The New Constitution: Amendment XX – state’s rights

The New Constitution

Amendment XX

No state or local government entity shall assert special privilege or exemption with respect to established rights granted by the Federal Constitution.

Rationale

In a free society there is no reasonable excuse for an unequal application of law and justice, especially based on something as arbitrary as geography. Yet the US is built on the assumption that it’s perfectly acceptable for one person to have significantly fewer rights than another person who lives less than a mile away.

The “States’ Rights” doctrine arose as a means for assuring the preservation of slavery in the original Southern states (South Carolina in particular). That it was ever accepted in our nation is a stain on our legacy that we may never scrub clean. That we continue to tolerate any state’s claim that it is somehow exempt from the duty to provide fair and equal treatment to all of its residents is unconscionable.

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Index: The New Constitution Series

2 comments

  • Oh, I can just imagine the howls that this one will provoke. I like it!

  • Yes, please. End the abomination of states’ rights. We only have to look to the EU to see the bumper car politics that come out of a loose federation of otherwise autonomous states.

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