Thoughts on our future as a nation and the "Tea Party"

I guess that I'm a bit slow but I finally realized what the Tea Party is all about and why I oppose it's attitudes and motives so much. 

I read the following paragraph in the news: "The bill also upset some tea-party activists, who want Republicans to abandon the effort to take E-Verify to a national level. Some lawmakers believe that states should be free to enact their own E-Verify laws, to ease concerns over the federal government imposing on states’ jurisdictions."

It is the old argument of state's rights vs federal law and jurisdiction. I'm well aware of the rather unclear 10th Amendment in our Bill of Rights ratified on December 15, 1791. It states the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that "powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved, respectively, to the states or the people".

My problem with this amendment is that in 1861 we fought a very prolonged and bloody Civil War over just that amendment!  The Confederacy donated about 260,000 men to settle their side of the argument and actually leave our nation while the U.S. Government  [North] donated 364,511 men to "preserve our nation" intact. So, over 646,000 Americans gave their lives to settle this question! It was exactly 150 years ago that there was such a huge loss of life - more than in any other war in American history except for WWII!

The question was and is, should we be a single sovereign nation or should we be a confederation of 50 independent nations (similar to the colonies who first authorized our Constitution)?  The federal government won the war and the states were rendered secondary or subservient to the central government.

The problem with war - as with almost any argument, no one ever really wins in the long run. Southerners knew they lost the battles, but they still believed in their cause and maintained that someday "the South would rise again!" The Tea Party is just one of many attempts to reinsert state's rights into legislation both at state levels but especially within the federal government through elected representatives who are more interested in the welfare of their own states than they are in the elephant in the room, the federal government - or the American people who are represented by the government!

Now, I understand that people want to have local control of their communities, counties and states. The federal government certainly can't micro manage every little hamlet in this expansive country.... The Civil war didn't eliminate local governments but they did pass universal laws which all communities and states have to live under. Such laws are more important today than they were one hundred years ago because our population has more than doubled and more importantly has become much more mobile. Americans need to live under a universal set of primary laws regardless of where they may chose to live. They needn't have to have passports nor feel they are entering a foreign country if they move from one state to another. True some laws may differ, but they are usually minor.

It does happen that a state may pass laws contrary to national interests, but they usually are redacted. A good example is when a number of years ago California outlawed cable television allowing only free TV captured via antenna or 'rabbit ears'! Think about it! The fear at the time was that cable TV would eliminate free TV!

We are indeed a single unified nation because many of the facilities we use are national such as our highway system and electrical grid. Laws regarding our ecology, mining, oil and gas production and distribution including pipelines, etc. would founder in a system of fifty nation-states. Can you imagine fifty versions of Social Security or Medicare such that if a retiree were to move to a different state, he/she would lose coverage? For example, California would be overcrowded with elderly retirees wherein Arizona who profits from retired Californians would lose this lucrative source of income and business?

Thus, I maintain that our nation comes first. The drives and ambitions of the individual states comes second, just as the prosperity of the individual is completely dependent upon the largesse of the society wherein he lives. If it is a repressive society, he can not succeed. It is the society which nurtures success and allows the individual to thrive.

Thus, I'm certain that if the Tea Party has its way and resumes control of our government with a like-minded president, our nation is in for a very gloomy period of reflection on what we did wrong and what ever happened to the good life we used to have.