|
|
| Author |
Message |
drew
|
|
United States or United State?
| 
Dec 16 20:12 UTC 2000 |
The Electoral College system is reflective of the original makeup of this
country, as a collection of a bunch of mini-nations who had joined forces for
the purpose of dealing with the rest of the world. Each State would continue
to make its own rules, but turn over certain things to a Federal government.
A sort of United Federation of States.
After a while, however, this aspect of independent home rule started to erode.
Many people, not considering themselves citizens of any State but as
"Americans", now look to the Federal government and expect it to make all the
rules.
Should we continue to function as a coalition of indepentent states? Or is
it better now to become a megastate? What should each level of government be
doing? How big should the basic independent polity be, in population or
geographic area? Do you consider yourself an "American" or a "Michi-gander
(or Californian or whatever)"? What are your preferences?
|
| 59 responses total. |
rcurl
|
|
response 1 of 59:
|
Dec 16 21:36 UTC 2000 |
What about Ohio vs Michigan? Independence of states not only exists but
but involves a great deal of money and human emotion. We are *far* from
being a homogeneous "megastate".
|
tpryan
|
|
response 2 of 59:
|
Dec 16 21:42 UTC 2000 |
The Civil War is over, West Virginia and Virginia should get
over it, and merge back into one state!
|
gelinas
|
|
response 3 of 59:
|
Dec 17 02:25 UTC 2000 |
I'd rather we remain more-or-less independent and sovereign states.
The recent unpleasantness settled the question of withdrawing from the
Union, and started us down a road that may eventually erase the internal
lines, but I don't think we are there yet.
|
gull
|
|
response 4 of 59:
|
Dec 17 03:28 UTC 2000 |
I think *some* division of power between the national and state governments
is necessary. It's a simple matter of delegation; state governments tend to
know better what's needed in their part of the country than the federal
government does. I'm fairly comfortable with the present state of that
division of power.
|
richard
|
|
response 5 of 59:
|
Dec 17 04:40 UTC 2000 |
actually the speaker of the Florida house of representatives, who led the
push to get the legislature to select a bush slate of electors,in case
the revotes favored Gore, came to prominence as a seccessionist. He
supported Florida, at one time, seceding from the union if proper defecit
reduction bills were not passed. Of course, as Lincoln proclaimed in
the civil war, secession is not legal. If secession is not legal, then
the states don't own the union, and their participation in it is not
revocable. This means that since the civil war, the union has been
greater that the parts that make it up. Before the civil war, we were
referred to as These united states plural. Ever since, we have been THE
United States...singular. One nation.
The Consitution thus is outdated, at least in terms of states rights. I
was a resident of the district of columbia for seven years, and had no
representation in congress. I thought I was an american citizen, with
equal rights as anyone born in this country, but the states rights based
constitution told me I had *less* rights because I didnt live in a state.
Never mind that D.C. had and has a larger population than many states.
so I think the idea that the *union*, that is the nation as a whole, is
far greater than a group of states. The Civil War established that this
was one country. This is why the electoral college is outdated.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 6 of 59:
|
Dec 17 04:47 UTC 2000 |
I don't think the Framers envisioned permanent residents in the District.
Everyone there would be a citizen of some other state and thus able to
vote (absentee, perhaps) in that state. (Assuming that they even had the
right to vote at all, of course.) The District's status is slowly changing
to reflect the reality of permanent residency.
|
scott
|
|
response 7 of 59:
|
Dec 17 04:57 UTC 2000 |
#6 makes sense if you remember than servants couldn't vote in those days.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 8 of 59:
|
Dec 17 05:00 UTC 2000 |
Very few people could vote. Not even merchants would necessarily qualify.
|
scott
|
|
response 9 of 59:
|
Dec 17 05:02 UTC 2000 |
Yup. So the voting population of DC would basically be legislators.
|
raven
|
|
response 10 of 59:
|
Dec 17 07:41 UTC 2000 |
Hmm a thought provoking question. I have to admit that here in coastal Oregon
(and from Northern California through Washington state) we tend to think
of ourselves as more Pacific Northwesterners than Americans on the whole,
another term that is sometimes tossed around is ecotopians. I on the
whole think of this as a good thing of being independent from the greedy
materalism of "America."
OTH the thought of the south becoming indepent of the "union" and going
it's own way frightens me as the recent disenfranchisement of African
Americans in Florida shows that racism is still a problem at least at the
government level of the police (road blocks to stop African American
voters) and the legislatures and Kathleeen Harris's attempt to stop vote
counting, etc. OTH the Nation Sate as reprsented by the supreme court
didn't help us much in that respect either, hmmm.
Ultimately then I think more important than central v.s. decentralized
power is how we evolve our personal ethics to be more inclusive and
sustainable over the long haul.
|
senna
|
|
response 11 of 59:
|
Dec 17 08:15 UTC 2000 |
Legislating ethics is dangerous territory. The Republicans tend to try it
without much popularity.
