It is exactly the differences in state law related to second ammendment issues that has kept me from moving to either Massachusetts or Calafornia, both of which are hot beds for my profession. (electrical engineering)
So having seperate states is important enough to me that I accept severe limitations on my career. Cost of living variations, especially real estate pretty well mitigate the pay differential.
Conversely, Australia has seven major States/Territories (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory- the ACT doesn’t count because the only thing there is Canberra), all of which are legislatively pretty much identical. As a general rule, what’s illegal in one state is generally illegal in all the others, and vice versa- because we have a clause in the Commonwealth Constitution that prohibits the abridgement of free trade between the States.
The details differ (for example, you don’t have to have an annual Roadworthy/Warrant of Fitness in Queensland, and it’s illegal to buy a knife if you’re under 16 in New South Wales), but as a general rule, one State is much like any other, which to me seems to sort of defeat the purpose of having States in the first place- although the reality, again, is that Australia is too big to govern centrally, and the States were all originally Colonies of the British Empire once upon a time (specifically, until January 1st, 1901).
The main reasons for shifting are generally employment, family, or lifestyle- the idea of moving out of one State because you disagree with the local laws on a particular issue is pretty unusual- the notable exceptions being the firearm laws, which are sufficiently different in the details to make shooters from QLD, VIC, or SA think twice before moving to NSW or WA, for example.
Miklos Udvardy, in 1975, identified eight global “ecozones” and 203 “biogeographical provinces.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecozone We might use those in the U.S. as a non-arbitrary starting point. After all, everywhere within a given biogeographic province will have similar climate, similar terrain, and similar forms of agriculture (if any), so all residents of one have some common concerns right there. And then the biogeographic provinces could be subdivided into states based on other, more political/sociological considerations.
What do you mean “outside the states”? We all live inside the states. As for the state governments as units – state politicians sometimes demand more autonomy and less federal interference but they’re far from speaking with one voice about it, and both sides of the question have support in the federal Congress; and state civil servants probably don’t feel any differently about the matter than the public at large.
Isn’t one of the purposes of the Constitution to preserve minority rights?
Now that I brought it up, isn’t that one of the purposes of the House of Representatives vs. the Senate? That was the big compromise, that every state would have representatives equal to their populations, then plans were drawn up to give every state two representatives.
Those two are the House and the Senate.
Well, errmm . . . No. Not until you get to the 14th Amendment.
Happy Clam doesn’t, according to his Location tag.
(By “the states” he meant “the States”, if you see what I mean.)
Not quite. The Union government was not fighting to re-conquer the states and subsume their powers.
As the war dragged on and on, and became more obviously about the abolition of slavery, there was a drive for the federal government to take on a larger role in guaranteeing the civil rights of U.S. citizens, even when the state governments would not. Hence the “Civil War Amendments”, 13 through 15, and their removal of some of the states’ powers — mostly their power to abridge the rights listed in the Bill of Rights. Had the war ended quickly with a Union victory, I don’t know that the Amendments would ever have been proposed, let alone passed.
The point being, it’s not that the feds won and the states lost. The states — at least the Northern ones who passed the Amendments without any coercion — willingly gave up their power to deny their citizens the rights found in the U.S. Constitution. Before that point, it was only the U.S. government that was bound in this way.
The same goes for pretty much every nation in the world. Nations are arbitrary entities.
Actually, several billion people live outside the states. Me, for example. And I can confirm Happy Clam’s assertion. We see you as one country.
Fair enough.
Well, we now live in an age of ridiculously strong Federalism, so it’s only natural that one would view distinctions such as “states” as arbitrary. However, to understand why we have states, we have to look back towards the founding of this country. The colonies were independent sovereignties—in the sense that they were independent of each other and at the will of the English crown. After the revolution, the Articles of Confederacy defined this “country” as a loose association of independent states. Each state had it’s own money, banking system, etc. And even after the dissolution of the AoC and the instituting of the Constitution, the Federal government still submitted a great deal of power to State government.
This is important because our country is founded on the principle of individual freedom. According to many political philosophers, Rousseau most notably among them, the larger the government and the landmass it needs to govern, the less conducive to personal freedoms it can be. A government that is essentially a loose federation of autonomous states, that allows people to move freely among them, is the best way to ensure democratic freedom. As one poster already says: you don’t like the government of your particular state? You’re free to move to one that better suits your wants as a citizen.
Look at local government. Local government is analogous to citizens as the federal government is to…well…the federal government.
Cities are where policies that most directly impact people happen. They certainly aren’t the arbiters of large goals (for the most part), but if your city changes its trash day to thursday instead of wednesday, it directly impacts you.
Cities get money to run from whatever profit they can generate and from the state. The state, in turn, gets its money from the federal government.
If your state is in the hinterlands or is a slowly dying industrial state, you’ve got a lot less money than say, New York (even before 9/11 and the HUGE influx of dollars from Homeland Security). The federal government therefore has a way to influence what more local governments do.
That’s why some cities have entered pacts to refuse to recognize the Patriot Act because it’s unconstitutional. Part of it is because they believe that it is wrong and that they can have a moment of civil disobedience (although what would actually happen if the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and CIA came into town to enforce it and the municipal cops got in the way would be rather interesting), yet another reason that a city would do it is to get a little bit more sovereignty.
Relatively few cities have the deep pockets to pay for municipal improvements. They end up taking out big loans from banks, developers, and investors at very high rates, and then default on the property, letting the bank, developer, or investor get that property after the work has been done. This is the case for a few golf courses in my area. In our government’s system, the city is the basic block and the little guy. They also get trampled on.
There. Rant done.
God, it started off so useful, too.
Nitpick: I think you’re giving the word “federalism” the opposite of its currently accepted meaning.
It’s not true that cities get their money from the states and states get their money from the feds.
States get their money from state income taxes and state sales taxes. Cities mostly get their money from sales taxes and property taxes. They may get some federal money for some things, but the vast majority of state and local services are paid for by taxes imposed by the states and localities.
And cities generally don’t take out loans from banks to fund capital projects, they issue bonds.
Say what you like, but there is a very real and definite sense of being a Texan down here. It stems in large part from our pre-US activities and identity, and as such, isn’t really very related to being a state.
I suspect Louisiana (or at least parts of it), California and Hawaii have similar identities.
You’re definitely correct on the last point. I was on a roll and neglected to delete the “banks” part.
Municipal governments (at least some) do get their bonds from state or other locak governments, though.
Link
Let me see if I can’t dig up any information on cities defaulting on property from said bonds. Hm…I’ve got nothing, so I’ll happily retract my statement.
Or the north dragging us to the left and trying to grab our tax revenues.
But hey, that’s the stuff that binds us together. Love it or leave it.
Possibly. I basically mean that we live in an age where the federal government is a mighty, seemingly untouchable behemoth.
It’s probably for the best that you pointed that out though, people might have gotten confused.
Yes it is, that is why after mentioning Kelo I immediately said
it looks like you didn’t finish reading that sentence.