system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: State governments should have far more power than they currently have.

Over time, Congress has almost completely ignored Amendment X, which reads "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," and the Supreme Court has failed to preserve it. My argument won't focus on this, for the same reason that pro-gun arguments solely revolving around the fact that Amendment II *exists* are poor—something being in the Constitution doesn't automatically make it right. I just wanted to introduce this to show how forgotten this issue seems to be.


The United States is, as I'm sure you all know, a geographically large country and also a very diverse country—in many ways, not just racially, as often springs to mind. Because of this, not everyone will be affected equally by laws passed in Washington, DC. This principle applies to a lot of groups, but here we're talking about different states—how Wyomingites would be affected differently than Californians. I hate to bring guns into this, but they're a good example. Idaho had a gun murder rate of 1.5 per 100,000 people in 2015, with one of the highest gun ownership rates in the country, 56.9%. At the same time, they had very few gun control policies. Missouri also had very little gun control, but had a relatively meager 27.1% gun ownership rate with a gun murder rate of 6.9 per 100,000 people. I won't dive into why these numbers are so different, and this is not necessarily indicative of a trend of "high gun ownership rates=fewer murders" but it is clear that gun control is much more necessary in Missouri than Idaho, if it is necessary. At this point, I feel like I don't even need to say that federal gun control might solve problems in Missouri, but is an unnecessary waste of resources, not to mention the potential harmful effects, in Idaho. Again, this is just an example. My point here is not about guns—it is about the undeniable fact that not everywhere will be affected identically be federal laws. If Missouri passed gun control laws, it would affect Missouri without affecting states like Idaho. Federal laws affect all states—necessary or not.


When this country was young, you could knock on the White House door and ask for the president. Like it or not, those days are gone. The average American has little influence on what happens in the Capitol and the White House. They have far more influence on what happens in their state legislatures. It's as simple as the fact that these governments have fewer people to listen to, and thus can listen to each individual more. This point isn't very complicated—if states had more power, they would be better equipped to respond to the needs of the people.


The United States is too big to be ruled by one centrally located entity. State governments are more in touch with the needs of their state than anyone in Washington, DC. We can stop the federal government from harming certain parts of the country while benefiting others with its legislation by letting the states take care of their own problems.
gpt
It's not the 18th Century any more. 

Things that happen in one state are, today, *far, far, far* more likely to affect people in other states than they were 200+ years ago. 

And the Constitution gave the power to the federal government to regulate things that have impacts across state lines. And, indeed, who else *could* do so? 

States are prohibited from dealing with interstate problems for very good reasons. Indeed, it's one of the main reasons to form a country out of them in the first place. 

Furthermore, the 14th Amendment made it clear that states are prohibited from restricting the rights, immunities, and privileges of  U.S. Citizens without due process. 

This means that a lot of thing guarantees the constitution provides against federal interference have applied to the states since the mid-19th century. 

The fact that states are much more interconnected now than then doesn't change the 10th Amendment, it just makes it apply to increasingly small numbers of things, because the states *are* prohibited from doing more and more things as time goes on and actions in one place affect more places more quickly and more directly.