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US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states. Would you also propose re-dra

US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states. Would you also propose re-drawing the borders of every EU nation every 30 years to reflect population movement? This misunderstanding (provinces vs states) leads to much misunderstanding of the US federal system in general, the electoral college, role of the federal government, etc.

kakarot 10y ago
How does the electoral college play into this?
- Spooky23 10y ago
  The United States is a union of nominally sovereign states. You see this in crisis situations -- States cannot declare bankruptcy, for example. The electoral college is a mechanism used for these states to select a president (the only nationally elected office) in a representative manner.
  - bkeroack 10y ago
    Not just nominal! The Constitution ensures the sovereignty of the states by restricting the federal government to a limited set of enumerated powers (among them: foreign policy, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce) with all other powers retained by the states (10th Amendment).
    - repsilat 10y ago
      > a limited set of enumerated powers (among them: foreign policy, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce) Unfortunately, the modern interpretation of "interstate commerce" is roughly "any other powers they might care to have". The Tenth Amendment has essentially been superseded by the Commerce Clause since the New Deal.
      - jrapdx3 10y ago
        A significant subset of people in the US insist the federal government has overstepped its powers, using "interstate commerce" to inappropriately expand federal authority. With the forthcoming change of federal government, in the years ahead it's likely there will be some paring back of federal overreach. Whether that's a good or bad development remains to be determined. US states were intended to be semi-autonomous regions which reflected cultural distinctions of residents inhabiting the original colonies. The different "flavors" of American culture have more or less persisted, even in today's mobile population there are still nuances that make the cultures of states unique.
        srtjstjsj 10y ago
        > With the forthcoming change of federal government, in the years ahead it's likely there will be some paring back of federal overreach. That's wishful thinking. The President-elect has already announced reforms heretofore considered well beyond the President's legal authority. The commonly-heard Republican slofan of "States' Rights" is only heard when Democrats are in power. (And likely vice-vers
        adamsea 10y ago
        "US states were intended to be semi-autonomous regions which reflected cultural distinctions of residents inhabiting the original colonies." Like slavery.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Because the American states have a tradition of autonomy that dates back far before the Revolution. That is why American states are states with their own citizens (think drivers licenses) and not simply administrative regions as they would be in other large and diverse countries like China and Russia.
  - Chathamization 10y ago
    I don't know about the Russian system, but the Chinese system is much closer to individuals being citizens of different regions than the U.S. system. Residency in the U.S. is simple to change and unrestricted, and most effects are immediate (though some in-state tuition requirements can take longer). In contrast, in China it is difficult for rural workers to change their Hukou, and as such they are often stuck with major disadvantages even after they move. A rural worker in Shanghai might live as a second class citizen there for years, because they're not considered to be officially Shanghainese. This isn't the case in the U.S.
    - int_19h 10y ago
      But is the registration system in China managed separately by different provinces because they want to control and/or prevent migration, or by the national government because it wants to control migration? If it's the latter, it's not a sign of federalism - quite the opposite, in fact.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Russian system is more complicated than that - the "federal subjects", as the regions are known, are not merely administrative, but have some actual powers. They may have regional laws (although criminal law belongs on the federal level), may collect taxes, set their own system of local government (how the regional parliament looks etc). They can also have other languages designated as official on their territory, in addition to Russian, and implement an educational system that teaches those languages. They have their own constitutions, enforced by regional constitutional courts. One particularly curious case is that of Tatarstan. It nearly declared independence in 1990 (some argue that it actually did - it made a "declaration of sovereignty": http://1997-2011.tatarstan.ru/english/00002028.html http://1997-2011.tatarstan.ru/english/00002028.html). In 1992, it adopted its own constitution on a referendum, which also described it as a "sovereign state". Then, intense negotiations with the Russian federal government followed, which