@Phil The Bill of Rights was much stronger in 1999 than in 1789. “Congress can make no law” had been extended to government can make no law, including at the state level. It was by 1999 a different government than in 1789 — the 14th Amendment is described as a new founding for a reason — but from an individual liberties perspective it had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 1/

@Phil The balance between Federal and State authorities had shifted in ways some of them might have approved or disapproved of. But the “states’ rights” aspect of the Constitution was not about liberty — state government can be as restrictive of liberty as the federal, and most “red tape” like building, safety, fire codes is at state and municipal levels. 2/

@Phil The states-rights aspect of the Constitution was mostly about the fact that the existence of the new Federal government depended on upon ratification by states, so state-level *elites* had to be consoled their prerogatives would remain intact. 3/

@Phil The only principled argument for “states rights” is the notion that states are closer to their people, and therefore better democracies, but actual history has shown that often state-level elites have stripped their publics of democratic rights, so it’s not a very compelling claim. True believers of those theory ought to be extremely respectful of local and municipal government supremacy, but they almost never are. 4/

@Phil But it was simultaneously the freest and most capable country the world had ever seen, the values they had enshrined but not lived up to in the Declaration largely though incompletely achieved. 5/

@Phil It breaks my heart what the subsequent quarter century has done. /fin