The New State Sovereignty Movement

Jack Hunter at Taki's Magazine surveys some recent moves on the state level to assert their sovereignty against the Feds on 10th Amendment grounds. The very interested should follow all of Hunter's links as well. He reports that at least 15 state legislatures have lately introduced and in some cases passed largely symbolic resolutions asserting their prerogatives over all government powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution.

Hunter quotes some state legislators behind the moves, sadly notes the mainstream media and mainstream right-wing are ignoring all this (with only such pre-marginalized voices as George Noury and Alex Jones trumpeting it) and concludes:

For now, states' rights legislation promises to remain symbolic, unless actions by the Obama administration pushes state legislatures toward more radical methods of circumventing federal power—or high profile, mainstream conservatives finally rally the troops by promoting what could potentially be the most serious right-wing resistance against the state in recent memory. Given Conservatism Inc.'s current track record, we're likely to see much worse from Obama before we ever get anything useful out of them. And states' rights-minded legislators, with no support from their national party or allegedly sympathetic "conservative" media, will be left to defend themselves and their constituents as little more than hyperbolic Confederate retreads, two steps from "shooting at the Park Service guys out at Fort Sumter" and one-step from the loony bin—for even daring to question the legitimacy of the omnipotent modern state. 

These things generally don't add up to much, of course, but it's always interesting, and encouraging, to watch them. As I noted in an article last week on governors looking a federal stimulus in the mouth, sometimes fruitless gestures hearkening to the spirit of limited and divided government power are the best we can manage in face of the federal juggernaut.