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At the ripe old age of 27, I have become a bit disillusioned with the American political system. Our federal government is corrupt with gerrymandering, lies, special interest, bribery, and strong-arming. The military budget vastly outstrips every other country's, the rich pay the government to dismantle hard-won and important checks to defend the poor and disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is bad with computers. We are doing self-destructive, myopic things like widespread fracking, drug prohibition, and ignoring crumbling infrastructure. There are lots of arguments among very smart people on how to fix this issue or that, or what underlying issues cause the symptoms of society that are ostensibly unrelated. A problem with these discussions is that there are so many individual glaring yet complex problems, it feels to me like trying to untie the Gordian Knot without a sword. I have had a crazy idea that has been bothering me since college: "Would the USA be better off as a confederacy, or even multiple countries?" I feel a lot of problems with our government is that it has become too powerful. It reaches all the way from DC right into our homes micromanaging our lives regardless of local culture. I think that the Unites States, at least, is too big for its britches. There is no way to reconcile the extreme differences in beliefs throughout my country into a coherent and constructive national body. This has lead to polarization of political discourse, and a judicial system cluttered with complex laws riddled with loopholes that cause many people to fall through the cracks in the bureaucracy. Would having a less powerful national government help? Texas can be the country it always wanted, different regions of the current US would have much more relative power to govern in the best interests and beliefs of their own citizens, and the military would be less of a global bully. I will say I don't know what all entails a confederate government other than the basic Civil War stuff from middle school, but I want to be clear I mean lower case confederacy, not the Confederate States of America. Also this isn't a panacea for the US, but big picture changes like this are interesting thought experiments. What do you all think?
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Apr 13, 2015 23:15
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Locke Dunnegan posted:I feel a lot of problems with our government is that it has become too powerful. It reaches all the way from DC right into our homes micromanaging our lives regardless of local culture. I think that the Unites States, at least, is too big for its britches. There is no way to reconcile the extreme differences in beliefs throughout my country into a coherent and constructive national body. This has lead to polarization of political discourse, and a judicial system cluttered with complex laws riddled with loopholes that cause many people to fall through the cracks in the bureaucracy. There is no evidence, beyond your gut feeling, that the federal government is in any meaningful way the cause of the issues you are presenting or that you wouldn't just get the same problems repeated x times with x smaller confederacies. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Apr 13, 2015 |
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Apr 13, 2015 23:26
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It's barely one any more as it is, and going back the other direction is just gonna make poo poo EU bad. Fine if you're New York/Texas/California, lol good luck if you're anyone else. Also no. Reduce states to administrative subdivions, annex Canada, etc.
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Apr 13, 2015 23:29
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Apr 13, 2015 23:36
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Just split the country in two. One to rule the East Coast, the other to rule the West Coast. The Midwest can continue to go gently caress themselves.
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Apr 13, 2015 23:59
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I hope that Hillary's election to a second term makes the south try to secede again so we can demote them to an unincorporated territory.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:00
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Sam Hall posted:I hope that Hillary's election to a second term makes the south try to secede again so we can demote them to an unincorporated territory. 
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Apr 14, 2015 00:03
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The only real problem with American federalism is the huge loving number of loopholes/blind spots in the constitution which gently caress with the government's ability to regulate things. A more useful change would be abolishing House constituencies and moving to a party list voting system to fix gerrymandering
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Apr 14, 2015 00:09
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OP you realize that the U.S. started as a lower-case-c confederacy, it was a catastrophic unmanageable shithole and economic disaster, and the Constitution was written in response right?
