While BigKahuanaBurger is asking about adding states (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=107976), I’m feeling a little Bud Seligish and wonder if it wouldn’t be in the best interests of our nation if we contracted our great country and eliminated a few of those states that are, well, more of a drain than a plus, overall.
After elimination of a state, its citizens and any significant cultural sites (e.g. South Dakota’s Corn Palace) would then be distributed in a draft, with the selection order determined by the remaining states’ rank in Forbe’s list of most liveable states.
I’ll start.
Really, the last useful contribution Rhode Island made was providing a useful area comparison to the size of the Ross ice shelf that sloughed off into the sea.
I remember this conversation in high school where some friends and I, realizing that North and South Dakota were only there to take up space and make the drive from Minnesota to Montana longer, were proposing that we eliminate both Dakotas and combine Montana and Minnesota into one state (called, of course, “Montasota”.)
Yep, the Dakotas have to go, especially North Dakota (Don’t try to fool us with this “dropping the ‘North’” bit, either!) Alabama and Mississippi look like contenders, too–aren’t they always taking up #49 and #50 in state-by-state rankings on various subjects? I’m sure we could fudge–er, I mean find some numbers to support that. And Idaho–I mean, it was just the state of what was left over in the first place, right?
I wish that the government would take states like North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina, West Virginia and Virgina and merge them into a single state.
Well, West Virginia and Virginia were one state until 1863. When the NW corner of Virginia didn’t want to join the rebellion, they applied to the U.S. for statehood on thier own (yes, I know I oversimplified it).
Fuse the Upper Penninsula of Michigan (sp?) into Wisconsin. The residents of that area have been complaining about poor administration for over a century. A contigious border & reduced transportation problems would open up this arera for development.
Fuse the upper New England States,i.e. Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire et al– into one meta stater. Motive–economy.
Government statistoics show that North Dakota has a negative GSP-it takes in more fedrral money (crop subsidies, etc.) than it produces. Its farmers do little for us except raise the national debt. Therefore, it makes sense to close the state down-nobody in his right mind would want to live there anyway. Actually, large parts of the central prairies shoulsd be left to revert to their original wild state-this would greatly reduce the amount we pay out in crop subsidies. A while back, a whole town in N. Dakota was for sale-for $1.00-provided you could find enough people crazy enough to move there!
Hey hey hey… We residents of South Carolina are already lumped in with those Crazy North Carolinians. And I for one am tired of it, so I say we get rid of North Carolina and call it South Virginia.
