John Wilkes Booth

alright, but i think the basic spirit of my initial point is unaffected by either of these nuanced attempts at contradicting what i said. my basic point is that if the issue was left up to individual states, this issue would have dragged on for at least the next few decades.

the same basic logic applies to say racial desegregation or the abolition of slavery. the way the 'republic' was originally set up to work, as a voluntary collection of individual states, has essentially been overruled by a more centrally controlled and slightly more autocratic federal system.

and then we simply arbitrarily decide when to support 'states rights' vs majority rule on a federal basis, depending on where we happen to stand on any particular issue. i.e. i see liberals whine about the DEA enforcing federal drug laws in states that are passing legislation to decriminalize or legalize marijuana, and then the same liberals will turn around and rejoice at the federal system imposing the legalization of same sex marriage on states where the populace disagrees and in some cases the states have actually moved to put in place legislation that would ban the practice.

it seems like putting in place a constitutional amendment is so damn impossible that we've opted in favor of the supreme court using a sort of convoluted logic to change laws via interpreting the existing constitution, based on their political persuasion. and then the only way this is still changed by citizens voting is indirectly; liberal presidents appointing liberal justices and vice versa.

where as if we just got ourselves a nice strong vladimir putin type dictator, he could bypass all this bureaucratic nonsense and be like "nah son, here's how this **** is going to go"