Hopeful Signs

State Governors Ready to Say FU to the Feds Over Real ID?
A good old-fashioned states rights rumble may be brewing.

Phrases like local sovereignty and states rights have for generations evoked horror among progressives, being seen solely as code words and rallying cries for reactionaries, racists and nativists. For most liberals and progressives in fact accomplishing real change was defined precisely as going over the heads of backward thinking local institutions and power structures to enact enlightened legislation at the federal level. What happens though when the leaderships of both major parties, the current administration and every "respectable" presidential candidate, the supreme court, and the congress, with notable but very few exceptions, are falling all over each other to show how serious they are about not daring to rock the boat about such sacred (and lucrative) Beltway cows as the war on drugs, and the necessity of curtailing civil liberties in the name of ever-expanding national police and surveillance powers?

What hopefully will happen is a revolt and this is a hopeful sign one may finally be brewing. If this movement can sustain its momentum without petering or wimping out, it could represent a revival of the kind of local power local rights defiance of the federal government (aka nullification)seen in many states and locales who refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act during the 1850s and before that the Alien and Sedition Acts. This is a form of "check and balance", Jefferson and the more radical founders counted on in the absence of a strong and effective national legislature and, guess what, here we are.