What a stupid claim, and based on next to no real evidence. Look, there are a great many issues that folks on the left are by and large in favor of allowing states and localities to go their own ways on. I just mentioned drug laws, to take a very obvious example, and I am certain that assisted suicide and prostitution would be in the same category. Only the daft and propaganda-addled would take it that our generally not wanting gay rights — which we think of as a basic civil rights issue — to be among the issues that we’re looking to live and let live on, is somehow evidence that we are _generally_ opposed to federalism. The whole idea of the “laboratory of the states” is one that finds a very wide appreciation and endorsement on the left.

Really, Fitz, you just have _no_ idea what you’re talking about here. Roll on back to RedState already, ok?

I resent that. I read extensively on the other side. So extensively in fact that I know what most readily concede. The cultural left has no propensity for subsidiary. They are simply waiting for the right moment to bring the right case for same-sex “marriage’.

Even when California votes twice in favor of marriage the attorney general takes the unprecedented step of filing a brief against the clearly expressed will of the people.

The point is a simple one. Regardless of what level of federalism now exists- it exists solely because the Left doesn’t mind it. When the time comes that prostitution, or assisted suicide, or same-sex marriage is desired by the left on a national level…they will show zero compunction in imposing it through the courts.

Simple & irrefutable.

“But, Pan, some of those things are just _terrible_ candidates for subsidiarity. Immigration is the most obvious one: unless we want to have border guards and customs officials at state (or even locality?) boundaries, immigration is just something that pretty much _has_ to addressed at a national, not local, level. ”

I’d love to have state walls. Tom McCall once joked that he wanted to build a ply-wood curtain around the State of Oregon but was afraid it would become a tourist attraction. The NW has been isolationist since it’s inception. Our earliest history was as Oregon Country, a separate institution envisioned by Jefferson as a balance to East Coast power. Of course, before the 14th citizenship was a State right as well as a National right.

I put speed limits in there because I’m still pissed at Reagan for forcing 55 on everyone or else lose Federal highway funding. Where does that come from? The speed limits of course have changed but the precedent remains.

Of course, I think that secession should be a right, though more important is the division of powers so that the State can block overstep from the Supremes. Look at the Alien and Sedition act, the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions and the similarity to the patriot act. The country was founded on checks and balances that included separation of powers as well as division of powers. Today we barely maintain the separation of powers and the Feds have become unchecked.

Some of the others, including a lot of environmental regulation, medical policy, and speed limits, already do have significant state (and even some local) variation, so I’m not sure why they are on your list.

I must confess to not knowing quite what you have in mind in terms of “constitutional legitimacy and annulment” — are you talking about the right of secession here? If so… really??

Anyhow, the question wasn’t, “What are the things that we would throw open to more local control in a subsidiarist’s dream world?” The question, rather, was “What currently-intractable political disputes could be usefully dissolved by going subsidiarist on them?”

Speed limits, environmental regulation, drinking age, control over medical procedures, immigration, constitutional legitimacy and annulment, just to name a few. Anything that the Feds do now that transgresses the tenth amendment, books and books of regulations.

“There’s no problem with convincing many Californians that they should be able to have their own emission standards…” I suspect lots of states would love greater freedom to experiment with different sorts of drug decriminalization schemes as well.

Is it really not the case that we don’t already have a lot of federalism already? So many of our laws, affecting many very basic aspects of our lives, vary significantly from state to state and even municipality to municipality. We have high-tax, high-service localities, and low-tax, low-service localities; we have variation in minimum wages, in labor laws, in laws concerning smoking, gambling, and prostitution; in the amount and sort of restrictions that can be placed on what your neighbors can do with their properties; and of course, even after NCLB, tremendous variation as to the funding and curriculum of our schools.

Other than the incredibly thorny issues of gay rights and abortion, what other points of serious political conflict are there that a greater degree of subsidiarity would offer any sort of help with?

I get the point that the Right are not always perfect Federalists either. (The medical marijuana case for instance)

My only real point is that both parties and most people need a consensus on the rules of the game before it’s played. I am a member of the federalist Society and I often call them the “Marcus of Queensbury Fools”

This is because when one side plays by the rules and the other doesn’t, that other side keeps its honor but gets mauled in the process. Originalism, textualism, federalism, has been like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

This can be demonstrated most aptly in the “same-sex marriage” debate. National candidates have avoided the real substantive debate by talking about each State deciding on its own. (even McCain)

Right now it looks like a State to State fight. Well just a soon as they get a little democratic legitimacy and the right SCOTUS make-up, all this will be swept aside and the Supremes will foist it on the entire country with Congress & the President running interference so as to lessen political fallout.

[here is a recent article on point]
http://www.moralaccountability.com/obama-on-same-sex-marriage/cloaking-extremism-obama-and-same-sex-marriage/#more-214

So discussions about which system is theoretically best seem moot. Our adversaries (the culture left in particular) have shown the willingness in both theory & practice (Roe, Lawrence, Romer) to use whatever rhetorical tactic is politically useful until they finally rile by judicial dictate.

Now- I’m not just beating the drum of my favorite cause here (marriage) – This is building up to be the final arbiter of who really rules in this country. The elites or the people. Should we lose, it will be clear that all our theorizing is simply empty and futile.