I've seen you view before and know persons who thought exactly like you. They believed that the concept of State and local government was dead and that all legislation should come from one central location with STANDARD laws everywhere, i.e. one big central government. It is an idea that the federal government will tend to everyones needs, fairly and quickly. In these recent months my friends have changed their minds, they finally saw what I was trying to teach them, that your first line of defense against an oppressive or inept government is local government. The power of the people comes from the local level not the federal level. The more government representation by the people, the louder the voice of that people; each state (the people) shaping their laws and needs as they see fit. The state is the better at administering laws than the federal, and see to the needs of the people quicker. Local governments are also more accessable than the federal and therefore have no choice than to respond to the people.

All these "rights", like the Civil Rights Act or your post --- "women's rights, minority rights, reproductive rights, disabled rights, homosexual rights -- the list of rights keeps on expanding, not decreasing." are not "rights" at all, they are legislated procedures created by Congress and are not specifically protected by Constitutional law. In other words those rights exist by the grace of the federal ballot box and current cultural whims and not by a fixed Constitutional statement. These laws do not have to be federal, they can be local, there is nothing in the Constitution that says a state cannot write laws to protect Civil Rights and the people of that state can see fit to do so.

If any changes to our system is needed it is MORE elected representation will less civil workers and another level of government based on sectional districts. Our two teared system (State and Federal) is too small, and revenue and services distributed too unfairly.

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David Upton