On Thursday, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin explained the answer to the question “Why is it important to have states?” and lamented that the abolishing of the states is already underway.

“So abolishing the states, in many respects, that’s already underway,” said Mark Levin. “There’s something wrong when the Environmental Protection Agency is stronger than every state in the country, isn’t it? There’s something wrong when a Supreme Court, a federal Supreme Court, can reach into the decision making of the people in every state and mandate that in every corner of the country people of the same sex can marry each other. Based on what? Where did that authority come from? Nowhere.”

Levin’s comments were in response to a Washington Post article that argued the states are “relic of the past” and should be done away with.

Below is a full transcript of Levin’s comments:

“Why is it important to have separate states, folks? So we don’t have an all-powerful centralized federal government, correct?

“Now what have … what are the great benefits, what have come forth as a result of the great benefits here as a result of having all these states?

“I’ll tell you what: harmony, even though that seems kind of strange when you’re talking about disparate states, right?

“But as I wrote in ‘Liberty and Tyranny,’ when you have different states you have people with different backgrounds, people with different belief systems. Some people believe in capital punishment. Some don’t. Some people are perfectly happy with massive taxes that redistribute wealth. Some are not.

“You have what’s called mobility. That’s why you see population shifts in a country, movements to different parts of the country over different periods of time. You’ve seen great growth in the south. You’ve seen great growth in states like Florida. You’ve seen great growth in states like Texas. You see people leaving the Northeast.

“Young people decide where they’re going to live based on the number factors, cultural factors and so forth. You have states like Colorado that have very loose marijuana laws and other states like Mississippi that don’t.

“You have people of one faith that tend to collect in one state or one region as opposed to another.

“The point is this: we are Americans, but we have diverse backgrounds and diverse heritages.

“And so the genius, the genius of the United States of America, as opposed to the central government of America, at least in the past, has been that people with different backgrounds and differing attitudes can live in harmony because the people of California cannot force their will on the people of Utah. And the people of Utah cannot force their will on the people of New York. And the people of New York cannot force their will on the people of North Dakota and so forth and so on.

“However, that crucial principle is being destroyed by federal law, by federal regulation, and by federal courts. It’s being destroyed when you have the centralization of government and government’s demand on uniformity – one size fits all: Obamacare as a perfect example.

“So abolishing the states, in many respects, that’s already underway.

“There’s something wrong when the Environmental Protection Agency is stronger than every state in the country, isn’t it? There’s something wrong when a Supreme Court, a federal Supreme “Court, can reach into the decision making of the people in every state and mandate that in every corner of the country people of the same sex can marry each other.

“Based on what? Where did that authority come from? Nowhere.

“And so this has been going on for a hundred years, a hundred years – the war on state authority, the war on the Tenth Amendment.

“And yet the states, together, have more power than the federal government under Article 5 of the Constitution.

“When a fool like this talks about, ‘let’s get rid of the states,’ the states are being gotten rid of. And that’s why it’s important they start to fight back – no, not through secession or nullification, but through a Convention of States.

“This guy understands: you get rid of the states, then you can’t have a convention of states. And in many ways they’re getting rid of the states without doing it formally.

“So the departments and agencies of the federal government are more powerful than the states. Do you think the Framers would’ve believed in that? The Supreme Court can intervene in anything it wants to if it has four votes and then five majority votes and an opinion. Five human beings can tell every state what to do, every state legislature, every state governor, thousands and thousands of school districts – because it can – because it is power that has been seized and never been checked.”