Is There No End to Federal Intervention?

The Terri Schiavo case in Florida raises some issues that create some conflict for me. I'm ardently pro-life and anti-euthanasia in any form, but I'm also a small government conservative who would prefer that the Federal government stay out of the way of an individual state's business.

As a small government conservative who believes in keeping as much power in the states as possible, I don't like seeing issue after issue federalized either by law or judicial decree. I don't believe the founders of our country had any intent to create a massive federal bureaucracy which systematically robs the states of their authority on important issues. I guess this puts me in the same general mindset as Justice Scalia, who has been very critical of court decisions which strip power from the states.

Abortion and gay marriage are just two of today's issues which I believe should be handled by the states. One has already been federalized by judicial fiat, and the other most likely will be in the near future. I oppose both abortion and gay marriage, but at the same time believe the decisions regarding these issues should be left up to the individual states. If your state enacts laws that you don't like, you have the right to persuade your fellow citizens and change the law. If that doesn't work, you have the ultimate right to vote with your feet and move somewhere where the laws and culture matches up better with your own belief system.

Once an important issue has been federalized, the options become very few for those who oppose the law. Just about the only avenue left is amendment of the Constitution itself which is and should be a difficult and cumbersome process. With the current philosophy of a "living" constitution, even an amendment might mean nothing if one judge somewhere doesn't like it.

This week Congress took on two issues that I don't believe fit within their jurisdictional boundaries - the Schiavo case and Major League Baseball. While I heartily disagree with the judge in Florida and believe that what he's doing is nothing short of murder, I'm still somewhat conflicted about Congress inserting themselves into the argument. That view may not play well with many of my fellow religious conservatives, who in their desire to spare Terri needless suffering and pain, may be promoting a solution with tremendous negative implications in the future.

I think sometimes that we are all too willing to allow the federal government to encroach on our lives and on our rights, provided that what they do is in agreement with our politics or beliefs. You can't have it both ways. You can't be a big government conservative when they agree with you and a small government conservative when they don't. Either you believe in an all-powerful federal government or you don't, and if you don't, then sometimes states are going to do things that you're not going to like, such as the Schiavo case in Florida or gay marriage in Massachusetts.

And what in the world is Congress doing meddling in baseball? Granted, baseball has an anti-trust exemption which many use to justify congressional oversight, but baseball is also a privately owned and operated business which fully understands the negative impact that drug-induced cheating can have on the game. These people are not stupid - if steroids are creating credibility problems with the public, they'll move to fix it and fix it quickly before financial damage is done to the game. The free market will work.

Thanks for stopping by.