Perhaps we should just ammend the constitution to turn DC into a state. That
would certainly make for interesting changes.
|
scg
|
|
response 12 of 59:
|
Dec 17 08:35 UTC 2000 |
Ethics get legislated all the time. Laws against murder, for example, are
a legislation of the ethical rule that killing people in the ways that are
defined as murder is wrong. Laws against theft are legislation of the ethical
rule that stealing is wrong. The question is not whether to legislate ethical
rules, but rather which ethical rules are right, and of those, which are
serious enough to need to be legislated.
|
happyboy
|
|
response 13 of 59:
|
Dec 17 15:38 UTC 2000 |
USA Out Of The U.P!
|
flem
|
|
response 14 of 59:
|
Dec 17 19:54 UTC 2000 |
re resp:12 - I disagree, and think that the misperception with which I'm
disagreeing is responsible, at least in part, for many of the dumb "ethical"
(actually, "moral", usually) laws that get passed. But I've gone into that
in detail before.
|
scg
|
|
response 15 of 59:
|
Dec 17 20:02 UTC 2000 |
So you're saying you think there's no ethical reason to ban murder, or at
least that murder isn't banned due to ethical concerns?
Ethical (or moral) rules aren't always cut and dried rules that everybody can
agree on. Even among those that come close to that, there are probably plenty
of things we can agree rise to the level of actions that are wrong, but not
to the level at which those actions should be banned. Perhaps, some of these
more questionable ethical questions should not end up in law, or perhaps some
of them are important enough that they have to end up in law. You'll probably
never find complete agreement on which are which, though.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 16 of 59:
|
Dec 18 00:04 UTC 2000 |
The District of Columbia is not a state because the Federal government should
not be under the control of any State's government. It was set up separate
from the States for a reason. I don't think that reason is moot.
One idea is to delcare the permanent residents of the District residents
of one of the surrounding states. However, this would probably have the
same effect as establishing the Federal government within a state. Especially
since all of the District's territory was ceded by Maryland. (Originally,
both Maryland and Virginia ceded land; my memory is that the Virginian
territory was returned to Virginia.)
|
richard
|
|
response 17 of 59:
|
Dec 18 00:25 UTC 2000 |
The solution to this is to federalize the area surrounding the Mall, the
Capital, the White House, just that area as the "district" and let the
rest of the Washington DC metro area, which has a population larger than
many of the smaller states, become the state of New Columbia.
if they don't do this, then a bill being introduced this coming year makes
sense-- this bill would except residents of the district of columbia from
paying federal taxes. If you have no voting members of the Congress who
participate in decisions about taxes, you have "taxation without
representation", which is wrong. In fact, taxation without representation
was a primary cause of the revolutionary war and the formation of this
country.
when I lived in DC, I did know people who refused to pay their federal
taxes for that reason.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 18 of 59:
|
Dec 18 00:57 UTC 2000 |
Unfortunately, there are many more government buildings than the ones you
mention.
I could get behind reducing the taxes on citizens of the District. I don't
want to eliminate them because I believe that taxes are at least partially
"fees for services rendered," and the District does have a police force.
And a mayor, come to think of it.
|
polygon
|
|
response 19 of 59:
|
Dec 18 01:17 UTC 2000 |
I think the solution is (1) take away the District's three electoral
votes, and have the District participate in the presidential election
jointly with Maryland. (2) Allow the District to participate jointly
with Maryland in electing U.S. Senators; those would be the Senators
"from Maryland and the District of Columbia". (3) Give the District
one U.S. Representative.
|
i
|
|
response 20 of 59:
|
Dec 18 03:24 UTC 2000 |
My impression is that DC's got a load of problems that can be traced back
to it being a little urban city-state that has to provide all the services
that a similar area elsewhere would get from a combination of city, county,
and state governments. Reducing DC to a tiny, non-residential area around
the Mall (giving the rest back to Maryland) would make good administrative
sense and require no fiddling with the constitution. So what if a bunch of
Federal office buildings wouldn't be in DC as a result? Is there some big
problem being caused by the fact that loads of Federal office buildings are
not in the current DC?
|
polygon
|
|
response 21 of 59:
|
Dec 18 03:52 UTC 2000 |
Re 20. Unfortunately, that would require "fiddling with the constitution"
since the District gets three electoral votes via a constitutonal
amendment which calls it "the District constituting the seat of
Government of the United States."
|
gelinas
|
|
response 22 of 59:
|
Dec 18 03:57 UTC 2000 |
So reducing it to the Mall would give the Mall the three electoral votes.
I like that. :)
No, there is probably no reason for the National Zoo, or the Naval Yard,
to be returned to Maryland, but I like them being in the District. (At
least, I think the Zoo is in the District; I'm not sure where the border
really is.)
|
other
|
|
response 23 of 59:
|
Dec 18 05:02 UTC 2000 |
The residents of DC are beneficiaries of federal tax dollars, regardless
of whether they have a voice in determining how those dollars are spent.
They have interstate highways, they have regulated airspace and
electromagnetic broadcast spectra, and they have food on store shelves
which, by virtue of federal regulation, they can generally trust to be
safe (within subjective limits).
There is no justification that I know of for DC not to have voting
representatives in congress. At the same time, it seems that municipal
administration of the District should permanently be done by a
subcommittee of the House of Representatives, made up of Representatives
from DC and the adjoining districts in Maryland and Virginia which
constitute the suburbs of D.C., the city.
|
scg
|
|
response 24 of 59:
|
Dec 18 05:02 UTC 2000 |
(The Virginia part of DC is now Arlington)
|