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Apr 14, 2015 00:14
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Locke Dunnegan posted:At the ripe old age of 27, I have become a bit disillusioned with the American political system. Our federal government is corrupt with gerrymandering, lies, special interest, bribery, and strong-arming. The military budget vastly outstrips every other country's, the rich pay the government to dismantle hard-won and important checks to defend the poor and disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is bad with computers. We are doing self-destructive, myopic things like widespread fracking, drug prohibition, and ignoring crumbling infrastructure. Rand Paul 2016
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Apr 14, 2015 00:16
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we're a republic actually
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Apr 14, 2015 00:31
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No the US should not stay a federation. Instead the federal gov should seize more power. The current system with 50 sovereign state governments and 4000 seperate police departments and 4000 sovereign municipalitlys each with thier own laws and standards and practices is a clusterfuck. We have the travel and communication tech in this modern age for a top down approach and that's what we should use. Instead we have a clusterfuck where the feds are defacto in charge because they dole out the money but the states still try to do thier own thing.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:33
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i feel a confederacy would be better suited op
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Apr 14, 2015 00:33
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Jagchosis posted:OP you realize that the U.S. started as a lower-case-c confederacy, it was a catastrophic unmanageable shithole and economic disaster, and the Constitution was written in response right? ah that's a good strategy, hit them with "otoh recorded history" early on
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Apr 14, 2015 00:33
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I'm bullish on thalassocracies these days. "First Admiral" has a nice ring for a head of state, yeah?
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Apr 14, 2015 00:36
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State gerrymandering is destroying our democracy and leading to single-party strangleholds all over the country. Let us fix this by returning more power to the states so they can suppress the vote directly and bring back Jim Crow.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:36
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wasn't the star trek thing called the federation? worked for those guys
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Apr 14, 2015 00:37
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It should have an Emperor appointed by the pope
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Apr 14, 2015 00:38
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Anarchy is the only solution OP. Start
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Apr 14, 2015 00:39
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Nevvy Z posted:There is no evidence, beyond your gut feeling, that the federal government is in any meaningful way the cause of the issues you are presenting or that you wouldn't just get the same problems repeated x times with x smaller confederacies. Federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have allowed its sale and use is by definition the national government using force to override the will of a local populace. It was peacefully voted into law and the federal government is still kicking doors down and shooting pets over it. I think that's a pretty hosed up way to run a country. Jagchosis posted:OP you realize that the U.S. started as a lower-case-c confederacy, it was a catastrophic unmanageable shithole and economic disaster, and the Constitution was written in response right? I don't clearly remember that from school, no. That's interesting, but then again the US now is an entirely different country than it was back when the Constitution was written, hence why I am asking why confederacy wouldn't work now. Is it like ideal communism in that it will never work due to human error and corruption, or have there been other countries recently that have been considered confederacies that have poo poo the bed mainly due to the way that governmental system works? I am honestly asking. I figured poo poo like posts containing one picture or a near empty-quote were still bannable in D&D because they aren't debating or discussion, but if this place has recently become GBS lite it's my fault for not paying attention and misjudging the people here.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:39
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Kyrie eleison posted:It should have an Emperor appointed by the pope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Holy_Synod other way around you heretical pagan fucker
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Apr 14, 2015 00:39
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I think we should just kill anarchists like you to make things better, tbh.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:41
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Just split the country in two. One to rule the East Coast, the other to rule the West Coast. The Midwest can continue to go gently caress themselves. The two countries could approve native americans building settlements on midwest lands until the entire midwest is the only native american country that exists in the world with very few holdout's that we will label terrorists and I'd be cool with it.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:42
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Locke Dunnegan posted:I don't clearly remember that from school, no. That's interesting, but then again the US now is an entirely different country than it was back when the Constitution was written, hence why I am asking why confederacy wouldn't work now. Because any two randomly selected states are likely to have radically different understandings of the law and this would create profound difficulties if everyone was allowed to run off the chain and just Do Whatever the gently caress.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:42
