Power of the states vs. power of the federal government: who cares?

There are 50 countries in the US. They’re called states.
All right, that’s an exaggeration. They are states. But they could be countries.
If you don’t think so, consider the 2015 state budget of tiny Rhode Island: $8.9 billion. The 2016 budget for the nation of Somalia was $216 million.
The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution reads: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States [government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’
The 11th Amendment reads: ‘The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.’
If you combine these two Amendments, you begin to see the considerable powers granted to the states.
Of course, now, relatively few people care about these powers. They should, but they don’t.
The Civil War over the issue of slavery convinced a majority of Americans that states’ power was a bad thing – and it had to be remedied when high moral principles and intolerable suffering were at stake.
This premise was, however, expanded to include almost any issue on which the federal government wanted to assert its supremacy.
Which is where we are now.

This post was published at Jon Rappoport on March 2, 2017.