Ron Paul and the Forgotten Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Tacked on to the end of the Bill of Rights is a secret formula for ending decades of political strife between liberals and conservatives, and bringing Americans together again -- the Tenth Amendment. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has tapped into this formula, uniting left and right with the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, leaving the most divisive issues to the individual states to sort out, and the federal government to focus on its limited list of Constitutional duties.
Not only would scaling back the scope of federal government activity allow the significant budget cuts that Ron Paul is suggesting, it would also allow liberals and conservatives to coexist more peacefully, setting local rules to suit local standards, rather than fighting tooth-and-nail over who will prevail at the national level and set the standards for everyone. The process of federalism laid out in the Constitution should have prevented such quarrels from ever reaching the national level, but even after seventy-plus years of neglect, the Tenth Amendment remains not just a good idea, but the law of the land.
Ron Paul's support of federalism is one reason that liberals and progressives who love his principled stands against the war and for the protection of civil liberties can and do enthusiastically support him, despite his personally quite conservative outlook on some social issues and taxation. Ron Paul may not share their ideals across the board, but he would never force his opinions on them, leaving the issues up to the states instead.
Ron Paul's federalism would also leave many of the government programs currently enacted at the national level up to the individual states as well. The more liberal states might restore those programs with higher state taxes, made more palatable by significant reductions in the federal tax burden. (Liberal states like California and New York currently pay more to the federal government than they receive back, so they would stand to gain in the bargain.) More conservative states might decide to leave such social programs up to private charities and individual generosity, again made more affordable by lower federal taxes.
Americans could "vote with their feet," avoiding states that adopted too much government, or those they deemed too miserly. The fifty states would become fifty experimental laboratories to find the right mix of private and government involvement, with the more successful serving as examples for the rest, rather than the entire country being forced into a one-size-fits-all solution. Why should residents of Massachusetts and Vermont be forced into obeying the same social rules as residents of South Carolina and Utah? No matter which side wins, someone is not going to be happy.
Ron Paul's critics raise the issue of past abuse of "states rights" ideology to deny civil liberties to some Americans based on race, but Ron Paul wants all Americans to share in the blessings of liberty. The Bill of Rights cannot be overruled by any state, nor can the civil rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments. When Ron Paul says he is the "Champion of the Constitution" he means the whole Constitution -- except of course for the 16th Amendment, which he would like to repeal through the proper Constitutional process, just as the 18th Amendment was repealed when it went too far in reducing our liberty.
The Founding Fathers gave the United States a system of federalism allowing for a strong national defense and free trade between the several states, along with the liberty to set most government policy at the local level, where the leaders are more responsive to the people. Ron Paul alone in the field of presidential contenders is calling for a return to the wisdom of federalism, and is attracting supporters from both the left and right, eagerly rediscovering this forgotten principle. Ron Paul explained the wide appeal of this idea quite succinctly in a recent speech: "Freedom is popular!"