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VitalSigns posted:State gerrymandering is destroying our democracy and leading to single-party strangleholds all over the country. Let us fix this by returning more power to the states so they can suppress the vote directly and bring back Jim Crow. How do states suppress votes more than national government? And how would giving state governments more rights to govern themselves lead to bigoted laws? I don't follow. EDIT: This isn't an interesting topic to anyone else? What are the popular ideas for big-picture changes to improve the downward trend of personal freedoms post-911? Is there a reason to think the creep of executive power (and federal in general) will abate by itself? This is a bipartisan issue, both Obama and GWB have leveraged war and security to seriously erode personal freedoms. Locke Dunnegan fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 00:43
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Locke Dunnegan posted:How do states suppress votes more than national government? And how would giving state governments more rights to govern themselves lead to bigoted laws? I don't follow. it's not like then-Texas Attorney General and current governor Greg Abbott blew his load all over Twitter about how he was free to enforce draconian Voter ID laws after SCOTUS struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act two years ago
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Apr 14, 2015 00:44
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A Winner is Jew posted:The two countries could approve native americans building settlements on midwest lands until the entire midwest is the only native american country that exists in the world with very few holdout's that we will label terrorists and I'd be cool with it. I'm down with this.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:45
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We should return the South to the Cherokee and the Midwest to the Cree, and then we can finally establish the socialist utopia in California and New York
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Apr 14, 2015 00:45
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Locke Dunnegan posted:How do states suppress votes more than national government? And how would giving state governments more rights to govern themselves lead to bigoted laws? I don't follow. Yeah I guess if I cut out the parts of my brain that know about the last 250 years of American history I can see your point.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:47
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Locke Dunnegan posted:How do states suppress votes more than national government? And how would giving state governments more rights to govern themselves lead to bigoted laws? I don't follow.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:47
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evidently your disillusionment sure as heck didnt spring from cracking many books
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Apr 14, 2015 00:48
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Locke Dunnegan posted:EDIT: This isn't an interesting topic to anyone else? What are the popular ideas for big-picture changes to improve the downward trend of personal freedoms post-911? Is there a reason to think the creep of executive power (and federal in general) will abate by itself? This is a bipartisan issue, both Obama and GWB have leveraged war and security to seriously erode personal freedoms. Voting for 
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Apr 14, 2015 00:55
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VitalSigns posted:Yeah I guess if I cut out the parts of my brain that know about the last 250 years of American history I can see your point. What point do you think I'm making? I keep asking honest questions and I'm getting hilarious one-liners in response. The majority of the last 250 years of American history has been under a strong central national government, so Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment during WWII, fuckery of Native Americans, the drug war, the Great Depression, and others. Yes there have been leaps and bounds in personal freedoms (some more than others), but there's still seemingly systemic problems that hold us back as a nation, and I figured I had a good point for discussion. Or at least I could educate myself about related topics through getting schooled with knowledge instead of GoOn IrOnY.
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Apr 14, 2015 00:56
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Locke Dunnegan posted:What point do you think I'm making? I keep asking honest questions and I'm getting hilarious one-liners in response. The majority of the last 250 years of American history has been under a strong central national government, so Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment during WWII, fuckery of Native Americans, the drug war, the Great Depression, and others. Yes there have been leaps and bounds in personal freedoms (some more than others), but there's still seemingly systemic problems that hold us back as a nation, and I figured I had a good point for discussion. Or at least I could educate myself about related topics through getting schooled with knowledge instead of GoOn IrOnY. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha and who, pray tell, was doing the jim crow? last i checked it was states that had those laws on the books until the *GASP* FEDERAL GOVERNMENT *GASP* made them knock it off you know, much like how pretty much the entire south had grandfather clauses or literacy tests or something until the feds passed a law that made them stop it for almost 50 years, before it got gutted
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Apr 14, 2015 00:59
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Locke Dunnegan posted:I don't clearly remember that from school, no. School must be total poo poo these days. quote:Is it like ideal communism in that it will never work due to human error and corruption, Communism can't fail, it can only be failed. Also, the Russians can't do anything right. The fact they were ever a superpower at all is testament to the power of communism. quote:or have there been other countries recently that have been considered confederacies that have poo poo the bed mainly due to the way that governmental system works? Yeah, the EU, and it doesn't work. They'll be centralizing soon enough.
