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" In 1996, Kenneth Stern wrote a terrific book called A Force Upon The Plain, about the rise of the militia movement in America, particularly in the west. At one point in the book, Stern quotes a militia-connected Colorado state senator named Charlie Duke, who tells a gathering of &amp;quot;patriots&amp;quot; in Indianapolis, that members of Congress &amp;quot;don&amp;#039;t seem to know what the Tenth Amendment is about.&amp;quot; Duke, Stern reports, also was the driving force behind non-binding &amp;quot;Tenth Amendment Resolutions&amp;quot; in 15 states. These resolutions, writes Stern, &amp;quot;exalted states rights over the laws of the federal government.&amp;quot; Recall now that, in 1994, this was the thinking of a guy who also believed that the federal government was implanting microchips into American infants. Recall it because now, in 2012, every single one of the four remaining Republican candidates for president essentially have signed onto Charlie Duke&amp;#039;s program. Oh, they&amp;#039;ve shined it up. It&amp;#039;s not draped in camo any more, and the four of them are considerably less well-armed than the people who were pushing this 20 years ago, but they&amp;#039;ve all come around to the basic notion. What was once the province of people who were flirting with armed sedition is now a position that any Republican who wants to have a serious chance at national office has to take. Rick Perry based his entire campaign for presidency on this very point, and now he&amp;#039;s heading up a group of Tenther SuperFriends on behalf of N. Leroy Gingrich. As with many things, the four of them are confused on the issue. At one moment, they&amp;#039;re saying that it is a violation of the Tenth Amendment for the federal government to do those things that they don&amp;#039;t like it to be doing. (This is the pure Tenther position.) But then the discussion quickly morphs into an argument that the various states can do those things better than the federal government can. The latter contention is easily refuted, and more easily laughed into oblivion. Those of us here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) find the whole thing very funny; we&amp;#039;ve just seen our third consecutive speaker of the state house of representatives convicted and sent to jail. Top that, Louisiana! State governments are sinkholes of fraud and thievery. Just ask any local wingnut radio talk-show host. Only this week, we saw what happens when you &amp;quot;leave things to the states.&amp;quot; Governors and legislatures in several states are appropriating the money sent out by the federal government to the victims of the foreclosure fraud scandal for their own purposes. Which leaves our heroes up there with the constitutional argument, the intellectual parentage of which should give us all pause. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12871/tenth-amendment-2012-6863683/>