resulted in an 1994 agreement (https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://faolex.fao.org/docs/texts/rus32708.doc https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://fao...) with an unwieldy title of "On Delimitation of Jurisdictional Subjects and Mutual Delegation of Powers between Bodies of Public Authority of the Russian Federation and Bodies of Public Authority of the Republic of Tatarstan". The constitution of Tatarstan was then amended with a curious definition of the federal arrangement as follows: "The Republic of Tatarstan is a democratic constitutional State associated with the Russian Federation" i.e. not a "member of" - although according to the federal constitution, it is a federal subject, same as any other. It also has some other special guarantees - for example, its borders cannot be changed without its consent. And the whole arrangement can only be amended by mutual agreement. Of course, given the present state of affairs in Russia, it is unclear to what extent any of these theoretical political powers that federal subjects may enjoy are actually realized.
- andars 10y ago
  The electoral college makes a lot more sense when you think about electing a President that represents the states, rather than the people.
scentoni 10y ago
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Congress was a confederation of sovereign states. When that failed, the sovereign states ceded their sovereignty to form a new Federal government with a constitution that supersedes state law. There was a war fought over this.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  They ceded a specific and enumerated list of powers, reserving all others to the states. Here is a small sample that shows some thoughts of the primary drafter of the Constitution(reference is Federalist Papers 45): Within every district to which a federal collector would be allotted, there would not be less than thirty or forty, or even more, officers of different descriptions, and many of them persons of character and weight, whose influence would lie on the side of the State. The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. I chose taxation as a topic only because Madison gave concrete numbers. Here: * Using the number of tax collectors as a rough metric, the federal government was planned to be about 30-40 times smaller than all individual states combined. I don't know the 2016 figures. * He affirms that the federal government "[...]will be exercised principally on external objects", which would seem to oppose redrawing state lines for the convenience of local matters(such as city boundaries). Though, if all states in question consented to having their borders redrawn, it does seem like the federal government should still at least approve. So I'm not sure I buy this argument that the Federal government was designed at the outset to be this all-consuming entity that can stomp all over states however it pleases, though there certainly has been a recent trend that way. Hopefully the upcoming Supreme Court appointments can reverse this trend. Given the topic, this sentence is also worth reading: If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS.
  - 10y ago
halomru 10y ago
That doesn't have to stop them. Europe's borders are also constantly redrawn, even in the 21th century. Next to the usual independence movements and annexations there's also a number of land swaps that happen due to referendums or in order to produce more sanely shaped borders. I guess the key is that the initiative has to come from the individual states. If it was dictated from the federal level it indeed wouldn't work
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > Europe's borders are also constantly redrawn, even in the 21th century. I know of exactly one non-war redrawing of a border in Europe in the 21st century. That's hardly "constantly".
gaur 10y ago
The creation of Maine from Massachusetts shows that there is a way to redraw the borders of a state already admitted to the union. It may not be an efficient or repeatable process, but evidently it can happen regardless of how many times you say "states, not provinces!".
- koenigdavidmj 10y ago
  Importantly, this was only done with the consent of the state.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I'm not sure that West Virginia came out of Virginia with Virginia's consent...
    - koenigdavidmj 10y ago
      Wartime is a long-accepted way of changing what a government has sovereignty over. This is still a bad example to show that US states are mere administrative decisions permitted to exist because the feds feel nice today.
maxerickson 10y ago
It'd be a radical departure, I think there is a good chance that it would also improve governance.
c3534l 10y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure how people would handle having half of their guns made illegal, having to learn new traffic laws, having you taxes completely change to the point where your state income taxes can go from 0% to 15%, your house becomes illegal because of different building regulations, public schools become charter schools, marijuana suddenly becomes illegal and you're a marijuana farmer, and this happens every 10 years or so. It would be chaos and require a fundamentally different kind of government organization.
