This is why one faction of conservatives "want to reduce [the federal government] to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Progressives see that notion as dangerous because they consider the government as an essential tool for solving serious problems that ruin the lives of real people. But their successes will be short lived if an expansion of government power leads to a long term disintegration of our country. Perhaps we would be better off just letting some problems fester instead of forcing government solutions.
Is reducing the federal government to that size not committing to the long term disintegration of our country? When you have states passing laws making it illegal for you to do something in another state that is perfectly legal within that second state, ala the abortion laws places like Idaho are trying to pass, how is the a cohesive nation?
You can frame it the same way too as states making things legal that are illegal in other states. But that's kind of the whole point of states, is for them to be different. It's not actually disintegrating the nation, it's providing choices. The problem comes when states use the federal government to attempt to override other states. If each state can just do their own thing and as a country we focus on prosperity, mutual aid and defense then our similarities bring us together more than our differences push us apart.
Each state is supposed to be different. Diversity is wealth. The disintegration is the forcing of everything to be the same.
I’m not talking about the states making things differently legal within their borders. I’m taking about things like the laws that make it illegal for you to get an abortion in another state where abortion is legal. It’s one state infringing on the rights of another state unless you view people as citizens of their states and not the country as a whole. That’s why I am asking how it isn’t breaking up a cohesive nation.
People literally are citizens of both their states and the country as a whole. For better our worse, the USA was intentionally structured that way with dual sovereignty.
Yes, but the states have a sovereignty that is equal to each other. They aren’t allowed to make conduct illegal that occurs in other states. Even if it was legal it’s not part of being a cohesive country.
The post I responded to originally implied that having the federal government enforce standards would lead to “The long term disintegration” of the country. I am pointing out that without the federal government enforcing standards we are already seeing states set up a long term disintegration of the country.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist