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| Author |
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drew
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United States or United State?
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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?
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| 59 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 1 of 59:
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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".
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tpryan
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response 2 of 59:
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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!
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gelinas
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response 3 of 59:
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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.
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gull
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response 4 of 59:
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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.
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richard
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response 5 of 59:
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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.
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gelinas
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response 6 of 59:
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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.
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scott
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response 7 of 59:
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Dec 17 04:57 UTC 2000 |
#6 makes sense if you remember than servants couldn't vote in those days.
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gelinas
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response 8 of 59:
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Dec 17 05:00 UTC 2000 |
Very few people could vote. Not even merchants would necessarily qualify.
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scott
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response 9 of 59:
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Dec 17 05:02 UTC 2000 |
Yup. So the voting population of DC would basically be legislators.
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raven
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response 10 of 59:
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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.
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senna
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response 11 of 59:
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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.
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scg
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response 12 of 59:
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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.
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happyboy
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response 13 of 59:
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Dec 17 15:38 UTC 2000 |
USA Out Of The U.P!
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flem
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response 14 of 59:
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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.
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scg
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response 15 of 59:
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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.
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gelinas
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response 16 of 59:
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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.)
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