Confederate Liberals
A core tenet of conservatism is captured by the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the last of the Bill of Rights crafted by James Madison. It’s simple and succinct: “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.”
This is better known as federalism, which is a central principle of American conservatism. Conservatives believe in limited government. They oppose unnecessary centralization in Washington, D.C. They argue that decentralized, local government closer to the problem at hand is typically better, more efficient, and more helpful. The principle of subsidiarity represents this well. I’ll quote my friends from the Acton Institute:
[T]he principle of subsidiarity … holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.
When Ronald Reagan heard of subsidiarity, he considered it a mere statement of common sense. Connecting the principle of subsidiarity to the 10th Amendment, conservatives strive for a balance between excessive central governance in Washington and excessive governance by the states. James Madison so believed in such a balance that scholars refer to it as “Madison’s Middle Ground.” Among his fellow founders, Madison’s middle ground stood between Thomas Jefferson’s preference for state governance and Alexander Hamilton’s preference for a strong federal government. Reaching this middle ground has been a matter of fierce debate since the late 1700s. It reached its most vociferous point, of course, during the Civil War. In more recent times, liberal presidents such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson pushed more powers toward the federal leviathan in Washington. By the 1990s, Republicans like Newt Gingrich in the House and Democrat President Bill Clinton found common middle ground in areas such as decentralizing and block-granting welfare.
The reality is that liberals invoke states’ rights all the time.
Never a calming voice in these debates are liberals, especially left-wing race-baiters, which unfortunately describes most modern progressives. Anytime that a conservative properly invokes states’ rights, a liberal maniac jumps forward to hyperventilate and howl “Jim Crow! Racism!” at the top of his or her lungs. These voices of unreason insist that any invocation of states’ rights is “code language” or a “dog whistle” for racism. Max Boot did this with remarkable crassness in his awful biography of Ronald Reagan. (See: Paul Kengor, “Max Boot’s Reagan Is the Worst Book of the Year.”)
When a conservative appeals to basic 10th Amendment federalism, the unhinged liberal accuses the conservative of being a closet Confederate racist. (RELATED: What’s Really Causing the Minnesota ‘Insurrection’?)
And yet, here’s where such behavior from liberals gets even more maddening: The reality is that liberals invoke states’ rights all the time.
Progressive Confederates
To that end, I commend to readers three recent pieces we published at The American Spectator, which yet again affirm this point.
Our Ellie Gardey Holmes published a disturbing piece on the latest crazed abortion actions of the heretical Catholic governor of New York, Kathy Hochul. Ellie notes that last week Hochul’s pals in the New York state Senate “passed a bevy of pro-abortion legislation that seeks to ensure abortion is funded and protected to the maximum extent possible. This included funding travel, meals, and lodging for women seeking abortions.” (RELATED: New York State Serves Up Insanity on Egg Freezing)
I’ve followed this mess for quite a while. I had written about Hochul’s offer to provide such “services” back when Roe was reversed with the 2022 Dobbs decision. Hochul was so incensed that she dashed to the cameras to make a most generous offer to women outside of New York in pro-life states. Hochul urged them to come to New York, where they would be warmly treated to abortions. “Abortion access is safe in New York,” declared Hochul. With a grim grin, Hochul morbidly savored: “To the women of Texas, I want to say I am with you. Lady Liberty is here to welcome you with open arms.” She vowed: “We will help you find a way to New York.” As for any federal authorities who might want to halt this interstate commerce, Gov. Hochul effectively had a two-word rejoinder that would thrill any Jim Crow racist: “States’ rights!” (See: Paul Kengor, “The Democrat States’ Rights Supremacists.”)
Yes, states’ rights. For Hochul, it was time to assert state supremacy uber alles. To hell with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was Albany to the rescue—not only for women in the Big Apple, but from Austin, Dallas, Houston. Lady Liberty would cradle them (but not their babies) in her arms.
The states’ rights fanaticism of this liberal Democrat governor is echoed by liberals in the New York legislature. They, too, are states’ rights nuts. They urge women from every state to come to New York with every cost covered to kill their unborn babies.
Are the nattering nabobs at the New York Times calling out this states’ rights hypocrisy by their progressive brethren? Hardly. From every left-wing outpost, there’s a new slogan to cheer. Do you hear them, dear reader? Listen: “States’ rights! States’ rights! States’ rights!”
Except that their battle cry isn’t actually new at all. Liberals invoke states’ rights constantly. I noted last year how the left-wing governor of Maine, Janet Mills, and her progressive legislature went full-Jefferson Davis in defying federal law by rejecting President Trump’s new Title IX rules barring biological men from beating girls in women’s sports. “See you in court,” Mills told President Trump defiantly.
And if the Supreme Court ever overturns Obergefell as it did Roe, you can expect liberals to become states’ rights fanatics for marriage laws. They’ll legalize same-sex “marriage” in all their states and tell the feds the issue is none of their damned business. Washington has no authority over them!
Liberals are not thoughtful enough to discern their contradictions.
Do they not see the hypocrisy in their invoking of states’ rights that they blast conservatives for invoking? No. Liberals are not thoughtful enough to discern their contradictions. Liberalism is based not on rational thinking but emotion — pure, unbridled, raging, child-like emotional outbursts. Our R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. had them pegged long ago when he dubbed it “infantile liberalism.”
That brings us to another current example of their states’ rights extremism on full display: Gov. Tim Walz’s Minnesota. Like Golden Boy Gavin Newsom in California or any number of other liberal governors, Walz (as well as Minneapolis’ left-wing mayor) is fully defiant of federal law when it comes to illegal immigrants in his midst. As he fights the feds, left-wing activists from all over America dash to Minnesota to cheer him on and join the rebellion against Washington. (RELATED: Minnesota and the New Nullification Crisis)
The hypocrisy of Walz was captured nicely in a piece last week by our Jeffrey Lord, aptly titled, “Tim Walz: The New Jefferson Davis.” Jeff writes:
For those who read history, there is a recall of a long-ago politician, this one a U.S. senator who was so taken with the notion of rebelling against the federal government and a Republican president that he resigned his seat as a U.S. senator from Mississippi and was selected to be president of the new Confederate States of America. And in that capacity, he marshaled the forces of anti-federal government dissidents to formally fight the Union forces led by Republican President Abraham Lincoln.
In today’s America, there is Minnesota’s Democrat Governor Tim Walz following the path of Jefferson Davis, marshaling the forces of violent anti-federal government ICE protestors to fight federal government ICE employees led by another Republican president, Donald Trump.
Also making this point for The American Spectator is Josh Hammer, who in his article, “The Rise of the New Confederacy,” writes: “In echoing the discredited theories of yesteryear, Ellison, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and the rest of the state’s top Democratic brass have emerged as modern reincarnations of Jefferson Davis and George Wallace. They wouldn’t see it that way, naturally.” (RELATED: The Rise of the New Confederacy)
No, they wouldn’t. They’re not smart enough to connect the dots. And don’t make the mistake of thinking they are smart enough. Liberals are not shrewd Machiavellians playing multi-dimensional political chess. Their ideological worldview is driven by emotion. Thus, on one hand, they’ll scream “racist!” at any conservative invoking the 10th Amendment while they themselves become the most strident states’ rights Confederates.
Let’s accuse them of what they accuse conservatives of. Behold: Confederal liberals.
READ MORE from Paul Kengor:
A Haunt of Demons Shuts Its Doors … The Fall of Margaret Sanger’s ‘Clinic’
Mike Reagan, Twice Adopted, Rest in Peace
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