- VLM 10y ago
  Those would solely be rural problems, and we have a long tradition of support the urbanite and crush the ruralite whenever possible, so it would be politically consistent to do exactly that.
  - c3534l 10y ago
    Eh, rural areas actually receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes while paying less in taxes anyway due to decreased costs of living. Additionally, the US heavily subsidizes farming and funds infrastructure development for rural areas that are not available to more populated states and areas, such as gas, electric, and internet services. Economically speaking, rural areas also disproportionately benefit from projects like interstate highways, public water infrastructure, and bridges. Additionally, rural areas also consume, by far, the most in entitlement resources. And finally, rural areas are disproportionately represented in government, to the point that someone in a city like New York gets nearly half the amount of votes as someone in Montana, and also greatly suffering in the Senate which is not awarded on the basis of population. To sum up, rural areas pay no net taxes, receive economically beneficial subsidies and policies, and are given more political rights than people who live in urban areas. The idea that they're being screwed in a nation where they're the ones with all the control is absurd.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      I think the key observation is this: everything you say is true, and yet many rural areas still have terrible economies. It's hard to square that circle -- that rural areas are heavily subsidized but yet still economically depressed and under-served. Hence, comments like the one from VLM above. Of course, it all boils down to economic fundamentals: cities and metro areas create a network effect that's difficult or impossible to compete with, no matter how well subsidized rural areas are. The fact that rural areas suffer in spite of their greater representation and massive economic subsidies is a difficult pill for a person from a rural area to swallow. A "they are screwing us" mentality is a much more compelling narrative.
__derek__ 10y ago
You're conflating two different terms. As was pointed out in another comment, your understanding was more or less true under the Articles of Confederation but stopped being the case with the ratification of the Constitution. The American word 'state' is a relic.
- umanwizard 10y ago
  Not exactly. I've had loads of conversations with people from other countries who were amazed at the degree of independence of the States. It's not really typical for administrative subdivisions of a country to have their own criminal law, be allowed to sentence you to death or put you in prison, issue their own identity documents, raise militias, etc.
  - __derek__ 10y ago
    Yes, the federal system reserves more rights for American states than are enjoyed by, say, French régions. They're still a far cry short of sovereign states.
  - mhenr18 10y ago
    It isn't?
    - int_19h 10y ago
      The only two other federal countries I can think of off the top of my head that has different criminal law in different subdivisions are Australia and Mexico. In Canada, criminal law is unified on the federal level. So far as I know, this is also the case in Germany and Switzerland. Any other prominent examples?
      - umanwizard 10y ago
        It looks like the subdivisions of the UK also have their own criminal law (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_criminal_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_criminal_law )
kuschku 10y ago
> Would you also propose re-drawing the borders of every EU nation every 30 years to reflect population movement? Yes. Just like there’s currently a discussion about redrawing the borders of the states within Germany – which are also independent legal entities, many having existed for many centuries.
notatoad 10y ago
>US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states i think that's kind of exaggerating the situation a bit. They maybe have a bit more control over their own affairs than most country's provinces do, but the degree of autonomy a province has varies quite a bit from country to country. there's nothing that fundamentally make a state different to a province besides the name, and comparing a US state with an EU member nation is just silly.
- ars 10y ago
  You should learn more about a topic before posting. It's very much like the EU: Each state is independent, and there is an overall governing body - the federal government, which for the most part can't tell states what to do, it can only give or withhold money to induce them. There are specific rules about what the Federal government can and can't tell a state. One difference that does exist is military, where EU states can have a military (as far I know), but US states can not.
  - douche 10y ago
    > One difference that does exist is military, where EU states can have a military (as far I know), but US states can not Even that is a little shaky, as historically there were organized state militias, which eventually evolved into the National Guard. Even now, the National Guard formations for each state are under the direct control of that state, rather than directly subordinated to the federal government.
