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> Today, when you talk about foundational principles like federalism, limited government, etc., the chief response is that those are incompatible with having a government powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority.

We live in different bubbles, it seems. I haven't heard that argument. I have heard that 'states rights' is intended to workaround various federal rules, including civil rights.

The foundation is that "all ... are creatd equal", which includes all members of minorities. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular minorities from the majority. The majority can always protect itself by changing the law.

Edit:

> https://lawliberty.org/did-the-civil-rights-constitution-dis....

I skimmed through this. The source is anti-left; of course they are going to give characterizations like that. And look at this piece of doublespeak:

When I talk about civil rights, the reader should not get the impression that I’m friendly to segregation, or hostile to the civil rights movement as it existed for the whole of the 20th century up until 1964. In fact, I’m very much in sympathy with the claims to an agitation for equal citizenship that went on up till then, but there were problems in the Civil Rights Act that were not evident at first.

They won't say they are hostile to the Civil Rights Act and every solution to problems like segregation, oppression of minorities and women, etc. And they don't offer any other solution. They are "very much in sympathy with the claims to an agitation", however. :)

> The source is anti-left; of course they are going to give characterizations like that.

But I think leftists would share the same premise! They would phrase it differently, they’d say something like: “the founders were white men who wanted to limit government power so the government wouldn’t be powerful enough to do things like end slavery or take their property.” But that’s the same argument. The traditional view is a small government of enumerated powers. The post-civil rights view is a powerful federal government that can protect minorities from democracy.

> They won't say they are hostile to the Civil Rights Act and every solution to problems like segregation, oppression of minorities and women, etc. And they don't offer any other solution.

That doesn’t logically follow. The analogous mistaken argument would be saying that those who insist on due process for deportations must support illegal immigration, because “they don’t offer any other solution.” Of course that argument is wrong. Those people simply aren’t willing to compromise on due process to address illegal immigration.

Similarly, you can be unwilling to compromise on federalism and limited government, even if it’s to address oppression of minorities. That doesn’t mean you support such oppression, simply that you prioritize other values more highly.

> The traditional view is a small government of enumerated powers.. The post-civil rights view is a powerful federal government that can protect minorities from democracy.

James Madison, one of the founding fathers of the United States, wrote:

> "This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system ...[or else] oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished... Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."

As well as : > "In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful."

As well as:

> "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."

> That doesn’t mean you support such oppression, simply that you prioritize other values more highly.

Yes it does, in fact. And while people can try to doublespeak and have everyone parsing it out, all that matters is where you end up.

Even if you think that all that matters is “where you end up,” your logic still doesn’t work. Adhering to principles of federalism and limited government also changes other aspects of society, in ways that people might deem desirable.

A solution that leaves people under cruel, evil oppression for generations tells you everything you need to know about the people supporting it.

> I haven't heard that argument. I have heard that 'states rights' is intended to workaround various federal rules, including civil rights.

That’s the same argument from the other direction. The federal government, as designed, wasn’t powerful enough to protect minorities from the majority. Those rules entailed a major expansion of federal power. Indeed, you can see the seams in the civil rights laws. For example, Title VI’s ban on discrimination in public education is implemented through conditions on federal funding. Because the federal government can’t legislate such a ban directly.

> The foundation is that "all ... are creatd equal", which includes all members of minorities. The Bill of Rights is there to protect unpopular minorities from the majority.

That’s exactly the civil rights era retconning of the constitution I’m talking about. The statement that “all men are created equal” has nothing to do with minorities. Read the context right before and right after: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip.... The statement is about self determination: the right of a people to determine their own form of government. The equality being referred to is the equality between Britain and its monarch and the colonists.

The founders said almost nothing about protecting minorities from the majority, except perhaps in the context of religious freedom. Their concern was exactly the opposite: that a minority cabal in the government would oppress the majority.

> The statement that “all men are created equal” has nothing to do with minorities. Read the context right before and right after ...

