Could someone explain to me...

Look at the European union, that's what state sovereignty in the US would look like.

If we had competing local governments in the same country we would agree to free trade and common defense so there wouldn't a need for Civil War.

If the US were a confederacy your movement between states would be different with the varying entitlement programs instead of national programs.

Edit: I don't think I understand your question. Are you saying two governments in the same territory?

 

This is typically what it looks like when one country has two competing governments. The end result almost always is that there is one government to a country, even if the country has to split in two to make it happen. Power will not suffer another power to exist in the same space if it can help it.

The beauty of the EU is that it's not a country. It's a "supranational" organization of countries.

 

Well, the EU does more than just manage currency (they don't even mint the Euro, that's done by individual countries, and each country is even allowed to do up their own designs for it. It doesn't so much matter how the coin looks as it does the denomination it represents). The legal framework created by the EU allows citizens of member states to move freely within the Union, plus the EU is where a lot of intergovernmental coordination happens between member states. So, for instance, pretty much the single biggest program of the EU is the Common Agricultural Policy, to which all member states adhere and whose stated aim is to keep agriculture working well for everybody - providing farmers with livable incomes, keeping prices fair for consumers, and to "preserve rural heritage", whatever that means.

Yeah, but there's a well-established hierarchy with rules about what takes precedence when. All the states of the US are subordinate to the federal government (we fought a war over the issue of states' rights and the states' righters lost pretty definitively).

 

Well, yea, that's what the Constitution says. The Federal government's role is to ensure all the states play by the agreed upon rules, and everything else is up to the individual states. The "everything else" includes primarily social policy such as provision of positive rights and enforcing morals.

If all the states want to change the rules and do something like make education or health care a right of every citizen in the nation then they need to amend the constitution, not just achieve a simple majority of a corrupt congress.

I wonder why the children coming out of US public schools think we live in a Democracy.

As for currency our constitution permits only gold and silver as legal tender, so as long as bank notes are redeemable as advertised there is no reason the Fed should have a monopoly on legal tender. Since the start of the 20th century money has been fucked.


And sikander are you saying a resurgence of states rights is impossible because we've all been brainwashed into worshipping Lincoln? I think its inevitable that we will become fed up with the Federal government's dominance over our lives.

 

Aaronman, not so much that it's impossible or won't happen, just that as the system stands right now the federal government is clearly dominant.

 

In a way, that is what we have. The existence of one centralized government has given rise to gangs and cartels who the police can hardly touch. The only way to compete with a government is to be symmetrical, which means being cunning and unscrupulously violent.

Of course, this idea of "competing governments" is a pipe dream. By definition, a government must be inoculated against any sort of competition or alternative options.