It is a question of some speculation for me. Would we be better losing the Federal election so that we may better motivate our like faction agents in the States...?

I guess I just don't trust any set of politicians to honestly do what they say on their own accord and would prefer to have factional rivalry also positioned to help push them(our pieces) where we need em. Never forgetting that we are trying to build something in our States a structure of resistance, something we intend the democrats to copy and uses when their time of rivalry comes.

So I suppose in the grand scheme of things I see their partisan rivalry(including blindness) as something to be planed on, rather than something that can be seriously overcome.

Hahah, Geri, you might want to take a closer look at China, not only do they have a great deal of decentralization. They are not exactly "developed".

China is booming because she is finally embracing economic freedom(AKA Capitalism), even as the west has been slowing striping the same from its people. The degree of China's growth is a simple product of the previous condition of her people. Literately reduced to eating cats & dogs.

Now that her people are finally being liberated from the Communist goverment bonds that had confined them for so long. China is finding that she of course has almost no where to go but up. Still as they are now and will be for the foreseeable future they are only a fraction as wealthy & successful as we currently are.

This is something I enjoy about his campaign too. Its good to see someone challanging some of the past compromises we have made. Couldn't happen at a better time for republican ether. If the Democrats let their hate of republicans drive them to reject states rights they will invariably loses big time.

There is a reason both political parties have long had in their platform a support for States rights. Nobody wins when power is centralized except Washington D.C. So I suspect one way or the other the democratic party will be force to either point out the republican hypocrisy, or (if we have anything to say about it) play one upmanship with them.

To achieve this dream Texas and the other states that share her sentiment in this matter(there are a great many) must find a way to take back that which was taken from them by the Federal Government in taxes to pay for theses unenumerated functions. (This will likely require correlated efforts in order to have a significant impact.)

It would behoove congress if they were to make but one condition to their voting for any bill that this condition be the total elimination of all “conditions” which any state must meet to reseave these funds.

The propose being to free the States to experiment not only in reform but also freedom in the abolition of some of theses problems (with the transfer of their federal contributions to fund the general state government after State tax cuts).

Eventually of course we would want all the States to raise their own taxes to fund all programs state programs themselves. It really makes no sense to be taxed by one government for the functions of anther. Such an “arrangement” of government is as we have long observed is only a source of non-democratic blackmail.

End the Federal taxation and/or transfers to our State and you end the abusively compromising relationship potential. We the people will then be free to elect our state governments for one propose and our Federal government for anther. A president's position and skills on matters like education or really domestic crime should not matter. We should be free to elect the president and our congressmen entirely on the basis of their skills and policy regarding their positions enumerated powers.

For example: In my judgment someone like Ron Paul would make a terrible president insofar as the enumerated functions of the presidency goes, but he would make a fantastic Governor.

It should be noted that the Texas Speaker of the house in question Rep. Joe Straus is a corrupt liberal who only became speaker because of a coup the other year in which 11 liberal republicans sides with the democrats to elect him. (Texas elects its speakers by whole vote)

The republicans in the Texas legislator made massive gains in the 2010 election so it should be possible to get rid of Rep. Joe Straus. Even still Joe has attempted to blackmail Texas republicans in the legislator into vote for him. Threatening to redraw their district so they would be defeated if they voted against him.

Grab liberty by the tail and fly with it Texas!

The bill's author should add a clause to the bill for sentimental reasons saying something to the effect:

"The Governor of Texas is hereby directed by the people of Texas, as expressed by this legislator, to seek immediate redress for the rights and liberty's usurped from the people of Texas by this unauthorized act of congress."

The legislator must make it as clear and unambiguous as possible that this act is about defending the cherished rights and liberty's of the people of Texas.

While controlling the State and directing it to resist theses usurpations, is important, it is but a temporary measure. The real fight requires alerting the people of not only Texas but the rest of the United States to the dangers that now exist and rallying them to rise to the defense of their constitution of Limited Government.

The Government of Texas cannot war alone, she can merely help protect the people of Texas from its consequences for a time. The war which will result form what will be termed by Washington as a "Constitutional Crisis" brought forth by theses acts can only be won by an alert, informed, and free people rising to the occasion.

