The United States Supreme Court has upheld Dillon’s Rule at least twice. The rule has been adopted by the supreme courts of 39 states. It’s constitutional.

While I sympathize with the plight of anyone having to live near Louise Lucas, Louise doesn’t keep her position and get to abuse it because of the Dillon Rule. You get Louise Lucas because the good people of her district were foolish enough to elect her and re-elect her and her Democrat co-horts.

Destroying the Dillon Rule does not bring in free market principles, it simply gives local officials the power to increase the bureaucratic nightmare in their fiefdoms. Government is the antithesis of the free market. You only get the free market if you limit government and that is exactly what the Dillon Rule is.

Coming originally from a non-Dillon state, we had counties with different sales tax rates. One county had a 7 percent rate while the neighboring county had a 4 percent rate. Guess what happened? The county with the 4 percent rate used that in a very successful PR campaign that lasted for years to attract shoppers to their businesses. Tell me that isn’t the free market at work.

BTW, I beg to differ with Riley when he writes that localities are not creations of the state. They are. From where does a city or town draw its charter? Localities are simply political subdivisions of the state.

Personally, I believe that the most power should remain with the individual and the least power (and fewest duties) remain with the Feds. I consider the Federal government’s job to be 1.) national defense, 2.) enforcing the law via the courts and prosecutors, and 3.) coordinating a national infrastructure so as to ensure routes for our defense forces to utilize in times of crisis as well as for transacting commerce. States should have some additional powers and greater powers should rest locally with, as I previously stated, the individual retaining the most powers. From personal experience, I just find it much easier (and faster) to lobby for and change things at the local level than at the state or federal levels. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.

The power of the individual is to operate as an individual not as a collective in any sense whether on the local, state, or federal level. Like I tried to say earlier, the town council of Culpeper is no more an actual representation of me than the GA. Theoretically, I might be able to more effectively lobby one than the other but that is really dependent on the willingness of the individual member to listen and his ability to organize his fellow members. Finally, even if you get a local body to act the way you want, most of them are out after a few years and replaced by an entire new group that you have to once again corrale. I’ll stick with needing to watch and lobby the GA. It creates the least chance that my individual liberties are trampled, but that’s a pipe dream too anymore.

But yes, I am for a nanny state for local governments. I wish we could get a restrictor bolt for the GA and Feds as well.