We Need States

States are bad.1) They lack natural purpose. Contra Jon, we don't need an additional level of bureaucracy between the local and national level because there is no such thing as an issue whose natural scope is, say, exactly no larger or smaller than a rectangular area the size of Wyoming. Simply by the Zero One Infinity rule, there can not possibly be any such thing as a natural "state issue." States simply magnify bureaucratic confusion and redundancy with no benefit.2) They breed legal confusion. Is it morally worse to murder a person in California than to murder that same person in Illinois? Surely the moral worth of a person is not related to where in the United States they reside. So how, then, is murder subject to a stricter penalty in California than in Illinois? Gun ownership is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, but imagine the logistical nightmare involved in transporting a gun collection in your U-Haul from New York to California. Which interstate do you plan to travel along? That's going to determine which 48 legal doctrines you're going to have to research to determine compliance. Imagine, too, the transitions between states with contradictory gun laws. Hope you remember to stop and repack! That's just one narrow issue where states regulate matters of properly national scope.3) They promote a race to the bottom. It's well-known that most corporations are incorporated in Delaware, due to the least strict licensing regime in the nation. Pity the state that attempts to apply a greater regulatory burden to the corporations that operate there, for the benefit of its citizenry - Delaware has already made that determination for everybody. It's well-known that Texas is allowed to determine the educational textbook standards for the entire nation, due to their massive market power, while educators in 49 other states simply aren't afforded the opportunity to have input into that process. During the health care debates, it was pointed out that while a national exchange of health insurers seems like a way to bring market pressure to bear on insurers, due to the existence of states all it actually would accomplish would be to expose every American to the licensing regime of whatever state had the least stringent requirements for insurers - and provide a tax incentive for states to compete to be the least stringent state. A similar "race to the bottom" effect can be found when neighboring states weaken regulations and waive taxes to "attract" businesses from their neighbors, who respond with their own round of tax reduction and deregulation - to the detriment of their revenue and the protection of the citizenry - as businesses ping-pong back and forth, reaping the benefits without creating even a single job.4) They're anti-democratic. The most powerful man in the Senate is Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee and therefore in a position to unilaterally veto every piece of legislation in Congress. Yet, despite being afforded veto power equivalent to the President's and therefore at least as significant a figure to the policy changes that affect the nation, less than 2% of American citizens are allowed to participate in the election in which Max Baucus stands.5) They're insufficient in scope. Perhaps as many as ten million Americans do not reside in any state, but because of the misapprehension that the United States is a nation of united states, these Americans have no representation in Congress, no ability to shape policy or express their legislative preference, but are nevertheless taxed to support the activities of the government that they have little electoral input into. "Taxation without representation", as you'll recall, was considered at one time to be such an outrage that it justified armed rebellion against the government. Yet, this is second-class status we subject millions of Americans to, many of them residing adjacent to our nation's capital.Let us finally be citizens of the United States of America, and end the damaging legal fiction of states. We've already had the final debate about the notional sovereignty of states, and it was their sovereignty which lost. The issue is settled, and it is now time to bring it to fruition. End states.

Right, and obviously Mexico is exactly a government worth modeling ours after.

Sure. But now we do have instant communication. In a situation where we don't - widespread natural disaster, for instance, like a superstorm 650 miles wide that delivers hurricane-force winds and a 14-foot storm surge to the most populated areas of the East Coast - state-level government has proven itself to be about as useful as tits on a steer. By the same principle, though, why should residents of Springfield get to determine the penalties for your Chicago gangsters? Either criminal penalties are a matter of justice - and justice isn't supposed to be determined by your zip code - or else it's a matter of the preference of local communities. States are too small to enact universal ideals and too large to reflect local preference. They have no natural purpose. So what? Second-class status is OK as long as they're in a minority? That's exactly wrong.

Well, we have a mechanism to settle those disagreements called "representative democracy." It's not at all clear how it improves on representative democracy to carve it up into little random fiefdoms and tell citizens "ok, you get to be represented by this legislature but not that one. Right, "laboratories of democracy." The states are like "beta testing" for laws. I've heard this before.The problem, though, is that not everybody wants to live under permanent beta-test status. Some of us would like to live under release-version legislation, not a continual and random process of legislative experiment. If there really is a need to "beta-test" laws - and I would point out, the current state system doesn't do this well at all, since there's no mechanism by which a successful state law can, after this "beta-test" period, be pushed out to every state - then we could probably designate a few localities as "experiment towns", where particularly adventurous individuals could move and live there to experience all the joy of a confusing, rapidly-changing experimental legal regime. Because lives are on the line. Especially with guns, and American citizens have a right to have laws that work, and to be equally protected under those laws, and not be subject to constant legal tinkering and experimentation. The notion of states as "laboratories of democracy" is an argument in favor of abolishing states, not in favor of keeping them. Americans have a right to live under release-version democracy. Virginia is the 12th most populous state in the Union. Do you think that Alaska is afforded the same attention by textbook publishers? Why should Alaskans be subject to the educational requirements of Texans? But of course, that all hinges on the definition of "operate." Many corporations do business in states where they don't operate. Sure. Some things aren't of national scope. But I don't see why some hick in rural Roseburg, OR should have any say in what is legal in Portland, by the same reasoning. Why does it make sense to group residents of Portland (population 600k, primary industry: semiconductors) and Roseburg (population 20k, primary industry: forestry), but not the residents of Portland and Seattle (population 600k, primary industry: software)? If you don't have any answer but "they're not in the same state", then you've accepted my premise that states represent no natural scope.

