Michael Boldin
tenthamendmentcenter.com
August 2, 2012
Today, Paul Krugman decided to give us his wisdom on the subject of nullification – by saying almost nothing at all. In a short blog post, linking to a “report” by ThinkProgress, he notes – laughingly – that a Senate Candidate in Texas supports the idea of states nullifying acts on Congress. He doesn’t say a thing about nullification, but he’s obviously brushing it off as idiotic. As Tom Woods wrote on his blog today, “Paul Krugman thinks the idea of state nullification of unconstitutional laws is so self-evidently stupid that he doesn’t even need to offer an argument against it.”
Digging a little deeper – just a little, mind you – you’ll see that the ThinkProgress article he linked to was referring to Ted Cruz, who had a proposal where two or more states could work together to refuse compliance with the Affordable Care Act. Not outright nullification, but we certainly know that non-compliance in large numbers can in fact nullify a federal law.
ThinkProgress, the well-funded liberal blog which was vehemently anti-war while Bush was in office (now they don’t seem to think foreign policy is worth much of their time), has an interesting relationship with such nullification actions taken by the states. They turn a blind eye to them when Republicans rule in Washington. They sometimes give the image of cheering such efforts when politically popular. They attack and denigrate them when Democrats rule in Washington or when they oppose favored policies. And when they see nullification efforts getting popular among their own supporters, they simply freak out. All in all, these people, led by the crackpot pseudo-expert Ian Millhiser, are promoting an extremely dangerous view of how this country should be run.
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