A bill recently signed into law in Utah sets up a process for the state to overrule or otherwise ignore federal rules and decisions, the latest move in a Republican-led push against what they see as federal overreach.
new balkanization news, come get your civil war slop
The Utah bill, introduced as the “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act,” was signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox on January 31.
“The Legislature may, by concurrent resolution, prohibit a government officer from enforcing or assisting in the enforcement of a federal directive within the state if the Legislature determines the federal directive violates the principles of state sovereignty,” the law states.
With the bill, Utah joins a long-standing small-c conservative push to promote states’ rights, particularly when the federal government is controlled by the opposing party. It’s a debate going back to the original founders of the US Constitution, through the “Nullification Crisis” of 1832-33, when South Carolina tried to avoid paying federal tariffs, and into the Southern states’ attempts to avoid racial integration in schools in the 1950s.
Most recently, Texas and the US have been in a legal battle over security at the US-Mexico border, historically under the federal government’s control. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the federal government, but the tight vote suggested the principles of the Supremacy Clause “might be in a degree of flux,” according to CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck.
Utah Sen. Scott Sandall, who sponsored the Sovereignty Act, said he hoped the bill spreads to other states.
With the bill, Utah joins a long-standing small-c conservative push to promote states’ rights
it's written like they're trying to pass this off as a thing with precedent and nothing new, but... kinda seems like Utah is trying to keep the LDS church from being investigated or prosecuted federally? That seems pretty unprecedented. For a long time, the Church has had this belief in a prophecy that it's destined to Save The Country by folding the constitutional systems into its own structures. A kinda Catholic Papacy / Roman Empire sorta style deal. They're sitting on a lot of money, and it's more than just tithing. That I'm aware of, the LDS church owns a significant amount of ranch-land in Nevada, Idaho, and Florida; as well as a bunch of stock in a wide variety of companies. The big one I've heard about is The Coca-Cola Company (KO).
At it's most crass, they're a dragon looking to protect their hoard. But... as a social organization, they cultivate a lot of capital-t capital-b True Believers, and not just in general membership. I'm sure there are cynics in leadership... but I suspect they're in the minority. Utah may be the indicator of interesting times.
They also hold an incredibly large monopoly on news related media. The LDS Church owns Desert Digital Media, Bonneville and a ton of random radio stations and periodicals. Weird how when you Google ´Mormon media control’ or ‘Mormon media monopoly,’ all you get is news articles about Mormons being oppressed and misunderstood. Wonder why that is…
on one hand, their water supply is rapidly dwindling and the Salt Lake is probably going to become an airborne toxic event within the next decade. On the other hand, they're probably the most easily organized group in the American South West and would absolutely wipe the floor with any other state that might try to stand up to them.
The Legislature may, by concurrent resolution, prohibit a government officer from enforcing or assisting in the enforcement of a federal directive within the state if the Legislature determines the federal directive violates the principles of state sovereignty
if i understand that correctly that's perfectly constitutional and states do it all the time wrt federal law enforcement. the difference is between cooperation/noncooperation with federales and preventing them from doing their shit, the latter this bill doesn't seem to be preparing for.
Utahan nationalism in the United States was something quite different from, let us say, Texan, Floridan or Californian nationalism in that the former was a mere whim, a folly of a few dozen petty-bourgeois intellectuals without the slightest roots in the economic, political or psychological relationships of the country; it was without any historical tradition, since Utah never formed a nation or government, was without any national culture, except for the reactionary-romantic tablets of Joseph Smith.
this is a funny bit but precisely backwards lol, Texas/California are the baseless, the Utahn cult freaks have the greatest basis for an independent existence of the secessionists. a religion is an evergreen justification for separatism
Didn't Utah literally try to form an independent government when the Mormons were getting pogrom'ed from every other state. Only the problem was, that forming a state in a desert takes time and people, and the Utah territory was annexed by the US before the mormons even got enough people there to form more than 2 towns.
they fought an undeclared war on yankee settlers and soldiers until an army showed up and forced them to accept annexation. this was 10 years after Guadaloupe Hidalgo had officially transferred utah to the US
We’re they getting exterminated or did they just get told to leave town? I know that Joseph Smith pushed the persecution narrative a couple times. I know that they did get persecuted but don’t remember to what extent
We keep hearing how Biden is thenonly person who can stand up to the fascists but any halfway competent position would involve cutting off all federal funding as soon as this bill came up for discussion.
"They passed a bill declaring themselves above the authorift of the federal government sonwere not gonna a keep giving them money."
Instead it's just a lot of aww shucks and lectures on how we have to let them murder everybody they don't like because if the federal government did anything to stop them we'd be as bad as them.
Obviously there’s no meaningful difference between the two. What I meant is that a democrat in office sends the chuds into a frenzy so they do dumb shit like this bill or having a standoff with the feds in Texas. A vote for Biden is a vote for balkanization.
Joking ofc I would never participate in bourgeois electoralism