State’s Rights. The term conjures up images of democracy and patriotism. Like-minded individuals working to preserve their way of life. When you look at it in those terms it sounds perfect. States are making and passing laws representing what they feel is the majority. How can you argue with that? And yet, there is another side, a darker side of this that bothers me and at the very least makes me feel uneasy about the future of America.
Alabama has just succeeded in passing immigration laws so restrictive and backward thinking I have to wonder, who the hell is running that state the KKK? Come to think about it, these are exactly the type of laws a fringe, race based, conservative, and ignorant group of white, religious old men would pass.
Alabama is actually going out of their way to target children and teens from getting an education if they are undocumented. So if someone was brought to this country as a young child and has been living in the United States all of their life Alabama is going to deny them the right to an education. In fact Alabama is going so far as to make it a crime to give an undocumented child a ride to school. Apparently the “Klansmen” running that state feel it would be much more beneficial for the undocumented children to remain as ignorant as the rest of the state’s white, conservative loons. Are you an American ONLY if you were born here (unless you were born here and your parents were undocumented). What if you were born here and lived your entire life in another country? Are you then MORE American than someone who has lived here all their life and has a vested interest in being an American? Good grief in the 1800’s when we had so many immigrants come here; do you actually think they were all documented? What about their kids they brought with them?
Oklahoma, a state without a notable Muslim population and few Muslim issues, is poised to pass restrictive laws against Muslims from “taking over their courts.” (Something that is NOT likely to happen except for in the paranoid minds of white conservatives.)
Some states are passing draconian laws restricting Planned Parenthood funding, birth control, voting rights, and the right to choose. In fact in some states you can be arrested for getting an abortion and in Oklahoma, doctors are allowed to keep birth defect information from women so as to keep her uninformed and less likely to abort the fetus (I say fetus because at the early states it is NOT a baby or a person).
There are groups trying to pass laws giving full personhood rights to a zygote or embryo. Does that mean someone can own property or inherit an estate as a 2 week old fertilized egg? In Georgia the governor is trying to pass a law making miscarriage blood and tissue a crime scene so as to determine the cause of death of the embryo. Are you kidding me? Should women who live there save soiled tampons for the coming investigation? Don’t even get me started on Texas or Utah.
Someone who is gay can be married and have equal rights in one state but can’t even visit their spouse in the hospital in another state?
If I was to accept a transfer with a company to another state for a promotion, would I have to look at the laws first to see if I was going to be arrested when I crossed the border?
Granted, some states have different needs than others. California may have different needs than Montana or Mississippi, but really, shouldn’t some basic human rights and dignity be allowed in ALL of the 50 states? If abortion is legal under Roe vs. Wade and if we have an “equal rights for all” clause in our constitution, why should it change when you cross a state border? You have rights until you cross the state line? Does that sound right to you?
Law makers are going too far and passing laws based on the whim of a small majority of fringe conservatives with an ideological agenda. They claim to love America yet hate most Americans. They are so busy looking at the tiny edge of a picture with their magnifying glass they can’t see the big picture and what these idiotic and often cruel or insane laws will mean for this nation.
States’ rights are one thing and I believe in them to an extent but……… Mini countries or kingdoms with each having a long litany of bizarre and ideological laws on their books, is quite another. If we don’t stop this, we will someday no longer be a country but a grouping of “tribes” living in geographical areas afraid of letting in “the others.” 50 years from now, will there even be a United States or will it be the Divided States of America?
