Perhaps the recognition of the National authorities remains legitimate only because the abuse hasn’t been contested sufficiently.
Please clarify your meaning of “Real federalism, on the confederacy model.....”. I’d appreciate your perspective on that.
I believe we agree on many of the points, however returning to my focus we must not only put out the Leftist’s arson fires, but eliminate all possible sparks they can fan back into a flame as they require for their purpose. We can only remain free as long as we can control the mischief of the mischievous.
“Real federalism, on the confederacy model...”
By the time of the rise of the Confederacy, there had already been a number of actions by the national government in favor of a stronger national government over the better part of a hundred years. And there was already considerable resentment in some of the states about these encroachments.
Likewise, time had uncovered several errors and flaws in the constitution that there was some degree of agreement needed to be fixed.
So when it came time for the Confederacy to draft their own constitution (which is a very interesting read, btw), they both overcompensated in favor of the power of the states, but also incorporated many of the necessary changes to the organization of government.
But the end result of this was much like what happened in the EU not too long ago, when a single state, or nation, could veto what all the other states or nations wanted. That is, they could not change the law, or direct the war effort, fast enough; and many otherwise good ideas went nowhere because of it.
That is, they were so opposed to the idea of a central government making changes they did not want, that they made their central government too weak. Thus most of the time, Jefferson Davis could not function nor lead. There was no resolution of disagreements between the states, and laws changed considerably as soon as a person crossed a state border. No standardization.
In any event, for most of the last and certainly this century, the pendulum has been stuck on too much power for the national government. It does need to swing back in favor of the states, and probably overcompensate for a while, but eventually there needs to be a return to balance between the two.