Originally posted by skekUng
See, that is another issue that should have been settled years ago. What year is this? Look how much gum are in the works in the health care bill over states rights. State's rights are being called the way to take it down.How often do you hear people in these extreme political rallies foam at the mouth while shouting "I'm a goddamn Virginian!" or "I'm a mother ****ing Floridian!" They don't. They scream about being "Americans!". It's 2010, this state v federal crap should have been settled a hundred years ago. At this point, states rights (while absolutely integral to the original founding of the country) is only used to pick and choose battles as a way of, according to people for whom the circumstance might benefit their individual issue, hindering the natural progression of the entire country. The State's rights position is almost never a good thing, except when it comes to having to settle for crappy health insurance.
They sorted out the "reserved powers" vs "federal powers" with the incorporation of the 10 amendments. the 10th amendment outlines the reserved powers.
Despite that, the federal government slowly ate away of the reserved powers, increasing their share of the governing pie. The major turning point was McCullough vs. Maryland. With a large dash of the supremacy clause, an easy interpretation of the elastic clause, and a justification of the necessary and proper clause, the supreme court ruled in favor of the federal government. This was the precedent.
The next major changes to the federal governments powers were the Civil War outcomes which essentially made the federal government the complete boss with very little reserved powers. It was pretty much "what we say the states have, they have" type of system. On top of that, if there is no justification with the prior mentioned elements, the federal government can sometimes use the commerce clause to flex their muscles.
In fact, almost every case which dealt with state versus federal laws were ruled in favor of the federal government.
So, yes, they sorted out this problem well over a hundred years ago.
The "recent" backlash of "states' rights, damnit!" is definitely recent. Sure, there were always those militia, anarchist, and other crazy groups that bemoaned the Federal Government having too much power. This is due to conservatives not liking a democrat in office. They did not have much room to complain while Bill Clinton was in office because in 1995, Clinton was in office when the first case in a long time was ruled in favor of the states' rights: United States vs. Lopez. That was a big deal for the "reserved rights" people.
However, on topic, the problem is not state laws being violated: it's the violation of the constitution. Since we were almost designed as a dual-federalist system, there are things that the states get to govern. This is a good thing. Things like car-insurance, property laws and some social issues should be left up to the states. The federal government has actually far exceeded their "necessary and proper" role, a long time ago. However, the power reference you made in your post was addressed and is not an issue. The issue concerning that, now, is removing much of the precedent that stacked up in favor of the federal government and, indeed, several cases since the 1995 one are stacking up..but nothing major in dismantling the beast of a federal government.