The context before and after is quite well known; I don't have to read it. What they say is that 'all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, among those life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And to protect those rights, governments are instituted among men.' (from memory, probably a few errors).

All means all - minorities included. The equality is for "all men"; rights are for "all men". Nothing is said about Britain and its monarch, except in your dreams of rationalizing oppression. The language is plain and clear, part of the reason it is so well-known.

That seems inconsistent with the history of slavery in the US. The evidence is that the people writing that didn't actually mean "all men" - if I look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... it suggests 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. That seems like strong evidence that the literal text was being interpreted with implicit caveats.

A document cannot simultaneously holds all minorities to be equal with a right to liberty and accommodate slavery as it existed in the 1700s. Some of the signers may personally have disagreed with slavery but it seems difficult to say that the document itself represented a repudiation of the practice.

Their concern was exactly the opposite: that a minority cabal in the government would oppress the majority.

That's a unique take fundamentally at odds with the very concept of the Senate.

Prior to the civil rights movement it was assumed that by freedom of association, it was beyond the scope of the government to prevent things like segregation by private citizens. e.g. if a business owner did not want to serve black customers, then that is his right. So yes, someone who does not support the government having that power to infringe on freedom of association will not support any government intervention to prevent voluntary segregation.

This is why he distinguishes between the civil rights movement before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was only concerned with preventing government enforced segregation.

He opposes any known solution to the terrible evil of segregation, and doesn't care to offer any other. If you stand by while someone is drowning, eating a hot dog, you can claim 'I do support agitation for drowning victims', but the facts are plain.

Even in your analogy, that just means you’re not willing to jeopardize yourself in any way to help, not that you affirmatively want the other person to drown. In fact they recommend that you don’t try to help drowning victims, because they often cause their rescuers to drown as well. More generally, not caring about other people isn’t the same as affirmatively wanting to harm them.

> that just means you’re not willing to jeopardize yourself in any way to help, not that you affirmatively want the other person to drown.

In life, in practice, there isn't meaningful difference. They still drown because you abandoned your responsibilities.

The US Civil War was fought over protecting minorities from private slaveowners, so the federal government’s role didn’t fundamentally change in the 1960s.

> who the police are being deployed to protect, private citizens or the government itself

I must have missed the outpouring of Republican support for the black lives matter protests when they were attacked by police riots or when police stations were attacked. No private citizens being protected there, and the protesting was directly against government oppression (including of the 2nd amendment even!).

Republicans don’t think that police using lethal force against people with long criminal records—which come from terrorizing fellow citizens—is “government oppression.” That doesn’t describe every person that was the subject of the protests, but certainly describes the people who became the figureheads.

That's some high and mighty rhetoric, but it doesn't apply at all to Kenneth Walker (whose second amendment rights were trampled on) or Breonna Taylor (who died because of it). So once again, did I just miss the outpouring of Republican support for those specific protests or what?

'I'm all for rights, except the right to life (of some citizens)' is absolutely disgusting. Wow this comment says a lot about you and should remove the good faith people around here give you.

You're just giving him an opening to retrench at a steelman - when the police have to respond with deadly force for some completely reasonable justification, "right to life" doesn't have much to do with it.

The point is that even in very clear cut situations where the police are in the wrong, and have trampled over the very 2nd amendment rights that Republicans claim to love so much, it's then still crickets from Republicans. So this alleged "violence against the government is treated as distinct" seems to be just more post-hoc rationalization nonsense.

The problem is that rayiner is continually trolling with gut-appealing half-truths, sidesteps the straightforward logical implications as long as he can by responding tangentially, and when he can't do that any longer he just bails on the conversation rather than confronting the contradiction.

I guess I'm just glad us actually-conservatives (meaning everyone from "RINOs" to "the left" that actually respects our societal institutions enough to not want to see our country on the scrap heap) have reached a critical mass to beat back this wall of disingenuous bad-faith bullshit.

> have reached a critical mass to beat back this wall of disingenuous bad-faith bullshit

I hope so.