Things that people get Very Wrong

[terentii]

Originally Posted by Enderw24

But it did. And it can.

No, it didn't. And it shouldn't be able to.

[foolsguinea]

[looks at terentii's profile. it says, "Moscow/Toronto"]

... You're in Canada.

I'm from the USA, I have picked up some sense of the history of settling the west. The original 13 colonies may have formed the union, but most of the rest were pretty much formed out of US territories that were under the federal government to begin with. They are the creatures of the nation, not the other way around.

[/hijack]

A friend of mine who is actually pretty intelligent once insisted that human beings couldn't change the climate, because the Earth was too big for us to affect. But a couple of years later, we were talking about sci-fi weaponry, and he thought it was plausible to engineer a planet-killing cataclysm by accelerating an asteroid.

Well, which is it?

[Enderw24]

Originally Posted by terentii

No, it didn't. And it shouldn't be able to.

OK, answer me this: how does a state become a state? Did Alaska just wish really hard in 1959? Did Hawaii change its stationary and everyone shrugged, said "ok" and they changed the flag? Even the original 13 colonies were just that. Colonies. Not states. It's not a semantic difference. How does a state become a state?

I'll give you a clue. It starts with "Federal" and ends with "Governme"

And with that statehood comes an obligation to obey Federal Law. I'd give you a pass on this since you're apparently in Canada, but you responded to me. This whole hierarchical system is pretty well established in US law and Constitutional power.

[Johnny L.A.]

Originally Posted by Enderw24

Did Hawaii change its stationary...

I think it was established in this thread that islands don't float around.

[Sailboat]

Originally Posted by Enderw24

This whole hierarchical system is pretty well established in US law and Constitutional power.

Not to mention the labors of Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, et. al.

[BlinkingDuck]

Originally Posted by california jobcase

There are five states in the 48 that are more northerly than Maine. At least 110 miles so according to Google Earth.

My guess is my friend is another victim of certain map projections.

One of my favorite trivia questions is which U.S. State is closest to Africa?

Maine!

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by Enderw24

And with that statehood comes an obligation to obey Federal Law. . . . This whole hierarchical system is pretty well established in US law and Constitutional power.

An excellent demonstration of Very Wrong: there's nothing hierarchical about the US federal system. The federal government has no power—none—that it wasn't specifically granted by the states. The federal government may not make any demand of a state except in areas (such as raising of armies, coinage of money, voting rights, or due process) that the states have approved as part of the Constitution. In many areas, such as the conduct of citizens, the federal government has no power at all.

[foolsguinea]

OK, I think it's time to take this hijack into Great Debates, where it will continue without resolution.

Go on, start a thread over there, we'll catch up.