Ok, this is just my rant about human rights, liberty and the whole structure of our country and society. We are faced with folks on one side that want to deny equal rights to pretty much anybody but themselves. That applies to minorities (believe it or not there are racists in the United States who hate Blacks, or Jews, or any other group you might think to name). They are perfectly willing to strip any liberty from those people. Some even go under the lying nickname of the “Liberty Caucus” which means, when you examine it, they want the “liberty” to treat others as badly as they want to...to discriminate in the public sector.
When it is not focused on ethnic identity, it is often focused on what is seen as “moral behavior”. This can be as simple as a woman, whether due to poverty, poor health, or rape, deciding to abort a fetus. Suddenly the constitution which says that all persons are equal is not so important anymore. It is more important to impose THEIR religious views on the entire society. That also applies to the homophobes in the republican party who want to “make not exist” anybody in the LGBTQ community. Right now they are especially full steam ahead on making laws and generally inflicting harm and second or third...or whatever level of citizenship on persons in the trans community, but never fear, these bigots will add more to their hate list as they gain power if allowed to do so.
Now, in Texas, they have even decided that workers are inferior and not as worthy as others...including those who work out in the burning sun.
www.dailykos.com/…
There can be discussion as to who those workers are and why their getting water is such a horror for the leaders of Texas. Is it that they are Hispanic/Mexican and therefore hated, or is it is simply that the leaders in Texas find it objectionable that workers in the boiling hot sun, where people have been know to die of the head, getting access to water breaks so they can stay hydrated is somehow offensive either to business or state.
Which leads to my major point. We often hear that state governments (not local because the States that would be most insistent on state rights are the first ones to overrule a local government...again look at Texas) say that issues like Marriage, or who can Vote should be a matter of “States Rights”. The most prominent times that theory has held sway was during slavery and the Jim Crow era and I have found, from dealing with its believers, that the only reason States Rights is ever mentioned is to justify racial and rights discrimination….oh, they may say that it is the same as traffic laws and the individual state deciding how fast cars should be allowed to drive, but that is just a way of justifying what they want, which is institutionalize discrimination.
As a Democratic Republic, this country has an exception built into the constitution to the idea of a straight democracy...ie that individual human rights can not be abridged by the majority. States Rights is simply an attempt to overturn that simple truth by claiming that a individual subdivision of the nation, say the state of Texas, can in fact abridge the right of women to have control of their bodies, of LGBTQ persons to live in their truth etc.
All human rights needs to be in charge of the Federal Government, and has to be the except to majority rule or not everybody has rights. The “rights are from God” is only available on the personal level if the government is able to enforce and ensure that the equality of rights is assured to all, and not just the majority.