States and governments have rights?

States have no rights, individuals have rights.

This is something that "Lee" doesn't get it. There is no such concrete thing as states' rights, it's a rhetorical device to call into meaning the autonomy and semi-sovereignty of a state in a federal system. Lee keeps talking about how federalism shouldn't be violated to protect individual rights and how the slippery slope thing would allow democrats to do the same thing.

But the point of course is, Congress made a law and the Supreme Court did not follow it. But the Executive branch did not interfere. A liberal Executive branch would have used the executive powers to snatch Schiavo if they wanted to, anyone doubt that for a second?

As was proven in the Civil War and the Civil Rights Acts, states DO NOT have rights as articulated by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness do not belong to the states or to the federal government, or to the people through the states. They belong to the people, no no else.

The Emancipation Proclamation can be argued to have "violated" state's rights, the rights of the Southern States. The Civil Rights Act could have been argued to have "violated" state's rights as well.

If federalism is the federal government doing nothing to secure the natural human rights of the people, then federalism is a cock up and useless one at that.