Tuesday, July 26, 2005

State's Rights

I was watching some Daily Show clips and came across the recent interview with the despicable Senator Rick Santorum, wherein he discussed his new book on virtues with Jon. My biggest impression from the interview regards a comment he made that is very surprising coming from a conservative of his ilk. Jon asked about virtues today compared with virtues of the segregation era, and part of Santorum's reply was that we had needed a strong federal government to eradicate segregation. This comment may not seem particularly interesting until you consider that most people in his region of the far right use "state's rights" and "local government" as codewords for segregation, in order to woo certain white Southern votes. I think it's no small matter for a uber-conservative like Santorum to admit that strong federal authority was the cure for that ill. The Southern strategy that has stretched from Nixon to Reagan to George W. is one of the most disgusting political tactics of our time, and Santorum is right not to play into it.