Federalism and Limited Government

A reader adds to our recent debate:

Your reader's critique,

"At what point do individual rights, as protected at the federal level, expand to the extent that state governments are non-entities?"

makes the very common mistake of forgetting there are more than ten amendments to the US Constitution. The point the writer seeks occured on 9 July, 1868, with the ratification of the 14th Amendment. The one that extended all the rights and privileges gauranteed in the US Constitution to residents in every state. People often forget that one when it gets in the way of their prejudices. And you should be taken to task for letting "At what point does the federal government shoulder such a burden of protecting rights, so conceived, that limited government becomes unworkable?" slip by without a suitable bitchslap. It is farcical to argue for "limited government" while at the same time arguing the government right to intrude upon consensual, private behavior. Too many conservatives have a limited idea of what constitutes limited government.