Confused over states' rights
3 February 2006 - Orange County Register

Letter-writer Bob Constantine makes a perfectly logical assertion when he says that our two illustrious senators represent the values and wishes of the majority of Californians. After all, we keep sending them back to Washington, don’t we? We’ll leave the statistical analysis of calling 7 million votes out of 22 million eligible voters a "vast majority" for another time.

With this logical leap behind him, I found his list of issues with the Bush administration amusing to no end. He rightly decries the federal propensity to trample states’ rights, but doesn’t notice how the rest of the items on his list conflict with that view. Allowing current workers under 50 to opt-out of Social Security (hardly the "dismantling" he fears) would return federal tax money to hard-working citizens to invest as they wish, at the same time freeing states to consider implementing their own state-funded pension plans if they wish. The much-touted "woman’s right to choose" comes from an edict handed down by the federal Supreme Court, handcuffing a state’s right to define for itself what constitutes murder and what is an allowable medical procedure. Federalized health care would make obsolete any programs necessary to individual states but useless to others, just as federal marriage regulations (defining who can marry who) would make obsolete any decisions states have made for themselves on that topic.

Notice that in each case, regardless of his stated concern for states’ rights, Mr. Constantine wants more federal intervention rather than less. Sounds like someone’s confused, and it ain’t the Register or "the kooky right wing of Orange County".