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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[da_nang]

Why do your counties have people-names?

Originally the names were named after the English aristocrats who claimed the territory during the royal charter period, Talbot, Baltimore, Dorchester etc.  Then around the time of the revolution the counties were broken up into smaller municipalities and those were mostly given to famous people around the time, Washington, Carrol, etc.  A few are just native names though, like Allegheny.

So the Devil's English then? Interesting.

[mainiac]

So the Devil's English then? Interesting.

What is the Devil's English?

[lue]

EDIT: News.

• Obamacare continues it's long trek towards glitch-free status, with Sebelius of Health and Human Resources taking the fall so far. Obama says he is "outraged" and is calling for experts to fix it.
• Obamacare approval has inched up to 45%, proving once and for all and we are all absolutely clueless as to how America decides it likes something.

I'm guessing the approval is still riding on the shutdown-and-default-fight (relative) high the Dems got, and also maybe that "tech surge" speech helped.

Dear Obama and the NSA,

    Too many cooks spoil the broth. Keep that in mind for next time.

Love, Tarn Adams' Development Methodology

[Owlbread]

What is the Devil's English?

Either Cockney or Brummie.

This has been a growing thing, with western Maryland talking about breaking away from Maryland, northern California joining with southern Oregon, Tucson becoming an enclave within Arizona, etc.

I read a good analysis of this recently, which pointed to the nearly-ubiquitous gerrymandering at the state level as one of the key drivers of this. Western Maryland is rural and conservative, while the Maryland state government is dominated by the urban Baltimore districts, and the state government is one of the most solidly Democratic in the country. Western Marylanders feel completely disenfranchised because they see themselves as being a perpetual minority in state representation.

Likewise, liberal Tucson feels like West Berlin, surrounded by the harsh red mass of the rest of the state.

Even here in NC, the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) is sort of aghast at the state legislature. The only reason you haven't seen any talk of secession is because this is a very new thing for us, and we're hoping it's just a phase. But if 2014 and 2016 leave the kind of crazy motherfuckers in power that are there now, you could see that sort of movement here.


Now it's worth noting that pretty much ALL of these state secession movements are pipe dreams. Breaking away from a parent state would require a state referendum (or similar equivalent) and the approval of Congress if they wanted to create a new state. Only instance I know of is West Virginia seceding from Confederate Virginia during the Civil War. Congress was only too happy to allow it, as it meant getting back a chunk of territory for the Union, and of course Virginia's approval was not required since there was a state of war.

East Tennessee tried to do the same, but it was a much smaller chunk of land and was never formally recognized.

I think the fact that it is so difficult for the counties of certain states to break away and form their own states is a shortcoming of the American system. It should be possible for counties to elect a secessionist party to represent them in whatever local way they can, then hold a referendum in their area. That would give them a democratic mandate to secede that, for moral reasons, the state legislature should be compelled to answer to.

I'm struck by just how little Americans have managed to escape the old world of arbitrary historical boundaries (semi-national perhaps), despite having all this freedom to build pretty much whatever they like. People fragment and drift apart naturally then federalize into multinational Unions, it's the way things have been since all the big Union-States collapsed like Yugoslavia, USSR, Czechoslovakia and so on. The American system should be flexible enough that such a thing is possible within its own framework.

For instance, one day large sections of Texas could become very pro-Democrat as the old white Republican Texan establishment gets... well, too old, and loses its grip to a more multicultural and left-leaning majority. That will lead to strife within the state, why not allow certain parts that think and feel a certain way to go their own way? It's just natural.

[mainiac]

That's a feature, not a bug.  Otherwise the Senate would be bogged down with a bunch of idiots representing those who don't play well with others.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You can't just let states break apart every time a section of the state is politically dissatisfied. The states would number in hundreds and be unstable as hell every election period.

[lue]

The Civil War says we don't want to deal with any of that secession or nullification BS again.

Counties breaking away to form new states is not impossible, just really difficult (and will, as I've always said, require one or more mergers of existing states, because 50 is a nice round number). I suspect this is caused by both the Civil War and there not being a well-defined procedure for this sort of thing in the Constitution.

[Owlbread]

You can't just let states break apart every time a section of the state is politically dissatisfied. The states would number in hundreds and be unstable as hell every election period.

I think the suggestion that they would number in the hundreds is a bit of an exaggeration. I've just looked through the proposals and they really aren't that numerous (I'd say 150 states max) but the USA is facing a reckoning of sorts in any case, maybe instability like that is going to come anyway as people grow tired of the current system churning out lame duck Presidency after lame duck Presidency, the two parties becoming hackneyed.

The Civil War says we don't want to deal with any of that secession or nullification BS again.

Counties breaking away to form new states is not impossible, just really difficult (and will, as I've always said, require one or more mergers of existing states, because 50 is a nice round number). I suspect this is caused by both the Civil War and there not being a well-defined procedure for this sort of thing in the Constitution.

I think we can safely say there won't be another such Civil War in the United States unless something goes very, very, very wrong, like the apocalypse. "Round numbers" also mean absolutely nothing and are cut from the same cloth as expressions like "territorial integrity" i.e. looking nice on a map. There are plenty of creative designs that you can change the American flag to represent and so on.

If Puerto Rico becomes a state rather than a colony, do you think North and South Dakota will unite or something?

