Don't Secede; We'll Cut You Off Instead
Media-created nicknames for people and the cultural phenomena they spawn existed for decades. There are those who remember the Beatniks from the 1950s and most people, regardless of age, are familiar with the Hippies from the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Now that mainstream media has a profit leech attached to its information-providing hide, these nicknames appear with greater frequency. Just in the last nine months, the American public has been introduced to:
Birthers – These are people who vehemently believe that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen.
Truthers – This is a new nickname for conspiracy theorists that contend the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were an inside job.
Deathers – These are people who erroneously think the expansion of government-funded health care beyond Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration will inevitably prompt the government to abandon health care for the elderly.
Sadly, there are people in elected federal office who cynically foment the nonsense Deathers believe in. This segues into a fourth media buzzword specifically crafted for elected officials at the state level: Tenthers.
Tenthers, consisting mostly of governors, state representatives, and people who support their views, believe that the federal government has no business advising them on what the individual states should and shouldn’t do. The name stems from the rights enumerated in the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It would be fair to call people like Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and the rest of the segregationists Tenthers because they believed the federal government had no right to dictate how individual states should conduct business or enforce the laws in their respective states.
Some of the more prominent Tenthers today include Texas governor Rick Perry (R) and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R). When the stimulus bill passed last spring, Perry, Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC), former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), and Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) all wanted to refuse the stimulus funds coming to their states (they all relented and accepted the federal funds). With the Health Care bill approaching resolution by year’s end, Pawlenty has threatened he will not accept any monies for federally funded health care. If Pawlenty or any other Republican governor wishes to follow this path, they are Constitutionally bound by the Tenth Amendment to do so. If I were the federal government if this came to pass, I would adhere to their wishes fully and not provide any federal funding to their respective states (not for transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and so on).
This tactic is similar to the media’s habit of creating buzzwords for cultural phenomena; it’s been around for a long time. In my lifetime the federal government employed this strategy at least twice: during the Nixon administration to get every state to comply with the 55 MPH national speed limit and during the Reagan administration to raise the federal drinking age to 21. Each time the federal government withheld transportation funds from states who were slow to comply with federal law.
Birthers – These are people who vehemently believe that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen.
Truthers – This is a new nickname for conspiracy theorists that contend the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were an inside job.
Deathers – These are people who erroneously think the expansion of government-funded health care beyond Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration will inevitably prompt the government to abandon health care for the elderly.
Sadly, there are people in elected federal office who cynically foment the nonsense Deathers believe in. This segues into a fourth media buzzword specifically crafted for elected officials at the state level: Tenthers.
Tenthers, consisting mostly of governors, state representatives, and people who support their views, believe that the federal government has no business advising them on what the individual states should and shouldn’t do. The name stems from the rights enumerated in the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It would be fair to call people like Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and the rest of the segregationists Tenthers because they believed the federal government had no right to dictate how individual states should conduct business or enforce the laws in their respective states.
Some of the more prominent Tenthers today include Texas governor Rick Perry (R) and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R). When the stimulus bill passed last spring, Perry, Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC), former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), and Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) all wanted to refuse the stimulus funds coming to their states (they all relented and accepted the federal funds). With the Health Care bill approaching resolution by year’s end, Pawlenty has threatened he will not accept any monies for federally funded health care. If Pawlenty or any other Republican governor wishes to follow this path, they are Constitutionally bound by the Tenth Amendment to do so. If I were the federal government if this came to pass, I would adhere to their wishes fully and not provide any federal funding to their respective states (not for transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and so on).
This tactic is similar to the media’s habit of creating buzzwords for cultural phenomena; it’s been around for a long time. In my lifetime the federal government employed this strategy at least twice: during the Nixon administration to get every state to comply with the 55 MPH national speed limit and during the Reagan administration to raise the federal drinking age to 21. Each time the federal government withheld transportation funds from states who were slow to comply with federal law.
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Slyfox
Slyfox