'Feds' isn't a 4-letter word

We're not happy with the federal government, either.

But in the winter of their discontent, some citizens are going too far in condemning the very role of federalism in our daily lives. At their most extreme, some of these people consider themselves patriots and constitutional purists - assessments we doubt our founding fathers would share.

Nullification is one of the hot-button issues of the anti-federalists, and while we agree that federal backers of sweeping health-care reform have overstepped their authority, the proper remedy is taking place right now through Idaho's and other states' attorneys general. State legislative attempts to reject national health-care reform are exercises in political pandering with no legal bases. In their zeal to give themselves credit and the president and Congress a black eye, the legislative backers of nullification are arguing against the very constitutional foundation they purport to support.

But there's a bigger issue at work here than nullification of one unpopular federal mandate, magnified because emotions get in the way of reason. Because anger with federal actions is so high - runaway spending and borrowing, lack of general accountability, and on and on and on - the entire structure of federal government and every individual within that structure is in the crosshairs of some critics.

Politicians head the hated list, but federal agents, postal workers, general paper shufflers and everyone else employed by our federal government is feeling the heat of unmitigated antipathy. Yes, federal government has grown too big and too inefficient. But the concept of state legislatures rejecting any package they disagree with bearing a Washington, D.C., return address is unconstitutional and unpatriotic.

Respectfully, we would ask citizens to do their own research, starting with a thorough reading and understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and consider that just as states' rights have their enduring place in our Republic, so, too, do our federal government's. Our country's greatest strength is in its balancing of power, and a tilting of those scales in any direction is an invitation to collapse.

Soon Idaho Republicans will be celebrating Lincoln Day with dinners across the state. That's as good a time as any to consider that Lincoln considered his greatest accomplishment in winning the Civil War was not the emancipation of slaves, but the attainment of his broader, deeper objective: Preservation of the union our founding fathers envisioned and Lincoln held so dear.

If we truly value the Constitution, preservation of that union, rather than erosion or destruction of it, should be our goal as well.