That's a feature, not a bug.  Otherwise the Senate would be bogged down with a bunch of idiots representing those who don't play well with others.

So the United States didn't play well with Great Britain, therefore they're a bunch of idiots?

[Mephansteras]

That's a feature, not a bug.  Otherwise the Senate would be bogged down with a bunch of idiots representing those who don't play well with others.

So the United States didn't play well with Great Britain, therefore they're a bunch of idiots?

It's a nasty mess to split a state, and I think it makes sense that it is a difficult procedure to make it happen. The revolutionaries who split the US off from the UK knew what they were doing, and they didn't make that decision lightly.

Part of it is a question of magnitude. If, say, Northern and Southern California really decided that splitting was the better way to go, it would happen. But people would really, really, have to want it to happen.

But having a bunch of tiny counties trying to split off to form their own states is the point where it gets silly and expensive. After all, that sort of change requires a lot of bureaucracy and bureaucratic changes. States have agreements and contracts with one another. What happens if a state splits? Do those agreements stay? Which ones? What about the obligations? The debts? Treasuries could be split based on revenue, but what about debts that effect overall systems?

So, yes, having a bunch of counties splitting off and forming/reforming states all the time would be expensive and stupid. So I'd agree with the 'idiots' label, since I doubt most people who'd want such a thing would bother thinking about the ramifications. They'd just be angry that not everyone wanted to do things their way.

[Owlbread]

It's a nasty mess to split a state, and I think it makes sense that it is a difficult procedure to make it happen. The revolutionaries who split the US off from the UK knew what they were doing, and they didn't make that decision lightly.

Part of it is a question of magnitude. If, say, Northern and Southern California really decided that splitting was the better way to go, it would happen. But people would really, really, have to want it to happen.

But having a bunch of tiny counties trying to split off to form their own states is the point where it gets silly and expensive. After all, that sort of change requires a lot of bureaucracy and bureaucratic changes. States have agreements and contracts with one another. What happens if a state splits? Do those agreements stay? Which ones? What about the obligations? The debts? Treasuries could be split based on revenue, but what about debts that effect overall systems?

So, yes, having a bunch of counties splitting off and forming/reforming states all the time would be expensive and stupid. So I'd agree with the 'idiots' label, since I doubt most people who'd want such a thing would bother thinking about the ramifications. They'd just be angry that not everyone wanted to do things their way.

The problem is that right now even if most people in those counties actually "really wanted" to form a state, rather than a few wacko preachers somewhere in Texas or something, they cannot do so because the system is so prohibitive. Debts, rather like in Europe, could be divided into percentages based on the overall contribution to the state economy that the counties made.

It also wouldn't really happen "all the time". At the moment there are only so many movements that are semi viable that people may go for. You'd get 10-20 more states at the very most within a "short" period, I reckon. More likely would be 5-10.

[lue]

I should point out I don't buy the round numbers thing myself (though it is nice...), it's just something I know is on a lot of people's minds.

And yes, the joke usually is that we would end up with at least a Dakota and a Carolina and a greater Virginia to balance the numbers.

Aside from all that, usually those complaints arise from a feeling of lack of representation in the state government. In those situations, efforts would be potentially more worthwhile and certainly less expensive in getting better representation in the state gov't, or failing that, to get that gov't to listen to you anyway. It would take an absolutely massive amount of dissent for new state talks to happen seriously.

(Come to think of it, I'm surprised we don't hear of flag manufacturers organizing (Super)PACs to get people to want to form their own state more often.)

[mainiac]

I think the suggestion that they would number in the hundreds is a bit of an exaggeration. I've just looked through the proposals and they really aren't that numerous (I'd say 150 states max) but the USA is facing a reckoning of sorts in any case, maybe instability like that is going to come anyway as people grow tired of the current system churning out lame duck Presidency after lame duck Presidency, the two parties becoming hackneyed.

No because there is a massive incentive for states to split off if they thought it was actually feasible.  The Senate gives them disproportionate representation and that leads to largess for any backwards part of the country that high a high state to population ratio.  It doesn't matter so much in an economically successful places because their politicians have better things to do but this system would lead to a massive spoils system for the back country.  This is why the founders intentionally made it hard for new states to get in.

[Owlbread]

I think for this to work it would take radical reorganization of things like the Senate. It can't really exist in its current form with more states.

[mainiac]

I think for this to work it would take radical reorganization of things like the Senate. It can't really exist in its current form with more states.

Assume a can opener...

[misko27]

Problem is after 200 years of the system, the state lines were simply accepted as arbitrary. Look at the east coast, then the west. Larger, flatter, rectangular when possible. The States, like the US as a whole, is a strange mirror mixture of arbitrary lines and loyalty to the state based on the fact that well they live there! Furthermore, there are not many well defined groups. As mainiac illustrated,even places that have these movements have significant opposition. No area in the US is monolithic, the three big states all have areas of significant political discrepancy, but that is seen as asign of strength, not weakness. US law is,our attempts to be, majority rules, but minority rights.

Also, the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia from a single peaceful state to violently feuding smaller states is not the best example to give, especially when trying to recommend it.

I think for this to work it would take radical reorganization of things like the Senate. It can't really exist in its current form with more states.

Actual motives revealed.