the great compromise made at the Constitutional Convention is why. Whether it was intentional or not really doesn't matter. The system we ended up with gave us this critical balance between the rights and responsibilities of the individual states and the greater good of the entire republic.

If education was only controlled by my largely primitive state with no financing and oversight by the feds (which seemed to work rather well when I was a child), we'd be living in a land of rather expensive parochial private schools for the rich and a smattering of ill-equipped, falling down public schools in the poor areas of town. There is disparity now but it's not anything like the Libertarian mentality here would demand.

What gives us our national strength is this pooling of resources and ideologies we enjoy. The last time states rights truly tried to exert itself we ended up in a bloody civil war. Look at the red state/blue state map some time and picture all your laws being completely dictated by the reddest of the red or for that matter the opposite. A strong central government helps to smooth out those extremes just as some semblance of states rights helps to prevent the abuses of too strong a federal government.

Don't buy into the hype that Tom gives where he tries to convince you that just because you're pushing for central control of a societal function that your intent is to centralize everything. Most critical thinkers can see hybrid systems where the power of the government (which Robert so aptly identifies as us) is used to limit the power of the people that are truly scary and greedy.

Don't take my word for it Jody. Go ask a teacher.

Art

Art