[Eujacwta]

The federal government is supposed to exercise the powers it does have. Enforcing the 14th amendment is one of them. Brown v. Board of Education was a good example of why precedence should not be held sacred when the past decisions clearly conflict with the plain meaning of the Constitution.

State and local governments are less likely to overreach in ways that the citizens are powerless to change. Especially for small states, the federal government is too controlling, and there's little they can do about it. When there's 50 states, if one overreaches, you can leave. It's much harder when the federal government is doing it. The best argument against liberals' love of a strong federal government is that quite often people like George Bush get control of it.

Good points ...though I think characterizing the love of a strong federal government exclusively as the liberals' love ignores the current ruling party that continues to over reach and expand the powers of the federal government (i.e. The Patriot Act). The current policy of the federal government of continuing to cut taxes only pushes the burden and the reach down to the states and the locals.

Again, I think we're splitting hairs. Since the Founding Fathers, we've been trying to strike a balance between the power of the federal government, the state governments and the local governments. (BTW - Iraq is now struggling with the same problem and if we're still arguing about it after 229 years, I think it's a safe bet that Iraq's future is, well ...it's going to be along road).

I guess your postulate that state and local governments are less likely to over reach is based on the fact that their governments are closer to their constituents. However, some of the most primitive legislation this country has ever seen has been enacted on the local level …

Again ...I guess it's a balance...