AREN’T WE ALL LIVING IN THE SAME COUNTRY?

The Screwy Way States Regulate

Remember when gay couples traveled to find a state that would marry them?  Afterwards, they learned their state wouldn’t honor it. Fortunately, SCOTUS decided that since a majority of states did recognize gay marriage, that option should be available to everyone no matter where they had residence. 

Driver’s license began in 1901 in New York and though you must get a license in the state where you reside, the license is good throughout the country (and, in most cases, when you travel overseas).  The interesting part of this is that driving is a privilege, not guaranteed by the Constitution, while marriage is now considered a right. 

The 10th Amendment

“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 original idea was that most rights should be reserved by the people, but that each state could act as a laboratory, testing out ways of governing in the hope of determining an ideal way to operate.  Obviously, some states would always differ in their approaches to state-related issues, but over time, best practices should be acknowledged and adopted.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen often enough.  I’m not saying this should be mandatory, but governors need to be apprised of problems their people have and looking for optimal solutions. 

Consider the DMV (or whatever you call the government office that issues drivers’ licenses.  In my state, it can almost be a game to even get an appointment when you need to go in.  They’ve closed many offices and without an appointment, you can plan to settle in for the day.  Once you go through a fairly arduous process, you can expect to see your license in a few weeks.  In Florida, friends of mine who had moved there from California, were shocked to receive their license and plates within minutes.  They also had no difficulty getting in.  Clearly, there’s a best practice that isn’t being adopted nationwide.  Interestingly, the problems with California’s DMV have been recognized for years, with almost no attempt to fix them.

A case I’m particularly familiar with is the automation of state systems using commercial software.  As we’ve all had to deal with various online systems, it would be fair to say that too many are awful.  If you dig deeper, you’ll find that each one was a new solution to the problem, poorly project-managed and extremely costly.  In the real world, companies always want to learn about other companies using software.  If a bank has good luck with software, other banks will want to buy the same thing, perhaps modifying it slightly to fit their needs and increase competitiveness.  When a software company can sell to many companies, they charge less.   But we don’t try to standardize here at great cost to taxpayers (and risk of data breaches because the software is untested).

Defined Rights

With negative rights, as defined in the Bill of Rights, there should be no question that states cannot define their own set of rules for how these rights are administered.  While you might have no desire to own and carry guns, an increasingly large number of good citizens wish to, but we run up against costly, discriminatory regulations in many states, making it almost impossible to achieve legal status.  More states have approved either shall-issue (state must give you a carry permit) or constitutional carry (no permit needed) than had legal gay marriage.  But so far, the process hasn’t been standardized.  Even the U.S.  Supreme Court Bruen decision didn’t go far enough in the “right to bear arms.”  The process in California is being slow-walked to discourage applicants and comes with fairly high costs and commitment of time.  This makes it almost impossible for those living in dangerous areas to qualify; they probably need self-protection more than the rest of us.

Freedom of religion is constantly attacked (unless you’re Muslim).  I can guarantee you if you go to a Muslim bakery to have a cake baked for a gay wedding, they’ll refuse.  But no one is going to penalize them for that.  Making religion almost illegal is a core part of socialism/communism.

Another defined right is the freedom of speech.  Most people don’t realize that the Left is on the attack here as well.  (Which other rights are we going to lose, if we lose these two critical ones?)  Having defined misinformation and disinformation very loosely, there are now laws against this kind of speech, which stabs at the heart of the 1st Amendment.  In California, they want to censure or even steal the license of doctors who say something they don’t like.  My husband and I used the services of a doctor to get ivermectin and guidance on how to prevent and treat Covid.  Would this doctor be censured?

You couldn’t easily get cheap ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, even to try during the epidemic.  But many doctors wanted to prescribe them, especially for those without the insurance to cover the costly Fauci-approved drugs.  I have personal experience with doctors prescribing drugs for me that covered off-label conditions, with great results.  By the way, many people in Africa take hydroxychloroquine every week to keep malaria at bay.  Must be safe, right?

Being shut out of access to social media is a violation of our rights.  The idea of debate is being closed down, as these companies decide what arguments and opinions are legitimate.  This means that people don’t even know there are good arguments.  This is why they should all become public utilities where they are required to provide access to everyone.  See something you don’t like?  Move on and ignore it, just like you do with TV shows you find objectionable. 

A Dire Threat

The Left is on the hunt to destroy the Constitution, one piece at a time.  As each branch grew their power, giving even more to the administrative state, their narrowly defined roles have been obliterated.

 ****  The checks and balances are gone.  They hope we will be pacified with free college, handouts and the like, but these “gifts” come with a very high price—your freedom.

While there are likely quite a few good Democrat politicians, too many of the powerful ones are our enemies.  They see themselves as the ones who will lead and benefit from socialism, not the ones who will find their standard of living, options and even rights stripped from them.

Voting matters.  Make sure your vote counts.