state sovereignty

Get ready for a new catch phrase as we enter the foray into the November elections of 2010 as well as the biggies in the year 2012…’State Sovereignty’.

For those who like to collect historical memorabilia, start collecting maps of the 50 states which used to represent the United States of America because if the newly identified patriots of the nation, the Tea Bag Brigade and their self serving Republican politicians, have anything to about it, it will be every state for themselves. Our union of 50 collective states will become independent bastions filled with local biases and bigotry.

For the Gay and Lesbian communities the lack of federal law and jurisdiction has already come to fruition. You can marry in Massachusetts but try and convince the citizens of Alabama that as a man you have a husband and they will laugh you all the way to jail. North Dakota permits single LGBT adoption but joint or second parent adoption is unclear, but in Arkansas it is really clear under something called Act One which prohibits unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children.

For Hispanics, Arizona has decided that racial profiling is the only way to decide who is a true American and who is not. Anyone with brown skin can be considered an illegal and all it takes is an eyeball from the police or an angry patriot to sort out the real from the ‘we don’t think you are real’. You can look Mexican in the other 49 states for now without showing your papers, but once there is a leak in the dyke the cracks soon find their way to other locales.

In Texas the state school board has decided that revisionist history is the Texan way to teach children because Joseph McCarthy and his army of anti communists were true Americans and positive lessons of his patriotic stance would be valuable to learn. In Virginia the love of the Confederacy is making a comeback and according to its elected official’s slavery were just a blip and vigilantisms and tyranny made the Confederacy great. The state of Michigan allows people from Florida to carry a concealed weapon but only if you are a resident of Florida and have proof that you have a license to carry a concealed weapon, but if you live in Vermont who issues no licenses for concealed weapons you can not carry a concealed weapon while vacationing in Florida because you need a permit in order to conceal your ‘heat’. And even though the District of Columbia has a ban on concealed weapons due to the high crime rate in that city, Floridians wanting to take aim at Washington can carry their weapons.

The Tea Bagger Brigade is protesting and screaming about too many taxes, that this country is too secular, personal rights are being taken away because the government would like all of its citizens to be healthy, not enough lax gun rights laws. They have convinced enough self loathing, I want something for nothing, I deserve it because I am white and Christian loonies to stop looking at this country as a nation of 50 states but instead as parcels of land unique and different from any other parcel. The Tea Baggers have enticed enough self victimizing individuals to point fingers at others to solve the problem without owning up to any or all mistakes, missteps, misconceptions of their own to try and find consensus rather than spread conflict. The voices of reason are being replaced with riot.

The picking and choosing of State Sovereignty is not really a scientific decision, it is based primarily on we don’t like something so we will no longer look at the greater good just stick with selfish gain. Wonder what would happen to the people in Tennessee suffering from a devastating flood if that state were left to handle the millions of dollars in disaster relief on their own because the federal government is too socialistic? Or the folks along the Gulf coast if each state, sovereign and self supporting had to handle the expense of the clean up. When the tornados in Oklahoma rip out the foundations of towns and property wonder if the Oklahomans could find the resources in their states coffers to rebuild?

The scary thing about the State Sovereignty movement is that it eats away at the Constitution, it wants to erode those laws which speak about fair and equal and replace them with hate, bias and bigotry. If it is good for me, I like it, if it is good for someone else and I get no residual from it, it is too socialistic, too communistic, too Un-American.

Wonder if the people of Utah will decide that the only true state religion is Mormonism. Wonder if the people of South Carolina will decide that the Confederate flag is the true emblem of that state? Wonder if the people of Oklahoma will decide all abortion are illegal and deny the women of that state from seeking help. Wonder if the people of Alaska feel that since the majority of drilling for oil comes from their state, they can control where it goes?

It seems this country is beginning to ignore the greater good for a selfish gain. We readily create scapegoats and just as eagerly forget about the contributions of others. We love pointing fingers at others while never turning our hands toward ourselves and asking what can I do differently. We seem to brush aside solving a problem and would rather lay blame for its inception.

I am sure if you ask some Neo Con born again right wing Christian evangelical the question “What would Jesus do” the answer would be ‘State Sovereignty’.