When people first learn about civics and government in school, they never pay attention. Teenagers are too preoccupied with being teenagers to care how the country was formed and why government entities operate as they do. I was the same way. I was too busy trying to figure out what everyone was doing that night. I didn't start becoming interested seriously until about my junior year in high school. That year I was a bit more engaged and asked alot more questions than my peers. Even then I remember thinking that the President was all powerful and Congress was all powerful and that the states were just states and didn't have armies and navies and authority similar to the federal government. I guess the feeling at the time was I would rather have the local sheriff's deputy or city cop question me than the FBI. The FBI had jurisdiction over the entire country and the sheriff only the county. FBI agents were much more intimidating, at least on television. Of course later on I realized that the comparison was apples to oranges, but I think to this day there are many people that still believe that the states are subservient to the federal government. This couldn't be further from the truth. 

     The left is using this ignorance based belief to expand the power of the federal government. What most people forget or never learn is that the United States of America is just that, a country of 50 united states. We all know that we started off as 13 colonies. The different colonies before the Revolution were as different as separate countries. Sure they spoke the same language and had the same ruler but they developed much differently depending on region. Most colonies started as gifts from the King to his friends and different noblemen of England. Then the owner of the newly formed colony would lease the land to settlers. Many were settled by different protestant denominations and all had their own interests at heart. In fact the United States might not have happened at all if not for intense diplomacy especially during the Constitutional Convention. The tyranny of monarchical rule was what finally gave them something to unite behind however and the Founding Fathers knew that the states would be stronger if bound politically than separated as 13 different sovereign countries. It was obvious then, and with hindsight we can see it was the best way forward. However not everyone was convinced. If you were from Virginia for example, you were a proud Virginian first, then an American. The national identity took a few years to become common in society. Also, travel between the states was nowhere near what it is now, so leaving say Virginia to visit Rhode Island was something that just didn't happen unless you were transporting goods for a living. People then were deathly afraid of tyranny again reforming in a central government, sort of the same wonderful sensations we are all having now. 

     Over the years and during many different crises the leftists have managed to find ways around the Constitution, or like with health care, blatantly disregard it. Now after 233 years we have a monster of a federal government that is growing all the time. It asserts it's power over the states by confiscating taxes from the states citizens then withholding money for road maintenance. For example during the 1970's the maximum speed limit in all states was 55 miles per hour. It wasn't federal law, it was state law forced by the federal government by threat of withholding highway funds that nearly every state government had gotten themselves dependent on. It is never ending. We have had to fight this for years and years. The leftists are devious and will use whatever means they have at their disposal to get their way. They will change law to accommodate their agenda, then change it back when it doesn't.