A Return To Federalism?

     One thing that drives me crazy is Americans who don't understand the founding principles of their own nation. This concept was in abundant evidence in the presidential election results of last November. Had the 51% of people who voted for President Obama understood the founding principles of this country and agreed with them, they would have never voted for the antithesis of those values in the person of Barack Obama.
     But fear not patriots of liberty and patrons of sane government, the basis of this representative republic, i. e. federalism, is in resurgence. And for those who don't understand what I am talking about, a little lesson in the founding is appropriate. The founders deliberately created a system of government through the Constitution that would severely limit the federal government's power and authority, and instead bestow that authority upon the people and the states. Each state was to be an individual laboratory of freedom and liberty. In this way, the framers of our system of government, would insure that freedom would flourish without the threat of an over-bearing central government.
     During the last 70 years this notion of federalism and a limited central government has given way to the progressive movement's ideology of an ever expanding federal government, both in scope and authority. States have been held captive by the threat from federal authorities that funds, which came from the states in the first place, would be withheld from any state that didn't tow the line. This system of consolidating power within the federal government is anathema to the founding principles of this great nation, because the founders recognized that this would create more opportunity for corruption and tyranny.
     A good case in point that is illustrative of the corruption that is a result of consolidated power is the Department of Education. Before the 1970s when it was created, education was controlled on the state and local level. This necessarily created a situation in which no single entity had control of the education system in this country. Since the creation of the Department of Education, control of the schools has been placed in the hands of the national unions which have destroyed the primary function of education, i. e. educate children in the essential disciplines they will need to be contributing members of society. The unions have worsened the education system in this country (an obvious conclusion given our drop from first in the world to thirty seventh) all while laundering hundreds of billions of dollars through the Department of Education to the Democrat party.
     Recently, states have begun to reassert their authority over their own affairs. Over half the states, those run by Republicant governors, have refused to create the state health care exchanges required by the massive government takeover of health care known as ObamaCare. Border states like Arizona, Texas and others have taken the illegal immigration problem into their own hands as a result of the federal government's unwillingness to enforce existing immigration laws. Another way in which states are reasserting their federalist authority is just beginning to happen in the arena of gun control. No doubt President Obama is not going to find states like Texas as week-kneed and acquiescent as he would prefer. The states should have never let the federal government grow to the size and authority it has. But with a resurgence in federalism promoted by some courageous governors, maybe the tide of this out-of-control federal government can be stopped and turned back for the sake of this nation and the freedom and liberty enshrined in its founding.