We Need States

I know, but I'm not saying that we should never have had them, I'm saying they're now without purpose. There was a time when hierarchal organization of the government was the only practical way to govern a territory. That's no longer the case. Thanks to distance communication, databases, and better mapping there's no need for that kind of intermediate structure. Anything you can't run from the top, you can run at the bottom. (I propose not only getting rid of states, but getting rid of counties and parishes, as well.) They're closer but they're not as close as the residents of Milwaukee, WI, who are in fact twice as close to Chicago as the residents of Springfield. Why don't they get a say in Milwaukee? If your answer is "because they're in a different state", then you've accepted my premise that there's no natural scope to states, only an artificial scope. A scope that is reasonably suggested by the circumstances of the problem. Remember that only in a few circumstances are the boundaries of the states representative of any natural feature, for the most part they're just arbitrary legal boundaries. (This is perhaps best represented by the marker at Four Corners.) Problems come with natural scope. Whether we should raise property taxes to build a bridge on 3rd Street over the Whitefish River is an inherently local issue that shouldn't go to a state legislature (why should residents at the other side of the state, who won't be affected one way or the other, get a say?) Whether health insurance should be required to offer birth control options at no co-pay to the policy holder is an inherently national issue, because women taken as a group have the same health needs regardless of whether they live in Tennessee or in Minnesota. It shouldn't go to a state legislature, either, because the principle of equal protection under the law implies that if a woman anywhere in the US has a right simply because she's a woman, then all women should have that right. Otherwise all women are not equally protected. Right, see, that's exactly my point. There's no natural scope that puts gun ownership in rural Illinois properly under the same regulatory regime as gun ownership in urban Chicago. The reason that you are so entangled with urban Chicagoites is because you both reside within the arbitrary borders of Illinois. But why should Illinois get to make laws that affect so many different types of situations and circumstances, just because people live in something called "Illinois"?

Who said 'between'? One of the the most important functions of the States is to act as checks against the overshadowing and all-encompassing power of an out-of-control Federal government. I suppose when you've already broken both your legs the next logical thing to do is dislocate your shoulders and poke our your eyes.Err.... wait a minute...

After which no States were apparently added to the Union. Will one organization manage all that?Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

I see our court system being a major hurdle to overcome in a no state system.

But we still kinda need them right now because that's the way everything is set up, regardless of any true "purpose" of them. Okay. So one purpose we might identify is that they're necessary now because we did need them in the past and we can't just erase them off the map. There's a whole lotta stuff we'd have to do to get rid of them. Not that that is a reason to keep them, but as we sit today, we can't do without them. What do you mean by "run at the bottom"? I can accept that.I'm not convinced that we should eliminate the states, but I can see where there could be some benefits to it.Can you think of any disadvantages of eliminating states? Others have pointed out acting as a check against the federal government and the current court systems relying on states. Heh, so we got the Mississippi River between IL and MO. Its legal for passengers to drink alcohol in the car in MO (as long as the driver has had nothing) but that's not legal in IL. So, I've been in a car going to a Cardinals game where all 3 non-drivers are sitting there with a beer in their hand as we're driving over the bridge and then simultaneously crack them open as we cross the MO line. I did think: "wow, that's kinda silly"

thank you

Which they, by definition, cannot do. When Federal power conflicts with state power, the Supremacy Clause is clear - Federal power wins. State power is supreme only in those areas where the Federal government has no power, and is therefore a nonentity. But that's determined by the Constitution, not by the states. States can't push the Federal government out all by themselves - look at the conflicts between Federal law enforcement in states that have legalized medical marijuana.States not being able to fulfill the purposes for which they were intended is an argument for getting rid of states, because of their significant downside and the cost to maintain them. (States spend millions of dollars every year simply to maintain the functions of their governments.) I have no response except to note that this is not an argument of any kind.