No such thing, except artificially. If there were no states, roads would be Federalized, and for the most part they already are, because our highway infrastructure is paid for by grants from the federal government to the states out of the federal gasoline tax. Why not eliminate an extraneous middleman? Yes. The argument is, the states reflect no natural scope and are therefore extraneous. There's only a Senate because there are states. Eliminate the states and we have no need of the Senate's anti-democratic rule. States are gerrymandering. They're the ultimate gerrymander except that they never change to reflect demographic shift. We're stuck with the demographic reflection of the 1700's. Sure, but the resolution would be to invest the Federal government with state-like power to administer the citizens of Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, all the Indian reservations, and the District of Columbia. But then that just proves that the states have no natural scope of authority that we can't do without.

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"?

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.

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.

If it's good that the interests of disparate, potentially even competing groups should be tied together, then it follows that it's better to tie more together. Therefore lets tie them maximally together as citizens of the Blobby Thing Under Canada, and dispense with states.I note that you don't make an argument that the interests of cattle ranchers should not be tied to any more or less other groups than those who reside within the borders of Texas. But why is that? Why should the ranchers' interests be tied to engineers in Texas but not in New Mexico? They'd be for nothing, because we'd get rid of them. No Senate. Every US citizen would have equal representation in Congress. So too would they be bound under the "no-states" system, as citizens of the Blobby Thing Under Canada.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I gotta say, I feel like "American" is a brand name with a lot of strong, positive connotations for, you know, Americans. Much more so than anybody's identity as a resident of their state. (Am I a "Marylandian"? "Marylander"? I don't know and I don't give a shit.) Texans are probably the exception there, but frankly deflating the Texas ego would be just one additional benefit of my no-states, no-counties total reorganization of the country. And that makes you a... Nevadian? Nevadar? Well, I've been to Austin, and my experience was that the software guys there didn't give two shits about cattle ranchers in Texas or anywhere, and they felt a much stronger kinship to their colleagues in Seattle and Silicon Valley than they did about a bunch of out-state hayseeds, unless those hayseeds also lived in or around Austin, because under those circumstances they all rooted for the Longhorns.And that's where the majority of your local patriotism comes from, football teams and cities. Still around, under my no-state solution.

This seems to completely ignore what I've said, and is false to boot. The scope of the Constitution is the entire nation of the United States of America, and if states would like to suddenly assert powers that the Federal government has claimed, they can't - they can try to have the Constitution amended to move those powers from the Federal level to the states, but that process begins with the Federal government. The Supremacy Clause - which you completely ignore - makes it clear that it is the Federal government and its Constitution, not the states, which determines where Federal power ends and state power begins. This is an utter non sequitur. I've not argued that the States have no power to act in their interests. That would be an enormously stupid thing to have claimed, so it's an enormously stupid thing for you to have claimed I've claimed. Why would they be the same? I'm an American, not a Canadian or a Russian. I'm not talking about having a foreign power invade the United States. Where did you get the idiotic notion that I was?And anyway, sure, I'd be supremely irritated by the US government falling to a foreign power, and probably more or less irritated depending on what power it was. My children would grow up thinking it was completely normal - as did the children and grandchildren of the citizens of the nations that the United States invaded. This is just an argument that change is irritating. I agree, but that's part of my argument against states, not the argument for them.

I'm not talking about abolishing beta-testing. I'm talking about abolishing subjecting everyone to it. What kind of "experiment" do you run without any controls? Even if that were true, your argument flounders on the fact that in both practice and theory it doesn't ever work this way. State legislation almost never "graduates" to the Federal level because of the Tenth Amendment separation of state and Federal power. The only example of this promotion-to-Federal-from-state transition that I can think of is Romneycare/Obamacare, and that was hardly a situation where Massachusetts worked Romneycare over until all the bugs were gone, and then sent it up to the US Congress. Yes, it would be much less random.

And I guess my point is that they don't - what the states created, they have no legal power to dissolve. The Federal government, as created, is no less legally permanent than the states themselves. This legal fact was, after all, what started the Civil War. Not without amending the US Constitution. There are only two ways to amend the US Constitution, and they both require the participation and therefore the assent of the Federal government. There's no way for the states to unilaterally contract any Federal power except by the willing participation of the Federal government. Even if the states bring suit to do so, that suit won't affect the Federal government until the Supreme Court has ruled - and there's your Federal participation in the process.Sorry, you're just flat-out wrong in a way that even a 9th-grade civics class would have shown you. We don't live in the "states rights" country you think we do.

That's not an experiment and control, that's two experiments. No, if we have a single national policy we have no "experiment" at all. That's the point. It's obvious, though. Not examples of "promotion", though.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.