New Hampshire Having a Nullification Duel with the US Government, and no News Coverage?!

We recently covered this in our government class. This is real, it's huge, and yet, there's NO news coverage for this. In fact, I'm surprised we even talked about this in class. A student brought it up, and the teacher found the entire text of the Resolution and went through it with us in class the next day. This is SO huge. If other states adopt this, it could mean a complete turnaround in the way the American government works, probably for the better. And yet, there's virtually no news coverage of it. This was the only news article I could find. No surprise, it was from a conservative news source. I normally consider myself a liberal, but in the socially apathetic, limited government sense, which is why I absolutely LOVE what New Hampshire is doing. This document is actually pretty short; we covered it in about 20 minutes, but that was with discussion.

In short, though, the State of New Hampshire is asserting its right to be its own sovereign government-- not separate from the US national government, but free to make its own decisions as the sovereign state it was intended to be. The Tenth Amendment states in very clear language, "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." The Constitution gave the US government a few select powers, and that was IT. Everything else was to be done by the states. In essence, the only reason the national government was created was for the military, for the common defense of the states. Why? Because no singular state could have defended itself alone from a foreign threat.

Adams, our second President, already started screwing up the Framers' concept of limited government. There were arguments that a Bill of Rights wasn't necessary during the Constitutional Convention; and yet, even with the Bill of Rights, Adams managed to pass the Alien and Sedition acts, a gross violation of the First Amendment. Thank god Jefferson took over afterwards, or we would have been screwed over really early on. Clearly, politicians don't (usually) know what Limited Government is supposed to be. America was founded on the basis of a Limited Government; after all, we had JUST broken away from a despotic empire, and we formed this independent nation to AVOID said despotism, right?

And yet, here's our national government acting like it has every right in the world. I daresay, they've become incredibly good at raping the Constitution when they need to. The Patriot Act? The Bailout? Come on! Even "liberal" policies like gun control, affirmative action, and social security, which I will admit are good for certain social causes in limited amounts, are NOT covered by the Necessary and Proper Clause. As I said, some things like social security and gun control could fall under the NaP Clause, if they are applied in limited and logical amounts. But some of this just squanders the taxpayers' money. Most Americans don't even want a bailout, and who can blame them? It's their money, and it's not even stimulating the precious economy.

But I digress. In essence, the government is FAR too big, grossly beyond Constitutional limits. New Hampshire, I think, has the right idea here. Their House Concurrent Resolution 6 for this session has stated that, "the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled." Ohio also developed a similar resolution to much the same effect. I say, it's about time someone had the balls to stand up for their Constitutional right. The national government has the right to tax, regulate inter-state commerce, and form a military. That's about it. Everything else is up to the states. Contrary to popular belief, state governments aren't stupid. Social issues should be the LEAST of the national government's concern, especially in a time like ours with wars to fight and allies to defend, WWIII seemingly around the corner. Social issues should be decided by the states: abortion, gay marriage, etc. (I have my views about how the government should handle these specifically, but they're not really all that relevant). As long as no rights are being infringed by the state governments, the national government has no right to interfere with their business.

GO, NEW HAMPSHIRE, GO!

But what I'm really surprised about is how there's virtually no news coverage of this. It's ridiculous. There was a nullification crisis once before, and it directly led to our Civil War. Why don't people care about this? It is SO important! I think that people are too accustomed to the national government taking care of everything, which is absolutely NOT how our government was supposed to be!

Well, that's the end of my latest rant. Enjoy yourselves. G'night.