing two crooks (Rangel and Reich) openly discussed how to keep "white" and "skilled" workers from getting any of the "Stimulus". It follows decades of states, with the occasional one or two dissenters that can never find other states to support them, bowing down to every theft of their authority by the federal interlopers in such areas as Endangered Species, Marine Mammals, federal land enclaves, federal land closures, federal land expansions, wolves, animal property rights, education, roadside plantings, energy development, catastrophic fires, cockamamie nonsense about "native ecosystems" and "invasive species", pet ownership, domestic animal disposition and use, etc., etc., etc. It is right on the heels of the absence of even a peep from state governments either publicly or to "their" federal cousins about recent confirmation of Administration appointees like the #2 guy in the Justice Department that was responsible for forcing pornography into public libraries where children would have access to it in the vast majority of Counties that were strongly opposed to it: or to the federal mandates to car manufacturers to only make small vehicles appropriate to visiting rural America but totally inappropriate to living and working in rural America.
I could go on here but in the throes of the federal con game going on today; this state's rights cry from state legislatures is one of three things:
1. It is incredibly naive. It is (at this point) like Neville Chamberlain relying on "diplomacy" to avoid the inevitable confrontation with Hitler.
2. It reflects a contempt for public understanding beyond belief. To be passing such resolutions as their Governors slobber all over federal politicians and bureaucrats for "their share" of the biggest possible "Stimulus" pie (Translation - "as much as they can get with or without 'strings'") and then expecting us to believe they are concerned about "state's rights" is insulting to say the least.
3. It is a classic example of chutzpah (the guy that murders his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan). It is like President Obama saying he won't take away guns when his record is nothing if not one lifelong campaign of gun control in one of the worst 2nd Amendment abuse states in the nation or like the President saying he wants to "reduce" abortions as he funds foreign abortions, appoints a blizzard of pro-abortion advocates from Planned Parenthood and Emily's List, and as he advocates federal funded abortions nationally and enshrining Roe V Wade into federal statute. Do these politicians really think we are that stupid?
4. It is a feeble attempt to regain their "manhood". The states have "evolved" from bastions and defenders of freedom and individual rights to enablers of every anti-Constitutional movement that can buy enough federal politicians to pass legislation making their cause (environment, animal rights, forced urban living, controlled diets, family breakup, sexual license, atheism, etc.) superior to the individual and state's rights in our Constitution, our local communities, and our very traditions and culture. Is it possible that they really understand that the reason they are tough financial shape is this increasing reliance on federal money and that they are truly becoming irrelevant?
I want to believe it is #4 but then I listen to the Los Angeles Mayor talk about he and his federal Party cohorts in Washington are working together on sending the money straight to the cities so that the state government doesn't use it in rural areas since "most workers" (Translation: voters and interest groups that put the President and the Congressional "leadership" in office) live in urban areas. So just as the political crooks in Washington want the money to go their supporters and future reelections, so too do the Mayors want to control the money being printed in Washington and have it helicoptered directly to City Hall. This, ironically, in Governor "Terminator" Schwarzenegger"s state, the largest in the union and one of the first and strongest advocates of "Stimulus" funding as well as a state about to go broke from overspending and supporting all the same nuttiness that has been going on in Washington for decades. What goes around, comes around.
Call me cynical but when I begin to see more than resolutions maybe I will take heart. Small nations have always tried to negotiate with hostile large powers, historically to no avail. Consider the Easter European nations swallowed by Nazi and Communist aggressors prior to WWII, they too negotiated and proclaimed their independence while trying to accommodate an aggressor bent on conquering them "agreements and laws be damned". The federal government as currently construed is the greatest aggressor bent on absorbing state sovereignty and individual rights that ever existed. The states are being pushed aside like the "subcontractors" they have allowed themselves to become. Even their own cities are beginning to negotiate directly with federal usurpers about funding and harmonizing programs. Can you spell "s-u-p-e-r-f-l-u-o-u-s"?
The future for freedom and the future for rural America are bleak. Reforming this destructive trend begins with each of us. The next two years, between the radical politicians and bureaucrats now controlling our government and the laws they will write, are lost. We must focus on electing either Senators or Congressmen that will wrest control of at least one House of Congress from these radicals. You will note that I did not mention a Party. The "Democrat-Lite", "get-along" Republicans of recent elections have been no help and in some ways are even more dangerous to our freedoms and state governments by seductively and slowly doing the same as is going on in Washington today. We need politicians in control of either one or both Houses of Congress that will check the President's Socialist agenda and then work with State governments to restore the Individual Rights and State Authority that made this country great. Could "resolutions" be a first step? I don't know, but one can only hope.
PS. A "Judas Goat" is a goat staked out in a clearing to draw in a predator (wolf, coyote, leopard, cheetah, bear) where it can be killed. Like many hunting and fishing organizations, state legislatures are hotbeds of hidden agendas that would stun us to know of them. More often than we think, our hunting or fishing organizations really support things that are not in our best interests and often under these circumstances they will divert us by "standing up to" wolves or land closures while they do just the opposite behind our backs. The state legislatures might be doing the same thing: acting like they want to defend states rights while continuing to do whatever they can to obtain the "federal" money. It is possible that hunting and fishing organizations just like state legislatures "stake out the goat" with no intention of killing the predator that is ravaging the community; they merely want us to relax, go home and let them do whatever they want. Hence the title "Allies or Judas Goats?" by Jim Beers 10 February 2009