States' Rights

Quote: AZDuffman

Georgia was a prison colony so that makes sense.

I thought it still was?

Quote: petroglyph

I thought it still was?

Ever been to Savannah in July? Prison, baby.

Oh, you mean that other Georgia. Never mind..

Quote: petroglyph

I thought it still was?

I think just Atlanta. aka the Detroit of the South.

Quote: Face

Say California secedes and then a whopping 9.0 gives San Fran the Etch-a-Sketch treatment. Who's gonna pay to rebuild it? Surely one independent state couldn't afford such a thing?

An article in TIME about California in the 90s, stated if it were a country it would have the world's 6th largest economy. So I suppose they could gather the funds to rebuild LA if it gets leveled by an earthquake.

If they can wrest money away from pensions, of course.

Which they could do rather easily if they allowed more immigrants in.

A better question is how much water inflow would California lose if it seceded.

Also, I'm sure the state would suddenly rush to exploit the offshore oil fields.

Quote: AZDuffman

Why should the Feds be setting DUI limits? DUI is a state, not federal, crime. Feds should have zero say.

I can envision some scenarios where having consistency in all 50 states would make life easier for citizens, particularly when it comes to things like traffic laws. Idaho, Michigan, Oregon and Washington, allow left turns on red onto a one-way street even from a two-way street. But South Dakota (unless permitted by local ordinance), Connecticut, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina ban all left turns on red. (Or at least that's what I read on the internet, so you guys can all correct me if I'm wrong.) Somehow we expect every motorist and truck driver to try to keep track of all these various laws.

Big corporations with operations in multiple states often prefer adhering to one consistent set of federal laws, rather than a patchwork of 50 different sets of laws for each of the 50 different states. The biggest corporations probably employ lobbyists in every state. That can't be cheap. What a needless waste of money.

Quote: reno

I can envision some scenarios where having consistency in all 50 states would make life easier for citizens, particularly when it comes to things like traffic laws. Idaho, Michigan, Oregon and Washington, allow left turns on red onto a one-way street even from a two-way street. But South Dakota (unless permitted by local ordinance), Connecticut, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina ban all left turns on red. (Or at least that's what I read on the internet, so you guys can all correct me if I'm wrong.) Somehow we expect every motorist and truck driver to try to keep track of all these various laws.

Pennsylvania has this too. I remember as a kid when we would travel by car some states would have signs like "Right on Red OK" at the border. Some things you do just have to know before you go. Like most left turns banned in NJ. Some things have been made easier by homoligzing the laws. But other things make no sense. Speed limits are one. 75 mph on an interstate in NM is safe, even slow. 75 mph on the PA Turnpike is suicide. Pesticide applicator training differs for one example I know. In NM they did so many fumigations that Walter White used the homes as labs, when I was in NY we did about 1-2 in the entire state per year. Safe gun carry practices differ in empty AZ than in crowded NYC. Perhaps the biggest is the minimum wage means two different things in Santa Monica vs. the hills of Appalachia So while I hear what you are saying, I feel on balance more to be gained by keeping it at sate level.

Carolina has some interesting history in light of states' rights

Quote:

During the presidential term of Andrew Jackson, South Carolina had its own semi-secession movement due to the 1828 "Tariffs of Abomination" which threatened both South Carolina's economy and the Union. Andrew Jackson also threatened to send federal troops to put down the movement and to hang the leader of the secessionists from the highest tree in South Carolina. Also due to this, Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun, who supported the movement and wrote the essay "The South Carolina Exposition and Protest", became the first US vice-president to resign. On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote of nullification, "the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question."[55] South Carolina also threatened to secede in 1850 over the issue of California's statehood. It became the first state to declare its secession from the Union on December 20, 1860, with the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union and later joined with the other southern states in the Confederacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States

Quote: rxwine

Carolina has some interesting history in light of states' rights

Quote:

During the presidential term of Andrew Jackson, South Carolina had its own semi-secession movement due to the 1828 "Tariffs of Abomination" which threatened both South Carolina's economy and the Union. Andrew Jackson also threatened to send federal troops to put down the movement and to hang the leader of the secessionists from the highest tree in South Carolina. Also due to this, Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun, who supported the movement and wrote the essay "The South Carolina Exposition and Protest", became the first US vice-president to resign. On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote of nullification, "the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question."[55] South Carolina also threatened to secede in 1850 over the issue of California's statehood. It became the first state to declare its secession from the Union on December 20, 1860, with the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union and later joined with the other southern states in the Confederacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States

Andrew Jackson is my favorite Democrat POTUS. They tried to make him out to be some dumb Irish Mic, but this is very forward thinking. He also taught the central bank a thing or two.

Quote: reno

I can envision some scenarios where having consistency in all 50 states would make life easier for citizens, particularly when it comes to things like traffic laws.

I have to disagree, but this is a very new idea so feel free to try to change my mind.

I don't disagree that it would be easier; of course it would. But at what cost? There's a thing about giving up power, in this case the States giving their power to the Fed. There's two things you can always guarantee - 1) You'll never get that power back, and 2) They'll only want more.

I carry. There's not a single sign or easily acquired handbook or mandatory instruction or universal set of rules. It's something I do, so it is my responsibility to find and learn the rules of that activity. I have to know when I can, where I can, where I can't, how to do it, and on and on. All of this was a hell of a lot more difficult than finding idiosyncrasies in State traffic law, I promise you. And, way more so than traffic laws, going from State to State requires a ton more reading, learning, and knowing. Hell, just doing it could put me in the clink if I traveled ignorantly, say nothing of doing it incorrectly.

If/when I go to Wyoming for elk season, I will know that they don't salt their roads, and "Road Closed" damn well means road closed, and every other little tidbit that differs from WNY. You can't rely on .gov to fix every little problem we face. I already have problems with State law because the laws made in Albany by people from NYC don't really apply to the life and culture of The Middle of Nowhere, WNY. The answer isn't to make the reach broader and less specific.

It gets interesting when a local government (ie, city or county) passes a law, but then the state government overrules the locals and nullifies the law. For critics of Big Government, the rule of thumb is to give the local government the benefit of the doubt, and tell the state/federal government to go to hell.

Consider the case of Denton, Texas. Last November, the citizens of Denton went to the polls and voted to ban fracking. The Texas state legislature overruled the voters, and voided Denton's law. “It’s a bad situation when city leaders’ hands are tied,” said Councilman Kevin Roden. “There seems to be an attitude that big state government knows better than the citizens of a city. I just think—conservative or liberal—that is something you don’t do in Texas.”

Quote: Wall Street Journal

Earlier this year, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that state rules regulating energy development trump local laws. In January, a federal judge overruled a ban on oil and gas drilling in Mora County, N.M., northeast of Santa Fe.

One of the few places where local governments have prevailed is Pennsylvania. Lawmakers attempted to rein in cities’ ability to limit oil and gas activity, but the state Supreme Court overturned that law in late 2013.

Us liberals are hypocrites, of course. (Myself included.) We want the Feds to look the other way when the states legalize marijuana. And then we want the Feds to step in when the states try to ban gay marriage.