Nah, Gregory’s Girl.
Not even Lassie, Come Home? I mean, it had a collie.
Duh, I live in a state…and I get to vote for Senators and Representatives.
Plus, the point I’m trying to make isn’t about DC the entity; it’s about the half million or so Americans who pay taxes, but don’t get to have one of the fundamental rights of the rest of Americans.
See, when all that lovely DC stuff was set up, it was mostly just a federal enclave. But whattya know, it has since grown into a large city, you know, with regular, non-government people. That’s P-E-O-P-L-E, as in A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N-S, who are denied one of this country’s fundamental rights. I contend that this does not reflect well on a nation that is allegedly trying to spread their wonderful brand of democracy around the world.
Besides, the Constitution, while a beautiful thing and has stood the test of time amazingly well, still needs adjustments now and then to make it more relavent to situations that our Founding Fathers didn’t anticipate when drafting the original. Things like freeing slaves, giving women the right to vote, etc.
But, just out of curiosity, and this isn’t just directed at you, but to anyone who may have an opinion on this matter: Why is it objectionable to you to have people in DC have representation in Congress?
New Columbia is what the proposed DC state would be called. They have even put “taxation without representation” on their license plates. Bush had them removed from the presidential limo right away.
George Will does a comedy bit about how DC can never be a state as that would destroy the constitution - wait - I guess he’s being serious about it.
Republicans don’t want more Democrats in congress so the lock out against DC will last for a looooong time. Nevertheless, it is the most likely 51st state. If Puerto Rico ever wanted statehood they would face the same block as DC.
Puerto Rico can become a state if they ever decide to have a referendum about it. As it is now, they get all the perks of a protective solo super power without so much the meddling. If it made sense tomarrow they could vote and be ratified.
What about Americans in Samoa or Guam or the US Virgin Islands?
They’re both unincorporated territories; a little different. They are US citizens, so I would say they deserve representation. However, in the USVI, there has been little interest in becoming a state; I’m not sure about American Samoa, but there doesn’t seem to be any noticable movement there to change things.
The majority of people in DC do want representation; statehood is a stickier issue. I’m not really in favor of statehood, I just think taxpaying American citizens on American soil should have representation. Seems only fair to me.
I’m still wondering why anyone would be opposed to the American people in DC having voting representation in Congress. The only two reasons I can think of are the fact that DC is majority Democrat, or because DC is majority African-American. Since one of the recent proposals includes giving Utah (as heavily Republican as DC is Democratic) an extra rep, that just leaves…well, you know…
Pssshhhh.
Everyone knows that the fifty-first United State was Billy Preston…
Couple of details of clarification:
(a) We do NOT get quite “ALL the perks” (though we do get a whole damn lot!), and DO get them WITH much meddling: every Federal law, regulation, requirement, triplicate form, bureaucrat etc. that bothers your life, except as are inherently inapplicable here or are explicitly excluded by Act of Congress, bothers mine.
(b) If it makes sense …* to those with the power to decide*. And that ain’t just us. “Tomorrow” we could vote for it by a 3-to-1 margin and the Congress would be legally bound to…nothing, unless they had already passed an Enabling Act committing themselves to abide the results. Otherwise, it is their Constitutional faculty to decide whether to even open the damn envelope.
In any case, I don’t think there’s much of a favorable environment for a new State for at least another decade. YET, we still are the likeliest candidate from the existing territories other-than-DC to gain statehood, just by size and degree of integration into the national economy and because as mentioned we are the only other one with any significant pro-statehood movement.
So the 50-star flag’s recently achieved status as the longest-running pattern is safe for a while (The 48-star one, 1912-1959, was the prior longest run; this year the 50-star one made it past the 47 year mark).
As to splits or consolidations from extant states, the states and parties already represented in Congress can count. The House numbers, based on population, would not change too much, but each new state means 2 brand new senate seats. Say Florida wants to split into Peninsula and Panhandlia… that means a very likely 2 extra Republicans. Similar computations would probably follow any other potential scenario. Why give the folks in a bluer corner of a majority-red state the chance to have their very own governor, 2 senators and couple of Reps, when you can keep them inside the extant state, redistricted to at best elect one Rep in a good year? And so on…
As for “liberated” Cuba, 51st state? Politically unsustainable. A large number of Cubans *even in the US Exile community * are highly patriotic and would not abide the notion of abolishing their home country’s sovereignty… and it could potentially provoke one helluva civil war IN Cuba. Plus, if you think that hostility to the US is high among a large portion of Latin American governments and peoples NOW, the likely reaction to an annexation of Cuba is probably beyond your imagination.
That would be American Samoa, of course, not the other Samoa.
But I’ve read there are more Samoans in Los Angeles than in Samoa, anyway, so I guess they’re Californians. 
You don’t read so good, do you, Cap’n?
A constitutional amendment is a much larger issue and block than the politics of admitting a left or right leaning state.
I think all the provinces of Canada, except Quebec and those northern territories, would want to be states if Canada ever breaks up, as is on the table in Quebec every year or so.
The Canadian government subsidizes the maritime provinces much more than the US funds even the poorest states. And most Canadians I’ve known seem very happy to be Canadians. Where are you getting this idea from?
That doesn’t sound farfetched to me. There were debates on that very thing in the 70’s at the time they got a French PM and bilingualism was forced on the western speaking provinces. Haven’t heard of it lately, but then I don’t live in Regina any more, don’t get much news in the US press. Canadians think a lot more about the US than vice versa, probably because of the sea of US news broadcast around the world.
No, no Canadian province wants to join the US. Sure, there may be talk in the Western provinces of how far they are from Ottawa and how they don’t feel they count, but apart from a few people they don’t think joining the US is a solution.
And if you think that Quebec is the least likely Canadian province to want to join the US, remember that many people in the mainly English-speaking provinces fear assimilation into the US, due to the amount of exposure to American culture they get, while we in Quebec don’t have much to fear because the language difference makes us less permeable to American culture. (We are still exposed to it plently though.)
Cecil and the flag, if there’s ever another state.
“Breaks up”? If Quebec ever secedes from Canada, why wouldn’t the other provinces remain together?
It seems unlikely that any entity would want to apply to be part of the USA. In fact, history tells us that some wanted to break away, but were not allowed to.
It’s like the Mafia. Once you’re in, you don’t get out.
But I would not be so quick to dismiss an entities wanting to belong to the US. You never know how things will change.
I hesitate to mention this, since I only read it once and never saw it again, but maybe someone can tell me if they’ve read this, too. Does anyone remember that old trivia master LM Boyd? Maybe 20 or 30 years ago in his column, he wrote that a recent survey indicated most Canadians believed Canada would be incorporated into the US at some point in the future. He didn’t say how they felt about it, only that they thought it would happen. Has anyone else read this?
Because it’d be really funny looking on the map.
Actually, on a somewhat more serious note (and totally off the original topic), both Pakistan and the United Arab Republic broke up very quickly after formation when the smaller parts of those non-contiguous entities decided they’d rather not be ruled from afar. While I think it’s much less likely that the Maritimes would go Bangladesh on Ontario and Western Canada, it’s still something to consider.
Are there any non-island, non-contiguous nations around in the world today?