When Sarah Palin announced her resignation as governor of Alaska, she caused quite a stir. Both Palin haters and Palin lovers united in their inability to talk about much of anything else.

Then, a week later, she had an op-ed on environmental policy published in the Washington Post.

And then, not long after that, she signed a resolution declaring the state of Alaska sovereign under the Tenth Amendment, and telling the federal government to back off from engaging in activities not delegated to it in the United States Constitution.

This sounds weird to lovers of big government, to Palin haters in general. But even some Palin lovers misconstrued the event.

It was not about Sarah Palin. She was not the only governor to sign such a resolution. Tennessee’s Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, had done the same thing, earlier.

In fact, it’s not about governors at all. Other states, like Oklahoma and New Hampshire, have passed similar resolutions. As I wrote recently at Townhall.com, “[a]ll these resolutions have passed state legislatures. It’s not just lone ‘whacko’ governors doing the deed. Deliberative bodies have decided these measures.”

What’s happening is the re-emergence of the original idea of our federation: A central power limited in scope, and states with different sets of powers and responsibilities.

And people’s rights and powers limiting both.

Yes, folks, there are signs of hope.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Last week, former Congressman and presidential candidate Bob Barr sent out a simple admonishment to his Twitter list: “Let’s have a real debate on Judge Sotomayor, not hysterics. . . .”

Unlikely. Appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor is precisely the kind of jurist to divide us. She’s said things that seem racist and sexist and absurd. But, then, if I criticize her for those things, her supporters will call what I say racist or sexist or absurd.

And none of us want racism, or sexism, much less absurdity.

Let’s try sympathy, instead. It’s not easy to promote a constitutional philosophy consistent and widely acceptable at a time when much of what the federal government does belies — abridges — repudiates! — the Constitution itself.

Take the First Amendment. It begins, “Congress shall make no law . . .” No ambiguity. And yet Congress makes all sorts of law regarding speech, including regulating speech about politics, negating the whole point of the First Amendment.

What part of “no law” don’t today’s jurists understand? In many cases it’s the part where the states have power to fashion their own solutions to problems. It’s called the Tenth Amendment. And it’ usually ignored by all mainstream legal experts, along with the Ninth.

I’d like to have a quiet debate on this. Sotto voce, you might say. The opposite of hysterically loud.

That would be more important, even, than a debate about Judge Sotomayor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Now what?

Well, now the governors are going to Washington to beg for bailouts. New York Governor Paterson and New Jersey Governor Corzine have schlepped their way up to the Hill to explain that they are “cutting all [they] can” from their bloated budgets, and to demand some “relief.”

I don’t believe that the notoriously corrupt governments of New York and New Jersey have pared their budgets to the bone. Or that the only way to cut another dollar is to throw some little old lady out onto the street.

I also don’t believe that the federal government has some magical way of getting money that state governments don’t have. It all comes from the same group of us taxpayers. Unless these governors are talking about taking cash from other states, where else would the money come from? Where but out of thin air — borrowing plus the trusty old printing press?

The feds are wearing the same blinkers as these gubernatorial guys. For example, the wizards at the Federal Reserve are struggling to bring interest rates to zero — as if cheap credit in the past had nothing to do with all the misbegotten easy mortgage loans spawning the present crisis.

Now, I put it to you: If fiscal irresponsibility can be increased from mammoth to infinity, will that, at last, solve the problem? If the Fed were to drop-ship crates of cash and credit cards onto every neighborhood in America, will that, at last, solve the problem?

Unbefreakinlievable.

We need some Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.