Yes, that is my preferred ideal - but human rights can also be fought at the federal level!

If we accept for the moment that there are ghouls looking to oppress people, creating sanctuaries people can run to ends up having value. That’s where pro-immigrant states, pro-abortion states, and pro-trans states provide value in their existence, even if the ideal would be to protect everyone everywhere.

I’m also just admitting at what gets easier to argue. People resist laws to cater to a group if they’ve just never seen or heard of any members of that group. Much of the evil “success” on Trans Panic laws has been because the voting population only knows of those people through slanderous attack ads. But if the decisionmaking happens in one school county that knows the 2-3 students affected, the votes are more human.

Yes, because you’ve always seen it used by the Republican Party.

Over the course of decades, the “pet causes” associated to each political party has shifted a lot. We think of them as a constant but not so much.

I fully agree with the “States’ rights to do what??” memes, based on how Republicans dogwhistle it. Realistically though, if there can be some basic faith that the person asking for a particular “states right” is not a horrible person, they can have some decent points to it.