What con game were the R-Wers pulling when they supported State's Rights?

[The Backlash Cometh]

Was this some kind of political taffy pull that the Right-wingers were playing to shape this country the way they wanted it? One day they were in favor of State's Rights, but in 2000 when Florida decided to count their ballots their way, the Republican party used the Federal courts to overturn the State's sovereignty; then they were back to supporting State's Rights, only to be against it again when the people of Pennsylvania voted out their creationist-supporting school board; and now with Bill O'Reilly taking on San Francisco because the city democratically voted out hand guns and prohibited the military recruitment of public school children.

I don't think these Republicans really think anything through, because State's Rights was a promise that 50 states would eventually go in 50 different directions. And now that it's happening that way, we see their real purpose. When they supported State's Rights in the first place, it was only to break the Liberal hold of the states through the federal government, and now that they are in control, they would use the federal government if it suits them to redirect this country in a conservative direction.

They're not State's Righters and they're not Federal government supporters. They're just social engineers.

[LostInAnomie]

1. All that matters is who's ox is being gored.

When federal politics aren't going their way they will cry about states rights. When federal politics are going their way states rights are forgotten.

It is the same way with "activist" judges. They will decry any decision that doesn't go their way as judicial activism while at the same time building a massive push through of ideology driven judges who back their own right wing views.

Hypocrites? Definitely.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. If there is an organized group orchestrating these moves, I think

it is an extremely serious matter. Machiavelli politics, and we don't have a clue what their final goal really is.

[LostInAnomie]

8. We know their final goal.

It is a second Gilded Age.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Can you be more specific?

I know the means. They were going to use chaos and confusion to divide and conqueor. But I don't understand how they hoped to continue this forever? So, what was their short-term goal? And how did they think it would last forever?

[LostInAnomie]

12. Their only real goal is power.

Don't ever be fooled that they have any plans for the welfare of the country. They will cry about states rights when it suits them because their is a huge group of people that will support them. They will cry about abortion because there is a huge brainwashed group that will follow them through hell to achieve their goals. The same with gun control, gay rights, school prayer, etc.

They purposely select issues that have a huge easily manipulated following because it will put them in power. Once they are in D.C. push their real goals. They pass huge tax cuts, subsidize huge industries, hand out multi-billion dollar govt. contracts, etc. The wedge issues are rarely brought up because if they ever would change the laws they would have nothing left to decry.

Haven't you ever wondered why the free market, big business enthusiasts were so concerned with Christianity?

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. So the ultimate purpose is to keep the whackos voting against

their own best interest in order to allow the rich to keep on getting richer?

Which reminds me of another thread I started some time ago. Why would a Liberal vote for Bush? If a Liberal were rich enough, would they sell us all out and vote Republican? And how many Liberals in congress are doing just that?

[LostInAnomie]

16. No the whackos are voting in their own best interests...

... in their opinion. They actually believe in all that crap. They just don't know that the politician they are voting for is only paying them lip service.

My answer to your question about if a liberal were rich enough would they vote for Bush* is that if they are voting for * they are not a liberal. The goal of being a liberal is reform, giving power back to the people, fighting dogmatism, etc. All the things that the right wing and the Bush cabal are against. If they throw their lot with the polar opposite of liberalism in hopes to preserve the system they are by definition a conservative.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Well, just for your information, the dumb Republicans who have

been suckered in by the right-wing policies believe that rich Liberals are voting for Bush and that it's in their best interest to keep doing so.

[jedr]

2. the civil war was never really settled to the southern states;

States rights is still a big issue with these people and a way to get votes. That's why * and the repubs go to this because the population centers are now in the south. Slavery is replaced by cheap labor and we're back to 1862... Michale Linde's book "Made in Texas" does a great discussion on this topic.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. So State's Rights was another manipulation of many?

[jedr]

7. Yes , and I forgot to add;

that the rebubs are very good at "flip-flopping" when it's good for them. Also in Linde's book he describes how an commodity based economy is part of the picture. Once cotton and grains ,now oil. the chapter is called " The new Confederacy". Once I read the book, * and friends have yet to surprise me, it's all right there in the book.

[aquart]

5. It was code for segregation.

They didn't mean "state's rights." They meant "treat minorities and the poor like shit."

No wonder you're getting confused.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. That was the Southern Strategy.

[begin_within]

10. .

[begin_within]

11. Bush trampled "states' rights" to death, with Bush. v. Gore (2000)

By dragging a state election into the federal courts, Bush abolished "states' rights" once and for all.

[RoyGBiv]

13. States Rights as Political Rhetoric

The very term "states' rights" is nothing but a political tool in the modern age. Ironically enough, it was becoming that in the 1850's, when the term carried so much more emotional heat. No conflict in this country has ever revolved around the rights of states as the central issue, but it has existed on the periphery of many issues, and it has become the focus of those debates because it works so well for those seeking a specific purpose.

What the phrase says to voters, in modern parlance, is this: You, personally, are empowered to live the way you want to live, think the way you want to think, and discriminate in any way you deem necessary to advancing yourself. More crudely, it says that the people's asses you have to kick if government decisions don't go your way are fewer and closer to home.

Right wingers took up the "states' rights" mantra for one purpose, to break the so-called Solid South and move its votes into the Republican column. They never believed it; the core Republican ideology regarding the power of the central government over state governments has not changed a great deal since the 1870's, despite all the rhetoric suggestive of the contrary. Occasionally, by some necessity, those who espouse states' rights are required to openly exhibit just how little they care for the rights of the states, or of the people, in order to advance their true, fundamental agenda. You saw that with Florida in 2000. You saw it with Democrats in the 1850's when they demanded the central government enforce the federal fugitive slave act in spite of state governments' attempts to thwart their enforcement within their own borders. These occasional moments are then shrouded in a cover story that seeks to call black white and the sky strawberry red.

IOW, yes, it's a ploy. Always has been.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Why didn't we call them on it before now?

Or more to the point, when will the Democrats begin to call them on it?

[nankerphelge]

17. It is related to whatever they need on any given day

n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. You would think, that because it changes so often, that there

would be a loss of credibility eventually. But, they were picking up steam before Katrina changed everything. For example, they were about to sucker in the black vote by pitting them against Gay interests, when NOLA changed the equation completely.

So I can only conclude, that the leaders in these subgroups who are being suckered in, must be getting something out of it.

[leftofthedial]

20. weaken the federal government

they've only opposed state's rights recently and then only on "morality" issues like drug laws and sex-related laws. This has been purely to cater to their religiously insane army of idiot zombies. They feel they can abandon state's rights now because they control everything at the federal level and have MIHOPed, tax cut and illegal war'ed the federal government into multi-generational bankruptcy.