Why does America still have states?

osprey1987

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Isn't it a bit absurd having different laws on age of consent and capital punishment depending on which state you are in? How do these issues have anything to do with geography?

This is the one thing I find most absurd about America. How much power does a governor really have? Way too much by the look of it.
 

midlifebear

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Have you ever been to the USA? Do you have any idea why, as a nation, the States accommodate an almost countless plurality of views and beliefs? Go get yerself some edjumacation before you bother to post anything about any subject except your favorite color.
 

takethecurve

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That was the purpose of the American republic. The only powers vested to the federal government are those outlined in the constitution. All others are vested to the state. ALL others. Meaning how your education looks, what the death penalty looks like, what crimes are illegal and what penalties they merit. There are a few cases where the federal government steps in and does overarching laws in those cases, but pretty much the federal governments job is anything that involves all the states, not the individual powers of a single state.

Federalist vs. anti-federalist
 

bobby_long

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"Isn't it a bit absurd having different laws on age of consent and capital punishment depending on which state you are in?"

Not at all, States are essentially countries in their own right and are united under a central government and even that was only fairly recently - Civil War ring any bells? This unification is ideological and political, but that doesn't mean homogeneity across the continent.

"How do these issues have anything to do with geography?"

Hmmm, they don't, and, despite the straight lines on the map, in general neither do State boundaries. They are poltical, which is why you can and do have differences from State to State.

"This is the one thing I find most absurd about America. How much power does a governor really have? Way too much by the look of it."

Way too much by the look of it? - I'm guessing that if you think that there is too much power in the hands of State officials, power should be handed over to central government - as they certainly don't have enough power...

Also, with regards absurdities in the USA, what about the drinking age being 21? Absurd!
 

maxcok

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Have you ever been to the USA? Do you have any idea why, as a nation, the States accommodate an almost countless plurality of views and beliefs? Go get yerself some edjumacation before you bother to post anything about any subject except your favorite color.
LOL at "favorite color". The OP has started 33 threads in the past week or so, typically with inane questions.

Is someone starved for attention?
 

Stretch

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Future inane thread suggestions for the OP:

Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

Do you find your cum shots thicker and bigger on the weekends as opposed to during the week?

In a country of free speech, why are there phone bills?

Why is it people blindly believe in a god, yet when confronted with wet paint or sour milk, feel it necessary to touch it or taste it to believe it?

Why are my posts not taken seriously, met with disdain and generally ridiculed?
 

Kotchanski

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Why is it people blindly believe in a god, yet when confronted with wet paint or sour milk, feel it necessary to touch it or taste it to believe it?

I'd read that thread...

I've often seen people poking fingers at wet paint and looking shocked when the end of said finger returns bright blue. I want to know why!
 

Stretch

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Why is it people blindly believe in a god, yet when confronted with wet paint or sour milk, feel it necessary to touch it or taste it to believe it?

I'd read that thread...

I've often seen people poking fingers at wet paint and looking shocked when the end of said finger returns bright blue. I want to know why!

I'm just lazy enough to post Aconitum...starting a whole thread seems like too much work :wink:
 

B_nyvin

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Regional governments serve the same purpose as a manager to a district manager....the manager handles all the lower things, the district manager handles all the upper things.
 

Bbucko

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The name of the country is The United States of America.

We are comprised of states because that's how our system was set up, and, of course, we started off with thirteen colonies, each with their own separate histories, reasons and rationales for having been colonized in the first place and distinctive, unique "personalities". Despite many years of a dominant overall American culture, each state continues to evolve customs and traits which separate themselves from each other.

This is illustrated nicely by comparing Vermont and New Hampshire, for instance: in just about any measure, they are as much a mirror-opposite of each other as they appear to be on a map. New Hampshire is old-school, sectarian Libertarian (Family Values type issues get a very poor play there: they have same-sex marriage on the books) and is taxophobic in the extreme; Vermont is as close to a European-type Socialist state as you'll find in the US (much more than Massachusetts): in fact, they're going to be implementing a single-payer form of health care reform much more like Canada's than the Romneycare found in Massachusetts.

Though there have been separations/secessions within states (Maine was part of Massachusetts once, and West Virginia separated from Virginia during the Civil war), there have never been instances where two or more states have formally dissolved and formed one larger state. Personally, I believe that southeast Florida (Palm Beach county down to and including The Keys) should secede from the Bible-thumping, socially conservative rest of the state. We do not have enough influence in Tallahassee IMO, especialyy compared to the revenue we send them.