I... guess, but by the same token if we didn't have them, that's not how things would be set up, so we wouldn't need them. Sure we can. All it takes is an eraser. Really, there's nothing simpler than getting rid of states and counties - we close out their governments, invalidate all their laws, and pass whatever Federal laws are necessary to prevent (for instance) murder from suddenly being legal. Easy, at least conceptually speaking. At the municipal, local level. If the town of Bumblefuck needs a new bridge, then the Bumblefuck city council votes on it, appropriates the money, and pays someone to build a bridge. Why should that be a state matter? Well, number one it's a practical impossibility. It can't be done. You'd have to amend the Constitution to do it, and who would get to vote on that amendment? The exact same people you'd be putting out of a job - Senators, state representatives, and governors. So, they'd all vote "no."Number two even if you could somehow do it, you'd have to pass about ten thousand Federal laws in a big hurry, and Congress doesn't work like that.

Sure, but way back when, they do seem to have been a necessity. If Bumblefuck cannot afford to build the bridge, but the towns on both side rely on transportation through Bumblefuck, and the larger community relies on those two towns succeeding, then some governing body need to get involved to get the job done. It could be the Feds, but maybe not. There's gonna be some limit where things are too small for the Feds and I'm not sure that includes that everything below that as being capable of handling it. I'm not sure its true that anything that can't be run from the top can, in fact, be run from the bottom. Yeah, but if that would fuck a bunch of shit up then, as you later say, we couldn't really fix very quickly. That's why I say that we can't really just erase them. It'd need to be a long and drawn out process to actually work. Although, as you also say, drawing it out would cause it to be denied.

So, as many towns in the same situation have done, they get together and form the "Bumblefuck bridge consortium." Or else the Federal Bridge Commission uses pooled resources to administer the construction of the bridge. There's nothing about the situation that requires a state, that's just one of the make-work administrative spheres we delegate to states so that they have something to do. Yeah, I know. We really should, though.

Well, you're right, and I don't really think that we need states, per se. It'd certainly break the monotony!

There are many issues currently organized and maintained in the State governments and jurisdictions.The States and their organizations manage educational matters; maintain roads; etc.Until crashfrog lays out a better system for taking care of these necessities, his argument will remain all whine and no cheese.Aside from all the other arguments in favor of States, the simplest is that States do stuff that we need to have done, and there is no other system in place nor is there another system proposed for otherwise managing this 'stuff' without States (e.g., by means of 'local' and national efforts only).JonEdited by Jon, : No reason given.

If there were no states, we'd have to change the name of the country. I suggest "The Blobby Thing Under Canada".The flag would need revision too. Apart from that, I see no problems. Except ... well, will you tell the Texans, or should I?

Abolishing beta testing doesn't ensure that your final release is of final-release quality. It ensures the opposite.If we abolish legislative experimentation by the states, that doesn't mean that all the national legislation would be tried and tested. It would mean that it was untried and untested. It would be the "random process of legislative experiment" that you so decry when the states do it. It would be more random and experimental then it would be without looking to precedents set by individual states, because of being made with less data.How, for example, would it be less "random and experimental" for the Blobby Thing Under Canada to legalize marijuana then for the state of Colorado to do so? It wouldn't. It would just be an experiment on more people with less data.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The existence of the Senate and the existence of the States are seperate issues. You could abolish either independently.Whilst the decision on the exact composition of the US Senate was taken to preserve the influence of states; the actual idea of the upper house was taken from the unitary Westminster system, where the upper house protected instead the interests of the aristocracy and church.But senates (or, more generally, upper houses) are still common in unitary systems. They're there as an extra check on tyranny. Deciding on the appropriate method of representation is not a simple matter; and an upper house which uses a different form of representation helps to prevent against a tyranny of the majority.Here in Czech Republic, for example, we have a Senate, though it's nowhere near as powerful as the US Senate. It's more similar in power to the British House of Lords. Unlike the lower house, which is elected on a proportional basis using party lists; the upper house is elected on a single-member constituency system similar to the US House of Representatives; and it's elected at different times for different term-lengths. It produces a very different body to act as a check upon hasty legislation.