Most Americans believe the 2008 election is one of the most important in history. The question is why. The answer is not pretty.

For most of America’s history, our interactions with government were “state-rights” orientated. Logically speaking, this made eminent sense: it was far easier to deal with bureaucracy where you live than the one operating “far away” in Washington D.C. Furthermore, each state had a distinct “personality” that far better reflected the sentiments of those who populated it than the one-size-fits-all mentality that has always informed federalism.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened, but everything changed. In the minds of most Americans today, the federal government has become the true locus of power, and individual states’ rights have shriveled commensurately.

To put it mildly, this change has been an unmitigated disaster.

According to the Constitution, the “Powers of Congress” are limited to exactly eighteen items. The fact that Congress has taken it upon itself to expand that number by an incalculably exponential factor has turned the federal government into a power-grabbing monster. The choices we make for president, the Senate and the House of Representatives, while always important, have assumed critical proportions far beyond what the Founding Fathers had in mind. These folks now have the power to make or break the entire country–at the precise moment when we have elevated self-indulgence absent personal responsibility to an all time high.

As a result, the federal government increasingly resembles a giant protection racket. Everyone from corporations to individual Americans is expected to “pony up” lest we incur the wrath of those in Washington D.C. with the power to “regulate” innumerable aspects of our lives. Aspects that ought to be left to state governments–or left beyond the reach of government, period.

But we know they’re not. And I suspect most Americans know that, in the bigger sense, the essential difference between John McCain and Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is simply a matter of degree: which candidate is more likely to pull the federal noose around our collective necks even tighter than it is now?

Thus, the 2008 election assumes historic proportions–and our collective attitude reflects it. We no longer vote for someone as against someone else. We no longer disagree with the opposing candidate, we fear or hate them. Voting for ideas and ideals has given way to voting defensively: we must keep the “wrong” candidate out of office at all costs. The vast amount of power Washington D.C. can now impose on our everyday lives has forced our hand.

The Founding Fathers intended that America be comprised separate constituencies woven together with Constitutionally defined federal limits. The sooner Americans get back to that understanding, the healthier our DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC will become.

Until then? Every election will likely be “one of the most important in history.”

atahlert@comcast.net

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