This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Federalism for dummies or for people who aren’t capable of learning anything important or staying awake unless the lesson is given in an MTV like format especially in our valley pop culture world. But Keith Hughes does a very good and accurate job of describing what Federalism is in his video. Any real Liberal or Conservative should be a Federalist or at least respect federalism, especially if they are in state government or a state politician. Or even a U.S. Senator in Congress representing their state in Congress.

Because Federalism is about allowing for the states to managed their own affairs and telling the Federal Government to get out-of-the-way that “even though you are the most powerful government in the country, you are not the only government in the country and that the states and localities have responsibilities and powers and people to serve as well so they should be allowed to do so”. I’m a Federalist, but a Liberal Federalist in the classical sense that I believe the states should be able to manage their own affairs, just as long as they are within the United States Constitution.

Meaning they are serving their people equally and not discriminating against their residents based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality. And that they aren’t trying to start their own military or create their own currency. I’m not anti-government or even anti-Federal Government. It’s just that in a country of three-hundred and ten million people with fifty states that is in between, two oceans, I mean America is a huge country in many ways, plus with all the political diversity that we have, that you must have a limited not small, but limited Federal Government to only conduct the affairs that effect the country.

Like national security, foreign policy, terrorism, interstate crimes, interstate commerce, but that the states and localities should be able to conduct the affairs that they have responsibility and the knowledge for. Like education, health care, public housing, public assistance. And that the Federal Government can come in to assist and to see that everyone is being treated fairly. But not try to run the public services for each state on their own as if they have all the power.

Federalism or limited government is not about anti-government or small government. At least from a liberal perspective, but that in a liberal democracy as huge as America is, you don’t want to centralize so much power in one authority because of course absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you want the state, locals and more important people to have the power to be able to manage their own affairs as well.