Nothing in the awful state of Misery surprises me much anymore, but this headline ceartainly caugh my attention:
Missouri House gives preliminary approval to state sovereignty measure
JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri would assert its sovereignty and reject various federal policies under a proposed constitutional amendment given preliminary approval by the state House Wednesday.
The proposal says Missouri will not enforce or recognize various federal policies, including those dealing with hate crimes, gun control and allowing civil unions or same-sex marriage. It also seeks to reject federal health care policies establishing a public option or rationing care and seeks to block a "cap and trade" approach to reduce pollution blamed for global warming.
Putting aside:
- That, much to my chagrin, there is no federal public option.
- That Cap and Trade is so toxic that it's hard to envision a rigorous cap and trade policy being implemented any time soon.
- That "Government Takeover of Healthcare" is a loaded term that doesn't really have much meaning since the government has been involved in regulating health care and yes, supplying health insurance, for the better part of the last 60 years.
Is this really where we are again? Are conservatives chomping at the bit to bring this country back into the constitutional fights of the early 1800's which established that the Supreme Court and not the states are the ultimate interpreter of the constitution?
It appears that way. Perhaps it's a political stunt to the politicians in Jefferson City who, presumably, know that this constitutional amendment is an effort in futility in terms of surviving judicial scrutiny and having any legal consequence.
But as with anything, it's the message that's being sent by the politicians, and not what the politicians ultimately believe, that matters. This is nothing short than a rallying cry for reviving the confederacy to the masses in rural missouri.
And I need not remind anyone of the racial undertones here. Clearly nullification and interposition were attractive constitutional theories not just because of the academic argument it espouses, but also because of its consequence of allowing southern states to continue to enslave, torture and in some cases outright murder African slaves.
Sadly, Martin Luther King's dream has had a setback.
Interposition and nullification were referenced by Dr Martin Luther King in his famous 28 August 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D. C.:
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.[2]