  - billforsternz 10y ago
    If you admit uncertainty over whether EU states can have a military or not (yes obviously EU states can and do have their own military forces), perhaps you shouldn't lecture people on learning more before posting?
  - lettergram 10y ago
    I do believe the US states can have a state militia and I believe some other form of national guard.
bane 10y ago
> US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states. Would you also propose re-drawing the borders of every EU nation every 30 years to reflect population movement? Sure, as we know from history, state boundaries (and the existence of states) has never changed in all of recorded human history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0KNfS_M44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0KNfS_M44 Just like with the territories that now make up the U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UE9uu9fKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UE9uu9fKSg
krschultz 10y ago
I wouldn't muck with the east coast states much. The borders might be off by a little here and there, but not by much. However most of the western states were last carved up in 1850s. I don't think we need to redraw them every 30 years, but maybe every 150? Considering the last time we adjusted California's bounds the transcontinental railroad wasn't built yet.
- ceras 10y ago
  Not sure I agree: NYC would highly benefit from improved tri-state metro area coordination. Plans like extending the 7 train to NJ's Secaucus Junction would be much easier to pass. I'd expect DC to have similar problems.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  I completely disagree. The east coast states are a complete mess, because the state borders don't reflect population groups or metro areas at all. NYC's metro area spans 4 states, Philly's spans 3, and DC's spans 3, and Boston's spans 3 or 4 depending on if you count Providence. All the borders are completely historical, and should just be redrawn entirely, so that these metro areas have their own states, and local cultures are kept together. Upstate New Yorkers have long wanted to be freed from NYC, and western PA has nothing in common with Philly. The Delmarva peninsula is insane, split between 3 different states for no good reason, with the southern 2 states' holdings being almost completely rural except for Ocean City; that whole peninsula should just be given to Delaware. All 50 of the states should really have their borders redrawn, except for Alaska and Hawaii.
Taek 10y ago
At a very high level, yes I do believe that borders should be continuously redrawn based on population movement. But it doesn't need to happen in a fully central planning sort of way, it could be more fluid. For example, towns on borders could elect which side of the border they are on. And neighborhoods could elect which town they are in. If borders were more fluid, I think you'd see things like stronger divisions between urban and rural areas, which is a good thing. Illinois is an urban state by population with a massive rural subset. It doesn't make sense to me that two populations with such vastly different needs would be under the same state laws.
- credit_guy 10y ago
  I like this idea, but I'd also like to point out that in some (many) cases, the outcome may be the opposite of that envisioned. For example, a large part of Southern Connecticut is mainly a bedroom community for New York City; based on the typical commute, you'd think it should join the state of New York, but I can guarantee you people in Southern Connecticut are perfectly happy paying less in state taxes. Conversely, if they could choose to secede from the New York State, Westchester County would join Connecticut in a second, although again, it's a bedroom community for NYC.
  - Taek 10y ago
    Fluid borders provides better competition between jurisdictions. A community would have no reason to join a higher taxrate jurisdiction unless they were getting value out of it (e.g. better schools, trains, police, etc.). That's a good thing. Though I fully acknowledge that I'm ignoring significant issues. e.g. what if NYC drops billions on a new trainline, and then some neighborhoods benefiting from the train line switch away from NYC. Are they still obligated to pay to maintain the train line? Things like that.
dghughes 10y ago
US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces... As an English Canadian I can hear in my mind Quebecers saying "Tabernac!"
yummyfajitas 10y ago
Why would it be a bad idea to redraw borders to reflect population movements, shared values, and similar things? Consider Brexit. It's going to cause someone to be very unhappy - either the rural hinterlands who don't want to be part of Europe, or the Londoners/Scotsmen who do. Why not let them both get what they want? (Obviously the benefits from boundaries that reflect shared values need to be weighed against the cost of the transition. I'm only suggesting it's far from clear that this is a bad idea.)
stale2002 10y ago
Maybe I would. If the citizens of the country agree with it, then why not? Countries and demographics change. Why should we be permanently beholden to borders decided by unjust wars of centuries past?

