We Need States

States are good.Read here for the opening pieces of the argument.

Yes, we need states. I wouldn't go that far.States have bloated bureaucracies and too much corruption. Perhaps not all states have those problems, but many do.

The way states are run is certainly a problem.But we certainly need a force between the men with the pitchforks and the men with the warheads.

Hi Jon Can you cite another government in the world that uses states to break up their population representation and government?Canada has provinces with their own governments -- however these are much larger than our states and more closely represent regions -- any others?Do not find it curious that establishing new governments in Iraq and Afghanistan did not utilize the concept of states or provinces to divide up the factions, letting each faction have their regional government and then uniting them under the national government?Personally I think this would not have stemmed much of the insurgent battles.Enjoy

Germany, Australia, Brazil, Russia, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Nigeria, Mexico, Ethiopia, Chad, Austria, Belgium, Somalia, Switzerland, Venezuela, Bosnia, Malaysia, the Seychelles, Colombia and, contrary to your post, Iraq, are all federal countries. I'm disappointed in your uncharacteristic display of American exceptionalism. It's reminiscent of the Big Brother contestant who opined that Britain should retain its monarchy on the basis that "we're the only country that has one".In fact, most of the world's largest countries have federal governments, with the most notable exceptions being China and Indonesia. China does, however, have five autonomous regions, plus the Special Adminstrative Regions in Hong Kong and Macau, that have considerable legislative autonomy; and for practical reasons stemming from the sheer size of the country the provincial governors have a lot of power in the real world.

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.

The United Mexican States, a.k.a Mexico.

quote:

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The United Mexican States are a federation of thirty-one free and sovereign states, which form a union that exercises a degree of jurisdiction over the Federal District and other territories.

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Each state has its own constitution, congress, and a judiciary, and its citizens elect by direct voting a governor for a six-year term, and representatives to their respective unicameral state congresses for three-year terms.

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The Federal District is a special political division that belongs to the federation as a whole and not to a particular state, and as such, has more limited local rule than the nation's states.wiki

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

Doncha think they had a purpose when they were formed? Back when we didn't have instant communcation n'stuff? Why should some Hippies in California get to determine the penalties for the actions of some Ganstas in Chicago? That one's not that convincing when you realize you're only talking about 0.3% of the population.

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.

What you consider legal confusion is a feature of the system rather than a bug. No, it is not morally different to murder a person in California than in Illinois, but the matter of what is the appropriate punishment is a matter rational people can disagree on. I would in fact suggest that nobody knows the right answer. Allowing California and Illinois to experiment separately with what that answer ought to be seems like a reasonable solution to me.I'd view gun laws in the same way. Within the confines of the 2nd amendment, I don't see why states cannot experiment with what works for them. I don't think this is quite the problem it used to be. It is completely feasible using modern methods to produce whatever textbooks states want. For example, Virginia manages to produce its own, riddled with errors, history text books and has no interest in the text books that Texas uses. Not quite. State laws apply to you if you operate a corporation within that state. Primarily what you get by incorporating in Delaware is a standardized set of formalities and some law applying to shareholder's rights with respect to corporations. States can and do decide the overwhelming majority of the substantive law that applies to corporations.I don't disagree with all of your points, but the "legal confusion" or non-homogeneous state law argument one isn't a one sided slam dunk in favor of getting rid of states.I don't see why some hick in North Carolina should have any say in whether some drug is legal for recreation use in Oregon. Why is the current situation less democratic than having the entire country vote on the issue, when it doesn't affect the overwhelming majority of us?

State highways, state waterways. Those are arguments about the scope of state government, rather than about the existence of state government. Nonsense. That is a problem with senate rules, not with there being states.I am better represented in Washington by my state's senators than I am by my representatives. At least senatorial districts cannot be gerrymandered. I'll grant that is a problem, but it could be resolved without eliminating the concept of states.

And there might be a case that they're no longer necessary, but I just wanted to point out that they did have a necessity and a purpose in the past. They're closer and could be affected by them. Aren't criminal penalies a matter of the preference of local communities? I can buy booze in my town until 3 am but I'll get arrested for buying it after 1 am in the town next to mine. My town just voted down having slot machines in bars but two towns over they voted them in. I'm not sure that's true, but I understand some of the sentiment. There's a lot of hunters down here in southern Illinois that hate all the bullshit we've got to go through with the the FOID card that only exists because of all the problems with guns in Chicago. We don't need to have those extra laws down here, but alas, we're in the same state. I'm not sure what a "natural" purpose is. Not that its OK, just that its not a convincing argument against the existence of States. Its negligible.I wonder how many felons can't vote...

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.