States Rights, do they matter?

There is a lot of talk since President Obama’s idea of health care reform passed into law about the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

Amendment 10

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The main argument being made about the health care bill as it relates to the Tenth Amendment is that the bill requires citizens to purchase adequate health insurance whether or not they want to. This is being described as a violation of the Tenth, because nowhere in the Constitution is this power granted to the Federal Government. According to this amendment, the Feds cannot force citizens, or states, to purchase any product under a penalty. The powers that be think they are getting around the Tenth Amendment by saying the penalty for not buying insurance is actually going to be a tax. This is why they are creating all those new jobs in the Internal Revenue Service, so that they have enough people to scan through everyone’s insurance records and verify that they have purchased enough.

Apparently, no one in Congress remembers the last time there was a major argument over the rights of states versus the Federal Government. That was why the South seceded from the Union, and what sparked the Civil War. It wasn’t originally about slavery at all; it was about States Rights.

Makes me wonder what Congress thinks about that inaugural oath they all took to defend and uphold the Constitution.