kakarot 10y ago

How does the electoral college play into this?

Spooky23 10y ago
The United States is a union of nominally sovereign states. You see this in crisis situations -- States cannot declare bankruptcy, for example. The electoral college is a mechanism used for these states to select a president (the only nationally elected office) in a representative manner.
- bkeroack 10y ago
  Not just nominal! The Constitution ensures the sovereignty of the states by restricting the federal government to a limited set of enumerated powers (among them: foreign policy, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce) with all other powers retained by the states (10th Amendment).
  - repsilat 10y ago
    > a limited set of enumerated powers (among them: foreign policy, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce) Unfortunately, the modern interpretation of "interstate commerce" is roughly "any other powers they might care to have". The Tenth Amendment has essentially been superseded by the Commerce Clause since the New Deal.
    - jrapdx3 10y ago
      A significant subset of people in the US insist the federal government has overstepped its powers, using "interstate commerce" to inappropriately expand federal authority. With the forthcoming change of federal government, in the years ahead it's likely there will be some paring back of federal overreach. Whether that's a good or bad development remains to be determined. US states were intended to be semi-autonomous regions which reflected cultural distinctions of residents inhabiting the original colonies. The different "flavors" of American culture have more or less persisted, even in today's mobile population there are still nuances that make the cultures of states unique.
      - srtjstjsj 10y ago
        > With the forthcoming change of federal government, in the years ahead it's likely there will be some paring back of federal overreach. That's wishful thinking. The President-elect has already announced reforms heretofore considered well beyond the President's legal authority. The commonly-heard Republican slofan of "States' Rights" is only heard when Democrats are in power. (And likely vice-vers
      - adamsea 10y ago
        "US states were intended to be semi-autonomous regions which reflected cultural distinctions of residents inhabiting the original colonies." Like slavery.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Because the American states have a tradition of autonomy that dates back far before the Revolution. That is why American states are states with their own citizens (think drivers licenses) and not simply administrative regions as they would be in other large and diverse countries like China and Russia.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  I don't know about the Russian system, but the Chinese system is much closer to individuals being citizens of different regions than the U.S. system. Residency in the U.S. is simple to change and unrestricted, and most effects are immediate (though some in-state tuition requirements can take longer). In contrast, in China it is difficult for rural workers to change their Hukou, and as such they are often stuck with major disadvantages even after they move. A rural worker in Shanghai might live as a second class citizen there for years, because they're not considered to be officially Shanghainese. This isn't the case in the U.S.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    But is the registration system in China managed separately by different provinces because they want to control and/or prevent migration, or by the national government because it wants to control migration? If it's the latter, it's not a sign of federalism - quite the opposite, in fact.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Russian system is more complicated than that - the "federal subjects", as the regions are known, are not merely administrative, but have some actual powers. They may have regional laws (although criminal law belongs on the federal level), may collect taxes, set their own system of local government (how the regional parliament looks etc). They can also have other languages designated as official on their territory, in addition to Russian, and implement an educational system that teaches those languages. They have their own constitutions, enforced by regional constitutional courts. One particularly curious case is that of Tatarstan. It nearly declared independence in 1990 (some argue that it actually did - it made a "declaration of sovereignty": http://1997-2011.tatarstan.ru/english/00002028.html http://1997-2011.tatarstan.ru/english/00002028.html). In 1992, it adopted its own constitution on a referendum, which also described it as a "sovereign state". Then, intense negotiations with the Russian federal government followed, which resulted in an 1994 agreement (https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://faolex.fao.org/docs/texts/rus32708.doc https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://fao...) with an unwieldy title of "On Delimitation of Jurisdictional Subjects and Mutual Delegation of Powers between Bodies of Public Authority of the Russian Federation and Bodies of Public Authority of the Republic of Tatarstan". The constitution of Tatarstan was then amended with a curious definition of the federal arrangement as follows: "The Republic of Tatarstan is a democratic constitutional State associated with the Russian Federation" i.e. not a "member of" - although according to the federal constitution, it is a federal subject, same as any other. It also has some other special guarantees - for example, its borders cannot be changed without its consent. And the whole arrangement can only be amended by mutual agreement. Of course, given the present state of affairs in Russia, it is unclear to what extent any of these theoretical political powers that federal subjects may enjoy are actually realized.
andars 10y ago
The electoral college makes a lot more sense when you think about electing a President that represents the states, rather than the people.

scentoni 10y ago

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Congress was a confederation of sovereign states. When that failed, the sovereign states ceded their sovereignty to form a new Federal government with a constitution that supersedes state law. There was a war fought over this.

MichaelBurge 10y ago
They ceded a specific and enumerated list of powers, reserving all others to the states. Here is a small sample that shows some thoughts of the primary drafter of the Constitution(reference is Federalist Papers 45): Within every district to which a federal collector would be allotted, there would not be less than thirty or forty, or even more, officers of different descriptions, and many of them persons of character and weight, whose influence would lie on the side of the State. The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. I chose taxation as a topic only because Madison gave concrete numbers. Here: * Using the number of tax collectors as a rough metric, the federal government was planned to be about 30-40 times smaller than all individual states combined. I don't know the 2016 figures. * He affirms that the federal government "[...]will be exercised principally on external objects", which would seem to oppose redrawing state lines for the convenience of local matters(such as city boundaries). Though, if all states in question consented to having their borders redrawn, it does seem like the federal government should still at least approve. So I'm not sure I buy this argument that the Federal government was designed at the outset to be this all-consuming entity that can stomp all over states however it pleases, though there certainly has been a recent trend that way. Hopefully the upcoming Supreme Court appointments can reverse this trend. Given the topic, this sentence is also worth reading: If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS.
- 10y ago

halomru 10y ago

That doesn't have to stop them. Europe's borders are also constantly redrawn, even in the 21th century. Next to the usual independence movements and annexations there's also a number of land swaps that happen due to referendums or in order to produce more sanely shaped borders. I guess the key is that the initiative has to come from the individual states. If it was dictated from the federal level it indeed wouldn't work

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> Europe's borders are also constantly redrawn, even in the 21th century. I know of exactly one non-war redrawing of a border in Europe in the 21st century. That's hardly "constantly".

gaur 10y ago

The creation of Maine from Massachusetts shows that there is a way to redraw the borders of a state already admitted to the union. It may not be an efficient or repeatable process, but evidently it can happen regardless of how many times you say "states, not provinces!".

