4 ms·

Why not increase the number of states? That way there is more political autonomy for smaller groups. There already exists a large political divide between, say,

Why not increase the number of states? That way there is more political autonomy for smaller groups. There already exists a large political divide between, say, West and East Washington; upstate New York and NYC; Bay Area and other parts of California. Instead of those population centers exerting their will upon the rest of the state, it would be better to have more & smaller political units that better represent their people.

Grishnakh 11y ago
I'll tell you why: Congress would be too big. I know this movie was absolutely horrible in several ways, but remember the Galactic Senate in The Phantom Menace? That's basically what you're proposing: it'll be so ridiculously huge that nothing would get done. You can't have a legislature with thousands and thousands of members. What's needed is first to redraw the state borders. I have a post a little above this point outlining my plan for redrawing the borders in the northeast, which would effectively deal with the NYS-vs-NYC problem. Other state borders should also be redrawn. Metro areas should not span multiple states, ever. For a good thought experiment on this idea, go read about "The 38 States" (google it). Some college kids in the 70s came up with this idea to redraw the borders more sensibly so that state borders reflected the local cultures better, and also to reduce the number of overall states for better administrative efficiency. It's only gotten worse since then, with metro areas getting so large and more urbanization of the population. However, one big problem that would still remain is the urban vs. rural conflict. If we redraw borders so more city-dwellers are concentrated in their own city-states, this will give them less power in the Senate (their power in the House should stay the same as the number of Reps is assigned by population). Honestly, I don't know if that's good or bad. Sometimes I really wonder if we shouldn't just scrap our tricameral Presidential Republic form of government and switch to a Westminster parliament like every other advanced nation has. Those don't have the problem where the executive branch is at odds with the legislative branch resulting in a long government shutdown.
- sammydavis 11y ago
  Love your ideas. I also had the same idea that a single elected body would serve us better. The existing parties would never go for it. What we need is to break down our existing parties into reasonable pieces, have one house, and have that house elect the president. Another idea, Western oregon, Western Washington, and British Columnia should be combined into one state, or maybe their own country. We are pretty similar.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    >Another idea, Western oregon, Western Washington, and British Columnia should be combined into one state, or maybe their own country. We are pretty similar. Yep, I've heard of that before. They call it "Ecotopia" or "Cascadia". I think the standard idea is to take northern California (probably not including the Bay Area, just wine country), OR/WA east of the Cascades, most of BC, and also some of Alaska and make that into an independent nation. Good luck getting both the US and Canada to agree to that though...

Grishnakh 11y ago

I'll tell you why: Congress would be too big. I know this movie was absolutely horrible in several ways, but remember the Galactic Senate in The Phantom Menace? That's basically what you're proposing: it'll be so ridiculously huge that nothing would get done. You can't have a legislature with thousands and thousands of members. What's needed is first to redraw the state borders. I have a post a little above this point outlining my plan for redrawing the borders in the northeast, which would effectively deal with the NYS-vs-NYC problem. Other state borders should also be redrawn. Metro areas should not span multiple states, ever. For a good thought experiment on this idea, go read about "The 38 States" (google it). Some college kids in the 70s came up with this idea to redraw the borders more sensibly so that state borders reflected the local cultures better, and also to reduce the number of overall states for better administrative efficiency. It's only gotten worse since then, with metro areas getting so large and more urbanization of the population. However, one big problem that would still remain is the urban vs. rural conflict. If we redraw borders so more city-dwellers are concentrated in their own city-states, this will give them less power in the Senate (their power in the House should stay the same as the number of Reps is assigned by population). Honestly, I don't know if that's good or bad. Sometimes I really wonder if we shouldn't just scrap our tricameral Presidential Republic form of government and switch to a Westminster parliament like every other advanced nation has. Those don't have the problem where the executive branch is at odds with the legislative branch resulting in a long government shutdown.

sammydavis 11y ago
Love your ideas. I also had the same idea that a single elected body would serve us better. The existing parties would never go for it. What we need is to break down our existing parties into reasonable pieces, have one house, and have that house elect the president. Another idea, Western oregon, Western Washington, and British Columnia should be combined into one state, or maybe their own country. We are pretty similar.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  >Another idea, Western oregon, Western Washington, and British Columnia should be combined into one state, or maybe their own country. We are pretty similar. Yep, I've heard of that before. They call it "Ecotopia" or "Cascadia". I think the standard idea is to take northern California (probably not including the Bay Area, just wine country), OR/WA east of the Cascades, most of BC, and also some of Alaska and make that into an independent nation. Good luck getting both the US and Canada to agree to that though...