Our experiment in federalism is over 200 years old, and has proven to be a fertile laboratory for tinkering with successful and failed political ideas. This freedom is diametrically opposed to the top-down governance of a place like France, where centralized power didn't change one iota after their revolution in the 18th Century.

My own (admittedly rather personal) take on federalism in the US is that diversity is celebrated as one of the core virtues of what makes us unique and special (though I refrain from declaring superiority) and is written into our very DNA as a country. In fact, if anything, I'd prefer to see more power given to the states' rights over self-determination, especially as regards drug policy, for instance, rather than less. If you don't like where you live, you can always move to a different state where more people think as you do and help to create/develop communities where laws focus on your priorities. We've always been a highly mobile nation: I, myself, have lived in seven states and by no means am I unique.
 

osprey1987

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The question wasn't why does America have states but why does it still have states? Thank you for being high and mighty and answering a question I never asked. Perhaps you should read every word in a sentence before accusing others of being stupid.

No other country in the world decides capital punishment or age of consent by state. Did you really think I was asking why everything wasn't administered by federal government?

How is central government worse than state government? Do you control local officials any better than state officials. I would like to see it.

If you don't like the question then ignore it. Nobody is forcing you to spout your opinion as if it were fact. "Oh, this topic is inane." What a wonderfully incisive contribution.

Wether someone is executed because they committed a crime past an arbitrary state border is such an inane topic. It's just the same debate as having to pay for phone bills. Are your hands connected to your brain or do you laugh at your own jokes?
 

SilverTrain

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Isn't it a bit absurd having different laws on age of consent and capital punishment depending on which state you are in?

You could raise the same query with respect to "countries". Why not just have one country for the entire earth?

How do these issues have anything to do with geography?

See answer to first question.

This is the one thing I find most absurd about America. How much power does a governor really have? Way too much by the look of it.

You're troubled by too much power centralized in a state governor, so you advocate centralizing even more power in a lone Federal official?
 

osprey1987

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This is nothing to do with officials, laws are made by hundreds of elected public servants. Laws made locally have far less public scrutiny given to them and are much harder to keep track of and are probably voted on by far fewer people in the first place.

I think international law should include a minimum age of consent when many countries have none. Also, capital punishment has no logic in any country. But applying international law is incredibly hard , especially when many countries have antagonistic relations. Why not use national institutions already in place?

Central government is more accountable because it has far more scrutiny and coverage. Nothing can get away from this. If government is evil or inefficient, then defusing it won't make it any less so, merely less hard to keep track off.
 

helgaleena

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Osprey, I think it would be more germane to ask, why do so many parts of the world ignore the United Nations and other councils who try to impose universal standards of humane governance? Because they are optional.

The federal government of any region varies in the amount of centralized control. In Afghanistan for example, clan warlords are the most efficient level, or so it seems. Their federal government has little effect on what happens in a certain geographic subdivision of the nation, whatever the heads of state may declare.

I strongly suspect that there's a maximum size at which federal control remains effective even if it's generally desired. Examples: Chinese history, innumerable short-lived empires that crumbled at the death of a conqueror, and USSR. The USA is definitely at a far extent of effective centralization, as is Canada. I anticipate ever more regional and state level autonomy in North America.
 

yoursgetsmine

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Actually it's simple.....states have their laws, both criminal and civil, which gives people the choice to live in a state that may have more of a mutual tone in conjunction with a person's personal beliefs (like if you want to murder someone but not be put to death for doing it)or if the optional law enforcement of either civil (state income tax laws) or other criminal laws would be the sole motivator to live there....excluding climate, family, financial or job opportunity, etc.,and federal laws apply to all the states in general....except where the federal government has acquiesced to certain laws (speed limits, drinking age etc.) because the federal courts don't want to have a million underage drinking cases clogging up their courts or a billion speeding law tickets doing the same thing (makes sense huh?), but maintains certain mandatory law and regulatory jurisdiction over most serious situations which in effect gives it a "one state" mentality and actuality.........AND we just like to confuse people and mess with people's minds.....but we just can't be the same thing to all people all the time about everything or think how boring that could become...and besides, how would lawyers make a living if they couldn't challenge these laws and have them interpreted and reinterpreted all the time?
 
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