States rights are cool?

For a long time now, I have been interested in federalism, an important but under appreciated aspect of American government. In school, I learned about the three branches of the government, checks and balances, the electoral college, the two votes per state in the Senate and the population based representation in the House of Representatives. But Federalism was something I had to find for myself. For some reason it was not taught in school, so I had to learn about it myself. Simply put, federalism is the concept of dividing the powers of government between two levels, a "federal government" and lower governments which can be called States (as in the United States), Cantons (Switzerland), Provinces (Canada), or Bundesländer (Germany and Austria.) India, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Nigeria also have federal systems. The United States is, as one might guess, a federal system. We have states, territories, a federal government in Washington DC (Why do you think we call them the "Feds") and a rich history of fighting over exactly what powers belong to which level of the government. Until quite recently, I felt a little uncomfortable talking about "States' Rights." The reason, of course, is that states rights were used in 1850's to protect slavery and 100 years later, to protect segregationism in the South. My concern was that the minute I said that I support states' rights, my sweet, wonderful liberal friends would brand me as a racist. The interesting thing is that recently, there seems to be more of an acceptance of States Rights in this country among liberals. The Terri Schiavo fight is a perfect example of this. The conservatives on Congress, like Tom Delay and others, want to use the power of the federal government to reinsert the tube that was keeping Ms. Schiavo alive. It is now the Liberals who are crying "states rights" and want the state judges' order that Ms. Schiavo be allowed to die to be followed. In some ways this is fun and exciting. Federalism may be on a rebound and I can be "Pro-States' Rights" without being branded a racist. On the other hand, it does raise a troubling question: are both sides, liberal and conservative, going to cling to the "States' Rights" principle only when it suits them or will they be a little more open about it, even if it means that sometimes, a state will do things that they don't like. On MSNBC the other night, Pat Buchanan, nobody's liberal, suggested that in the Schiavo case, he favored federal intervention in this case. No doubt the Liberals favor states' rights in this case. That's the problem, states rights is a principle. It's okay to have limits on states' rights, without limits we cease to exist as a country, but what I wonder is, the next time some conservative wants to use states rights to, say, outlaw the teaching of evolution in Tennessee, will the Liberals allow the states' rights card to be played?