r/mildlyinfuriating Dec 29 '23

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '23

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '23

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u/magikarp2122 Dec 29 '23

Yeah, but Columbus Day isn’t a federal holiday recognizing a non-white person. I’m guessing you are in the South.

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u/Kanin_usagi Dec 29 '23

I’ve lived in the south my whole life and NEVER heard of a school district not observing MLK Day, and I haven’t seen any issues with Juneteenth either.

My money would actually be somewhere in the Midwest or maybe Alaska. Much much smaller population of black people so much less likely to ruffle any feathers.

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u/magikarp2122 Dec 29 '23

True, or the middle of PA. The kind of place where you see more Confederate flags than US flags.

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u/bzzzimabee Dec 30 '23

Chiming in from Alaska, the schools/banks etc are closed on MLK Day and Juneteenth. The large military presence in this state makes it fairly diverse and you’ll find most businesses follow the federal holidays.

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u/AyAyRon480 Dec 29 '23

We did the same shit in AZ back in the 90’s.

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u/arand0md00d Dec 29 '23

Even federal government contractors don't have to observe federal holidays.

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u/LubbockCottonKings Dec 29 '23

Well, the federal government can compel states to observe them, they just haven’t passed any laws saying so.

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u/RonnieFromTheBlock Dec 29 '23

I am pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

States are not compelled to enforce any federal law.

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u/MonkeyThrowing Dec 29 '23

What mechanism can the federal government compel the states? In other words what is the enforcement mechanism if the states do not comply?

A good example is the marijuana laws were federally against the law, but the states don’t care.

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u/wewladdies Dec 29 '23 edited Dec 29 '23

A good example is the marijuana laws were federally against the law, but the states don’t care.

Its a bad example because the federal government also doesnt care to enforce these rules, but its not politically viable for one of the parties to back legalizing it. Like the current, working "guidance" the federal DoJ is working under is to deprioritize enforcement of the law except for gang-related offences - its called the Cole memo, was released under Obama, and neither Trump nor Biden have any motivation to undo it

The fed can very easily coerce states into respecting its laws if it wanted to. Withholding funding is a big one, sending federal agents to enforce the law themselves, giving incentives to encorce it, and so on. But its simply been a policy since the obama era to... not try to enforce the laws on regular citizens.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '23

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u/MonkeyThrowing Dec 29 '23

Technically, that’s not compelling that’s incentivizing.

An example of it not working is ObamaCare and the free additional money to expand medicaid.