Way, way off topic, but I managed to get from that Wikipedia article to the articles on coats-of-arms and English heraldry, as well as the Bayeux tapestry.
To bring this comment back to topicality, while I agree with you in general about the principle of states' rights (the 9th and 10th amendments don't get nearly enough love), I really think you've missed the forest for the trees on this one. To pick an intentionally incendiary example, should the deep South be allowed to re-institute segregation? (I forget if it was Rand or Ron that mentioned the Civil Rights Act as an example of Federal overreach, although I think it was Rand but am too lazy to go look it up.)
The rights to abortion and gay sex are both examples of having sovereignty over one's own body. Would you not consider mutually consensual sex with someone to whom you are attracted to qualify as a pursuit of happiness? (While the Declaration of Independence isn't a document that really has any legal force today, I will remind you that the Founders agreed that some of the most basic, "unalienable Rights" that people have include "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.")
How much of an infringement of personal liberty is it to say that you can't have sex with that (willing) person over there just because you both happen to have the same set of genitalia? How disingenuous is it to say that your civil rights are only civil rights as long as they stand up to a majority vote? Would it be valid for a state to, say, disenfranchise gun owners or redheads if there was support for it?
To draw an analogy, you're advocating for BSD-style government, while beowabbit is in favor of a GPL-style government. You want maximum freedom from an author who imposes the fewest possible restrictions on anyone at all, which makes it possible for a middle-man third party to close-source the codebase and restrict the freedoms of modification and distribution among the end users. He's saying that it's much better to accept a few additional restrictions up front so that the code base stays open and anyone can modify it, resulting in much greater net freedom for all. (I'm not sure which license you prefer these days, but the analogy seemed interesting when it hit me.)
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To bring this comment back to topicality, while I agree with you in general about the principle of states' rights (the 9th and 10th amendments don't get nearly enough love), I really think you've missed the forest for the trees on this one. To pick an intentionally incendiary example, should the deep South be allowed to re-institute segregation? (I forget if it was Rand or Ron that mentioned the Civil Rights Act as an example of Federal overreach, although I think it was Rand but am too lazy to go look it up.)
The rights to abortion and gay sex are both examples of having sovereignty over one's own body. Would you not consider mutually consensual sex with someone to whom you are attracted to qualify as a pursuit of happiness? (While the Declaration of Independence isn't a document that really has any legal force today, I will remind you that the Founders agreed that some of the most basic, "unalienable Rights" that people have include "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.")
How much of an infringement of personal liberty is it to say that you can't have sex with that (willing) person over there just because you both happen to have the same set of genitalia? How disingenuous is it to say that your civil rights are only civil rights as long as they stand up to a majority vote? Would it be valid for a state to, say, disenfranchise gun owners or redheads if there was support for it?
To draw an analogy, you're advocating for BSD-style government, while