…And watch as they whack me upside the head and take me away to the nut farm.
Thought expirement.
Ignore the fact that I can’t declare myself my own state because of various clauses in various legal documents and constitutions in the United States. What would happen if I were able to declare my bedroom a separate state with me as the sole resident?
That’s right! In presidential elections, while you all have to deal with being represented by tiny fractions of a vote (not even a whole vote) in the Electoral College, I’ll be living large with three! I’ll get two Senators and a rep in the House. (Of course they’ll be from out of state). I won’t have to worry about whether my interests are being heard on the Hill.
OK, the real question. What benefits would I get for being my own state? Would I be entitled to Federal Funds. For example, if I were to declare the 15 feet of highway outside my bedroom to be part of my state and I passed a law saying that you can’t drive with a blood-alcohol level of .08, how much money would the federal government allocate for me in transportation funds? Or if 100% of the population of my state (me) was low-income and couldn’t afford insurance, how much Medicare money would I get. Or if 100% of the population of SterlingN (me, again) was in college, how much federal assistance would I be intitled to?
Well, you could always ask King James of Beaver Island how much “support” he got from the Federal Government. (Of course, he declared a separate nation back in the days before we began paying war reparations to the enemies we defeated.)
Don’t forget your court system. You have to set that up. You also need to establish a “republican form of government” in your state. The Supreme Court will expect you to have a legislature that is set up proportionally.
There will also be a lot of paperwork involved in being your own state. The Federal government isn’t going to give you money unless you jump through some hoops.
IIRC, you need 3/4 of the current Congressional vote to become a state. While you are hanging out in your bedroom, I’ve set up camp around your house with a couple of kegs and a grill, declaring your lot “secessionist and open for iminent domain” land free for the partying. But you aren’t invited. Yer a dictator, remember?
I’m not asking how, short of distribution of compromising pictures of every elected official in the country, I can convince Congress declare me a state.
I’m asking if that happened, how would I be treated differently from the rest of you plebians. What benefits and drawbacks would I gain by being a state instead of being a representative or a relatively powerless citizen.
Presumably you could make your own state laws. You would still have to follow Federal laws, however.
As the only citizen of SterlingNorthLand, you wouldn’t have to pay state taxes unless you wanted to or worked in another state (which you would have to).
You would have to install your own utilities. I’m not sure, but as a separate state, I don’t think you would still be able to use utilities from other states unless you made some kind of special arangements. Not sure of the regulations here.
I had a similar argument with my first boss (who was from Italy). He swore up and down that people in America could form their own states.
Better yet…Why not declare your room a COUNTRY. That way you can “formally” declare war on the rest of us (USA), immediately surrender, and then watch your war reparations ($$) roll in.
Do you have to live in the state to be a Represenitive or Senator. I thought you did but I can’t find it in my copy of the constitution or I am skipping over it?