koenigdavidmj 10y ago
Importantly, this was only done with the consent of the state.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I'm not sure that West Virginia came out of Virginia with Virginia's consent...
  - koenigdavidmj 10y ago
    Wartime is a long-accepted way of changing what a government has sovereignty over. This is still a bad example to show that US states are mere administrative decisions permitted to exist because the feds feel nice today.

maxerickson 10y ago

It'd be a radical departure, I think there is a good chance that it would also improve governance.

c3534l 10y ago

Yeah, I'm not sure how people would handle having half of their guns made illegal, having to learn new traffic laws, having you taxes completely change to the point where your state income taxes can go from 0% to 15%, your house becomes illegal because of different building regulations, public schools become charter schools, marijuana suddenly becomes illegal and you're a marijuana farmer, and this happens every 10 years or so. It would be chaos and require a fundamentally different kind of government organization.

VLM 10y ago
Those would solely be rural problems, and we have a long tradition of support the urbanite and crush the ruralite whenever possible, so it would be politically consistent to do exactly that.
- c3534l 10y ago
  Eh, rural areas actually receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes while paying less in taxes anyway due to decreased costs of living. Additionally, the US heavily subsidizes farming and funds infrastructure development for rural areas that are not available to more populated states and areas, such as gas, electric, and internet services. Economically speaking, rural areas also disproportionately benefit from projects like interstate highways, public water infrastructure, and bridges. Additionally, rural areas also consume, by far, the most in entitlement resources. And finally, rural areas are disproportionately represented in government, to the point that someone in a city like New York gets nearly half the amount of votes as someone in Montana, and also greatly suffering in the Senate which is not awarded on the basis of population. To sum up, rural areas pay no net taxes, receive economically beneficial subsidies and policies, and are given more political rights than people who live in urban areas. The idea that they're being screwed in a nation where they're the ones with all the control is absurd.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    I think the key observation is this: everything you say is true, and yet many rural areas still have terrible economies. It's hard to square that circle -- that rural areas are heavily subsidized but yet still economically depressed and under-served. Hence, comments like the one from VLM above. Of course, it all boils down to economic fundamentals: cities and metro areas create a network effect that's difficult or impossible to compete with, no matter how well subsidized rural areas are. The fact that rural areas suffer in spite of their greater representation and massive economic subsidies is a difficult pill for a person from a rural area to swallow. A "they are screwing us" mentality is a much more compelling narrative.

__derek__ 10y ago

You're conflating two different terms. As was pointed out in another comment, your understanding was more or less true under the Articles of Confederation but stopped being the case with the ratification of the Constitution. The American word 'state' is a relic.

umanwizard 10y ago
Not exactly. I've had loads of conversations with people from other countries who were amazed at the degree of independence of the States. It's not really typical for administrative subdivisions of a country to have their own criminal law, be allowed to sentence you to death or put you in prison, issue their own identity documents, raise militias, etc.
- __derek__ 10y ago
  Yes, the federal system reserves more rights for American states than are enjoyed by, say, French régions. They're still a far cry short of sovereign states.
- mhenr18 10y ago
  It isn't?
  - int_19h 10y ago
    The only two other federal countries I can think of off the top of my head that has different criminal law in different subdivisions are Australia and Mexico. In Canada, criminal law is unified on the federal level. So far as I know, this is also the case in Germany and Switzerland. Any other prominent examples?
    - umanwizard 10y ago
      It looks like the subdivisions of the UK also have their own criminal law (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_criminal_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_criminal_law )

kuschku 10y ago

> Would you also propose re-drawing the borders of every EU nation every 30 years to reflect population movement? Yes. Just like there’s currently a discussion about redrawing the borders of the states within Germany – which are also independent legal entities, many having existed for many centuries.

notatoad 10y ago

>US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states i think that's kind of exaggerating the situation a bit. They maybe have a bit more control over their own affairs than most country's provinces do, but the degree of autonomy a province has varies quite a bit from country to country. there's nothing that fundamentally make a state different to a province besides the name, and comparing a US state with an EU member nation is just silly.

