The federal government has been in the racketeering business for a long time, but it’s called “general welfare.” Through federal taxation, a burden on a state’s economy, funds are used to “fix” problems that the state government may not agree exists. Failure to submit to these programs could result in exclusion of the benefit of those levied funds with the possible threatened and additional loss in previously relied upon funds. Keeping South Dakota in a kneeling position is a strategy to easily dictate terms with whatever immoral tactics the federal government deems necessary. Also, a state under financial duress is beneficial for a federal administration to encourage the waiving of constitutional rights voluntarily by states through incentives or threats. The administration of one President may start a program with the states and then a following administration will use that established and required program as leverage for their gradualist agenda – where a once funded and agreed upon program can be suddenly unfunded if the state displeases that federal administration. This bargaining away of natural rights within a freedom-based society is kin to the dealings of Faust and Mephistopheles.
Federal coercion has been used to misdirect South Dakota’s self determination and bastardize the tenth amendment. Involuntary Medicaid expansion was the most recent high profile case of such abuse with a narrow majority of opposition in the U.S. Supreme Court. The governor’s administration, for the preservation of federalism, should resist being forcibly co-opted by any federal administration to the detriment of our people’s sovereignty. I profess that this defense of our state’s rights is an active and unending struggle and should never be passively disregarded by a knowledgeable ignorance.
The inducement of compliance through threat, most apparent by newly elected national administrations, is a tool used to further sweep aside the wishes of the minority. South Dakotans, few in number as compared to the national population, are waiting victims without the diligent reinforcement of our states reserved rights through the tenth amendment. The many administrations over our nation’s history have continually narrowed our Constitution’s amendments past the direct interpretations and unto the apparent shredding of their very soul. The ninth and tenth amendments have been cast aside largely due to their lack of lettered explanation.
The enormous pressure that can be exerted by the federal government to implement policy under seemingly attractive propaganda in order to “white wash” the collateral damage to individual rights should be universally feared. The federal government, through the arrogance of ruling parties, have terrorized people that do not share the same agenda. In the belief of Thomas Hobbes and his followers, strong federal coercion through a centralized government is necessary, because a people left to themselves should not be trusted to behave in a civilized manner. This philosophy tatters the belief in the nobility of mankind. Perhaps Alexander Hamilton’s greatest folly was his naïve belief that states wouldn’t be coerced and their rights compromised by the powerful governments advocated by Hobbes.
Spineless action by the custodian of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court, over what denotes coercion by the federal government versus simple encouragement has continued into this new era of degraded federalism. The legacy of our Supreme Court has no such carried assumption similar to papal infallibility by the American people and have as much to blame for the poor defense of our rights as our governments. In another time and different state administration, our people sent Mark Barnett to do battle with the federal leviathan about what is considered “mild encouragement.” Who will go next to challenge the federal government over how free South Dakotans are to govern themselves?
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