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Apr 14, 2015 01:02
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Unitary states are poo poo, so of course the US should remain a federation. That was easy.
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Apr 14, 2015 01:03
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Timocracy? Anyone?
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Apr 14, 2015 01:09
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ReidRansom posted:Communism can't fail, it can only be failed. In the end, the fact that humans are lovely ruins any political arrangement. OP, we've lasted this long... the structure of the country is probably generally ok, focus on fixing human douchebaggery.
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Apr 14, 2015 01:10
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Locke Dunnegan posted:What point do you think I'm making? I keep asking honest questions and I'm getting hilarious one-liners in response. The majority of the last 250 years of American history has been under a strong central national government, so Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment during WWII, fuckery of Native Americans, the drug war, the Great Depression, and others. Yes there have been leaps and bounds in personal freedoms (some more than others), but there's still seemingly systemic problems that hold us back as a nation, and I figured I had a good point for discussion. Or at least I could educate myself about related topics through getting schooled with knowledge instead of GoOn IrOnY. What? Who do you think was doing Jim Crow? What do you think the federal Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act were intended to do? Why do you think Supreme Court decisions like Loving v Virginia were necessary? Who do you think sent these soldiers, and do you think it was state or federal officials shutting down schools and blocking down doors to keep out the blacks?  But okay, history isn't your thing. Did you know gay people were still criminals in ten states (guess which ones) until the feds made them knock it off? Have you perhaps noticed that the bigot states and the Jim Crow states are still fighting to keep their bigot laws on the books and trying to overturn local anti-discrimination ordinances? Hm, funny how the party of local government actually wants to override local governments that give rights to anyone Republicans don't like, isn't it? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 01:12
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Locke Dunnegan posted:What point do you think I'm making? I keep asking honest questions and I'm getting hilarious one-liners in response. The majority of the last 250 years of American history has been under a strong central national government, so Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment during WWII, fuckery of Native Americans, the drug war, the Great Depression, and others. Yes there have been leaps and bounds in personal freedoms (some more than others), but there's still seemingly systemic problems that hold us back as a nation, and I figured I had a good point for discussion. Or at least I could educate myself about related topics through getting schooled with knowledge instead of GoOn IrOnY. Look man I'm going to go easy on you: you're getting a lot of poo poo because your opening post and subsequent responses read a lot like that which we get periodically from internet libertarians who think they've finally found the one poser question that will blow all our statist minds, but instead turn out to be hilariously ignorant of 1) recorded history, and 2) observable reality. But, again, I'm playing nice for the moment so I'll put on my history professor hat and lay some of it out. America only really starts to have a dominant central federal government following the Civil War, and even then it's not until well into the 20th century (WWII being the point most choose, those the New Deal qualifies for some) that the feds have a greater impact on the lives of the average American than their state and local governments. This in particular why deep south state governments* were able to buck the reconstruction amendments with Jim Crow and the like until the Civil Rights era, at the climax of which the federal government decided to actually assert the power it had previously not much used since, oh, 1877 or so, and tell them to knock that poo poo off. Honestly, the rest of your points, minus Indian removal, all fall at or after WWI, so you're hardly talking "the majority of the last 250 years," you're just talking about the last seventy or so. Also, when you first posit that maybe a confederacy would be a better solution, someone else points out we tried that already and it was a colossal shitshow (which man, you have no idea how right that is), and you just sorta blow it off by saying you didn't know about that but it probably doesn't matter because America's different now, it makes it seem like you're either not posting in good faith, or are just a flaky idiot. Not that you necessarily are a flaky idiot, but your posting so far inclines some to believe that's the case. We (kinda, sorta, when we're not loving around) have some standards a thread needs to reach before we take it seriously, and, not to be a jerk about this, you're not really reaching it. *Not that other regions didn't pull all sorts of poo poo like sundowner towns, as well.
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Apr 14, 2015 01:12
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