After this act the State will have done its first job(as expressed in the Federalist papers) in alerting the people to the danger and calling for their aid in the defense of liberty. Their second job may be a lot more difficult, responding to the advice and consent of their people in how to best go about defending them on a more permanent basis. But then again that is precisely what they do all the time with regard to the domestic threats of criminal usurpations.

This fight has just begin.

While you are correct in your facts and i think realistic in your expectation. My point was it is sometimes a lot easier to influence someone when you play as their friend then when you presume to be their enemy,

It is equally easier to be convening in the travesty of your betrayal when you are not so openly expecting that betrayal.

I do not presume to ask you to place a bet on them doing the right thing. I know almost as well as you do the numbers, and just how dismal our odds are in this department.

I simply suggest that there may be a better way to position ourselfs at this time to maximize the odds that they will do the right thing, while also maximizing the impact of their betrayal.

In any-case there is room for optimism, we have quite successfully taken over a great many State legislators with new directions. They are now, unlike in a long time, openly talking about the 10th amendment and fixing to work to defend it.

We have made a great deal of progress in our cause Michael! Let us build upon and press that advantage.

Given that they are republicans, we will need to create the idea that we are working in concert as an ally of the republicans in the house in order to uses party faction to help drive the rest of the support we need, while also avoiding party faction problems with the majorty of our existing base. This is yet anther reason to at least "appear hopeful" and positive about the republican congress.

Right now we have positioned the republicans with the retorical words, motives, and power to start seriously doing something. But we are still not yet strong enough. We have barely set foot upon the shore, and we could fall back into the sea should we bounder badly.

I would suggest we spend more time focusing on building up our base of support, specifically the idea that the State Government can be an effective tool in influencing the Federal Government and controlling political policy.

The attention of the people must shift from Washington to home if the people are to uses their states instead of Washington.

Also on the menu is more aggressive acts of nullification, and interposition. Already we got state officials openly plotting how to slowdown the health-care law. They are getting the idea in their head, now we just got to make sure they do it.

While governments always grow, as you very well know, in the State we can uses that to tear at the Federal Government.

Maybe they will continue the youcut program?

Michael we should at least try to hold them to their word. That means starting with the honest presumption that they will do something, or at least try to do something. It is their failure to do that thing which we can and will uses to hang em politically.

But let us be "scientific" in their testing, so that when and if they do fail we can use it against them with maximum effect.

Let people see their dilutions dispelled with their own eyes first hand, clearly and concisely. Not on the mere words of any of us.

Good post, I agree the legislators are more important and we need to look at containment from the State level point of view. Hopefully we can lul the New house of reps into allying with our states in this regard.

We need merely to get them to kill the Federal Governments ability to resist. We can and must do the dirty work from here.

But first things first we picked up a lot of new legislators in this last election: http://www.ncsl.org/?tabid=21253

We need to establish the loyalty of each legislators and set the tone. Perhaps a 2nd round of 10th amendment resolutions to find out the loyalty of theses new state legislators, and help commit them to our cause would be helpful?

We should cheer we took control of many State legislators with folk sympathetic to our cause, just as we picked up many governors who are likewise likely to be sympathetic. I say this not because they are republican but because they have learned to respect the primary and general power of the TEA party.

We also have a house of congress promising to cut back on the Federal Government's excesses.

All of theses gains particularly in the Federal Government should be taken with a grain of salt, not rejected out of hand.

While we have all heard this talk before, and should not let our guard down, we now have more reason then we have had in many decades to have at least some hope. But that hope comes at a high price.

The War we now wage has become a lot more complicated. Our enemy's will now increasingly be hidden among our friends.

Its a lot easier to build and deploy large numbers of "dumb bombs" blanketing an entire area then it is to build and deploy "smart bombs" capable of surgical strikes against enemy's that take refuged among friends.

Yet that is the miltiary equivalent of our situation. While our position is improved the fight has actually gotten harder. Many of our new "friends" will become corrupted by their power and turn on us, but some of them will stay faithful. The friends that betray us will be even harder to target then the enemy's that we never presumed to be allied with us.