Ten, twenty, thirty years ago, women’s rights groups did exactly the same to men’s organizations. In doing so, they established the legal precedents now being used against women only organizations.
In turn, this was based on the evisceration of the idea that there is an unmentioned “right of association” in the constitution. That people had a natural right to associate with those they wanted to associate with, and in normal civilian society, to *not* be forced to associate with those they do not wish to associate with. (Outside of the military, prison, emergencies, etc.)
While the origins of this are assumed to begin with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the truth is that the end of the right of association was enabled with the 16th Amendment (the income tax), and the 17th Amendment (the direct election of US senators).
Both of these definitively ended the idea that the public are citizens of their individual states, insofar as that the federal government had to go through the individual states to have direct contact with citizens. That is, the states acted as a *buffer* against federal intrusion into our lives. And this was stripped away.
From that point, the “federal beast” was released, wanting involvement in every particular of our lives, always striving to be more intrusive, omnipresent, voyeuristic, and controlling.
And a big part of this was in negating our right of association. That the federal government has the authority to decree who will be our neighbors and our friends. Who we may do business with, and how.
While the origins of this are assumed to begin with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the truth is that the end of the right of association was enabled with the 16th Amendment (the income tax), and the 17th Amendment (the direct election of US senators).
Take the 17th Amendment for example. There was so much corruption and power mongering in state level in selecting those senators something had to change. Can you imagine how bad it must have been to get enough people behind the idea of changing the constitution? The 17th amendment did not solve the problem but did defer the problem. Do not speak so despairingly about it, even today, many conservatives want to pass more laws to solve problems.
Lets take another perspective on it. There is local corruption (judge, sheriff, or mayor) so what do the people do? They go around the corruption to a higher authority, state laws to change it. Then there is state corruption and what do the people do? They go to a higher authority, the federal government, to solve it, thinking a direct vote by the people will stop the corruption and power concentration because the senator is responsible directly to the people, not the state legislature.
Now we have a corrupt federal government. Make sure we understand the REAL CAUSE of the problem before we comment about the past or propose a solution for the future.
And also reflect on who is the next higher authority ..............