ars 10y ago
You should learn more about a topic before posting. It's very much like the EU: Each state is independent, and there is an overall governing body - the federal government, which for the most part can't tell states what to do, it can only give or withhold money to induce them. There are specific rules about what the Federal government can and can't tell a state. One difference that does exist is military, where EU states can have a military (as far I know), but US states can not.
- douche 10y ago
  > One difference that does exist is military, where EU states can have a military (as far I know), but US states can not Even that is a little shaky, as historically there were organized state militias, which eventually evolved into the National Guard. Even now, the National Guard formations for each state are under the direct control of that state, rather than directly subordinated to the federal government.
- billforsternz 10y ago
  If you admit uncertainty over whether EU states can have a military or not (yes obviously EU states can and do have their own military forces), perhaps you shouldn't lecture people on learning more before posting?
- lettergram 10y ago
  I do believe the US states can have a state militia and I believe some other form of national guard.

bane 10y ago

> US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states. Would you also propose re-drawing the borders of every EU nation every 30 years to reflect population movement? Sure, as we know from history, state boundaries (and the existence of states) has never changed in all of recorded human history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0KNfS_M44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0KNfS_M44 Just like with the territories that now make up the U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UE9uu9fKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UE9uu9fKSg

krschultz 10y ago

I wouldn't muck with the east coast states much. The borders might be off by a little here and there, but not by much. However most of the western states were last carved up in 1850s. I don't think we need to redraw them every 30 years, but maybe every 150? Considering the last time we adjusted California's bounds the transcontinental railroad wasn't built yet.

ceras 10y ago
Not sure I agree: NYC would highly benefit from improved tri-state metro area coordination. Plans like extending the 7 train to NJ's Secaucus Junction would be much easier to pass. I'd expect DC to have similar problems.
Grishnakh 10y ago
I completely disagree. The east coast states are a complete mess, because the state borders don't reflect population groups or metro areas at all. NYC's metro area spans 4 states, Philly's spans 3, and DC's spans 3, and Boston's spans 3 or 4 depending on if you count Providence. All the borders are completely historical, and should just be redrawn entirely, so that these metro areas have their own states, and local cultures are kept together. Upstate New Yorkers have long wanted to be freed from NYC, and western PA has nothing in common with Philly. The Delmarva peninsula is insane, split between 3 different states for no good reason, with the southern 2 states' holdings being almost completely rural except for Ocean City; that whole peninsula should just be given to Delaware. All 50 of the states should really have their borders redrawn, except for Alaska and Hawaii.

Taek 10y ago

At a very high level, yes I do believe that borders should be continuously redrawn based on population movement. But it doesn't need to happen in a fully central planning sort of way, it could be more fluid. For example, towns on borders could elect which side of the border they are on. And neighborhoods could elect which town they are in. If borders were more fluid, I think you'd see things like stronger divisions between urban and rural areas, which is a good thing. Illinois is an urban state by population with a massive rural subset. It doesn't make sense to me that two populations with such vastly different needs would be under the same state laws.

credit_guy 10y ago
I like this idea, but I'd also like to point out that in some (many) cases, the outcome may be the opposite of that envisioned. For example, a large part of Southern Connecticut is mainly a bedroom community for New York City; based on the typical commute, you'd think it should join the state of New York, but I can guarantee you people in Southern Connecticut are perfectly happy paying less in state taxes. Conversely, if they could choose to secede from the New York State, Westchester County would join Connecticut in a second, although again, it's a bedroom community for NYC.
- Taek 10y ago
  Fluid borders provides better competition between jurisdictions. A community would have no reason to join a higher taxrate jurisdiction unless they were getting value out of it (e.g. better schools, trains, police, etc.). That's a good thing. Though I fully acknowledge that I'm ignoring significant issues. e.g. what if NYC drops billions on a new trainline, and then some neighborhoods benefiting from the train line switch away from NYC. Are they still obligated to pay to maintain the train line? Things like that.

dghughes 10y ago

US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces... As an English Canadian I can hear in my mind Quebecers saying "Tabernac!"

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Why would it be a bad idea to redraw borders to reflect population movements, shared values, and similar things? Consider Brexit. It's going to cause someone to be very unhappy - either the rural hinterlands who don't want to be part of Europe, or the Londoners/Scotsmen who do. Why not let them both get what they want? (Obviously the benefits from boundaries that reflect shared values need to be weighed against the cost of the transition. I'm only suggesting it's far from clear that this is a bad idea.)

stale2002 10y ago

Maybe I would. If the citizens of the country agree with it, then why not? Countries and demographics change. Why should we be permanently beholden to borders decided by unjust wars of centuries past?