"The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote," said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

How are you going to argue with an Indian Chief named Chad Smith? Besides, what better weekend to exercise this right than the first weekend in March?

When marchers gathered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, to demand voting rights, the nation was forced to acknowledge the depth and breadth of racial discrimination and bigotry that existed in the United States.

Sounds like a success story to me. I mean, an historically disenfranchised nation that has suffered discrimination and hardship on a truly epic scale should be proud they have overcome the odds. Free at last, free at last, free to embrace their heritage by exercising their rights to determine their destiny.

Before you start doing a victory dance, you might want some background information about the Constitutional Amendment they are voting on....

I gassed up this morning and it cost me over three bucks a gallon, on the way home I stopped at the store for a loaf of bread which cost me $1.39 for the same loaf of crappy white sandwich bread I paid $.99 for a month ago.

It is long past time for the issue of States' Rights to be reclaimed from slavery apologists and racists. It is a founding principle of this Republic, and we progressives abandon it at our own peril. Our entire system is based on the concept of checks and balances on power, the idea being that if no one entity or faction can gain too much power, we will be protected from tyranny.

States' Rights are a vital aspect of that model. Vigorous protection of States' Rights encourages us to focus on our own communities, and allows us to fight for what we believe in within our own states. The theory is that if we can make issues such as health care work for us in one state, then that will encourage other states to try our approach.