Hacker News Reader

Comment by thegrim000 | Hacker News Reader

The federal government's responsibilities is literally to collect taxes to maintain a standing army, and to coordinate cross-state issues that the states themselves for some reason aren't able to regulate themselves. That's what its scope is supposed to be. Are states not able to pass the table saw regulations they feel is appropriate for their citizens? I feel like they are. Why does the federal government need to step in and mandate .. table saw laws for our states? For me it's just another small step in the long line of steps towards having one overarching federal government that controls everything, like other countries have, which the US is not supposed to have.

View on HN

I've never understood this nonsensical fear of federal oversight. Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies. I recall some saying, this stuff is ours, get your own. And why does it make sense for some backwater state to decide to dumb down their residents with a crap education system. Isn't that a race to the bottom if a state is left alone to elect inferior education, which is a real issue in the American South? Some states will choose to be dominant intellectually and others will choose conspiracies as history. That makes no sense to me at all. I also recall a certain French prime minister say it gave him great comfort to know each child in France was learning poetry.

> Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies.

The US learned between 1776 and 1789, under the Articles of Confederation. That's why they made a new constitution with a stronger centeral government.

And yet still with limited powers. (Though I have to admit that table saws probably fall under interstate commerce, certainly more so than the subject of other cases that were decided to be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich )

It is hard to say if something works or not without defining a goal.

Federalism would probably work fine for the country in general. Lots of human suffering would occur in states that elect dumbasses, but the high-productivity parts of the country would continue along just fine, and probably actually benefit without the need to keep sending money.

In some case, voters might change their tune as they actually have to face the consequences of electing unhinged ideologues.

But, it would also involve lots of pain and suffering falling on vulnerable people, so it isn’t worth it.

Unfortunately FDR's justices overturned that aspect of the constitution long ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com