Thank you for the very reasonable and rational explanation! That does broaden my interpretation of vturner’s comment.
Your comment seems broadly true and open minded as well. I have a couple of questions, possibly from a devil’s advocate perspective, purely for the sake of discussion because I’m curious:
When you say the government was originally geared to mediate the states and that real governance was supposed to be states, what does the Supremacy Clause in the constitution mean to you? It was there originally from the start, and it declares the federal government the winner of conflicting state and federal laws.
Second, while I am personally a fan of states’ rights in a bunch of specific scenarios, it makes little sense to me to talk vaguely about who should be in control of most laws without a specific list of regulations in mind. Where can I find a list of federal laws that are broadly viewed to be overreach by most people, that most people agree should be in state control?
Acknowledging that there is politics here, that it’s a fight over control, and your point that the Federal government is leveraging tax money, is it possible that the natural order of things is for laws to drift in the federal direction anyway - as travel across state boundaries has become faster and faster, as the internet blurs the lines, as state laws individually become closer together, as we see more needs for consistent standards nationally, etc.? When the constitution was written it took a minimum of days to even communicate with another state, let alone spend money, purchase goods, or visit. The geographic, financial, and communication boundaries between states has literally almost disappeared compared to what it used to be.