REAL ISSUES

Now that I've had a few days to reflect on the Monday PEOPLE VS. POISON rally at the U.S. Supreme Court, I'd like to share a wide-ranging thought.  In case you missed it, I was one of 30 speakers, allotted 3 minutes each, to address the crowd on the sidewalk, held at bay by a phalanx of capital police to keep us off the actual steps to the court. I was honored to be asked and offer today's post as a seeker, not a prophet.

                  The rally was convened to oppose the possible ruling that would prohibit a state from imposing herbicide rules counter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) findings.  In other words, in this case, if the EPA says glyphosate (Roundup) is okay, no state may say it's not.  Supreme Court rulings are often much more narrow than we non-attorneys think.

                  The case had nothing to do with glyphosate's harms (non-hodgkins lymphona) that have resulted in some $10 billion in Bayer payouts to lawsuits, with some 54,000 cases pending.  A state ban on a legal product is what is at stake, not the efficacy or liability of the herbicide. Trump's recent executive order elevating glyphosate to a product of national security--civilizational survival--ignited the rally effort.

                  As I've pondered the various speakers and themes from the rally, I've realized it completely missed this states' rights issue.  I was the only one who said "we're asking the wrong question," but I completely missed the primary issue:  the right of a state to be different than federal ideas. 

                  This leads me to appreciate how failure to understand and even repent of past mistakes enables continued problems.  Historians use the phrase "past is prologue" to describe what I'd like to explore for a moment.

                  President Trump still lauds his Warp Speed operation developing mRNA covid shots as one of his most impressive accomplishments.  The fact that it killed people and is still wreaking havoc on people who took the shots doesn't enter the conversation.  Unless and until Trump apologizes to the nation for such a terrible act, the pharmaceutical companies will continue to hold sway.  Nothing would give RFK Jr.'s attempts to get to the bottom of vaccine use, abuse, and damage like an official recognition that Warp Speed was a mistake.

                  Failure to acknowledge the error sets the nation up for continuing rounds of pharmaceutical extortion, exploitation, and damage.  The states' rights issue is similar and has its roots in the War Between the States.  It was not a Civil War because the south had no intention of taking over the northern states.  By definition, a civil war occurs when two sides vie for control of the national government. 

                  That was not the case in 1861.  While slavery made a great flash point for the conflict, the roots ran much deeper into northern trade policy, taxes, and other things.  Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, just published at that time, proved unequivocally that voluntary labor was far cheaper than slave labor; slavery as an economic option was unsustainable.  Abraham Lincoln's conviction that states could not exercise their self-governance prerogative precipitated the bloodiest conflict on American soil.

                  What if Lincoln had let the southern states exercise self-governance?  The two countries would have been much smaller and been good friends, like we are today with Canada.  Further, perhaps the federal government's non-takeover mentality would have recognized its treaties with the Native American tribes, leaving them alone and further diminishing the size of the United States of America.

                  With the land carved up in three units:  U.S.A. C.S.A, and Native American, our nation would be much, much smaller than it is.  The blight of federal tyranny, the power of the U.S. empire projected and meddling around the world, might not exist today.  

                  My point here is to recognize that this glyhphosate debate was lost in 1861 when the federal government (Lincoln) decided states had no right to disagree with the federal government.  Numerous movements, from nullification to a modern Convention of the States, have sought to claw back the founders' commitment to a "50-state experiment" whereby states had nearly all the power, and the federal had very little. 

                  It's similar to the problem with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the attempt by many in the environmental community to outlaw them.  If everyone opposed to GMOs would fight for personal property rights instead of outlawing the product, we'd have a far more consistent argument.  The real issue is about privately owned beings trespassing on neighbors' property and conducting unwanted sexual orgies (pollination).  But greenies, germinated in liberal, big-government, salvation-by-regulation philosophical petri dishes, could not abide settling the issue with a private property argument. 

                  Same thing is happening with the industrial ag effort to prohibit states from prohibiting pork farrowed in gestation crates.  The issue is not animal welfare, which dominates the backlash movement.  The issue is states' rights and the "50-state experiment," which ultimately leads to the notion of self-governance. 

                  The inability to comprehend states' rights and self-governance, as a consistent convictional political philosophy, guarantees ongoing cultural friction.  Failure to recognize past federal encroachment and tyrannical dominance keeps all these issues from being discussed in a root-problem way. 

                  Glyphosate as poison is real.  It's true.  But if health advocates would fight for states' rights with the same energy and commitment as they fight for federal intervention, we would enjoy more clarity about the fundamental issues involved. 

                  Looking at history, what might have been different had Lincoln not waged war and had Native American treaties been honored?