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njlauren -> RE: 51st State of America (6/9/2013 9:58:22 PM)
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The frustration may be very real, but it isn't very well thought out. For one thing, I don't care how much oil and natural gas they have, they would find out that having to run a state is a lot more expensive then they may think. Sure, they can set up a government, maybe have their own sales taxes and such, but it takes a lot to set up a state government and the agencies in it, no matter how small you want to make it.
Secondly, I would be willing to be those areas get a lot from the state, maybe state aid for schools, roads, and so forth, and they would find it very difficult when suddenly they had to pay for their roads, schools, bridges and so forth.
Then, too, they would have 1 representative in Congress, which would probably dilute effectiveness, since it is possible that right now 2 of colorados districts might encompass the area, so they might lose influence. More importantly, they may lose a lot of federal aid, due to their size that they get because aid is apportioned based on the entire state, and money shifted within it.
It is funny, rural voters rage about how they aren't listened to, but i could say the same thing for suburban and urban districts. Thanks to the Senate 2 vote/state, you have a state like Wyoming with 500k people (probably the equivalent of several larger counties) with 2 senators, and the reality that there are more rural, relatively unpopulated states, that means on issues like gun control 35% of the population dominates the conversation, and most of that 35% live in rural areas (only 35% of Americans own guns)....or for example that in part because of the Senate and Electoral college, those same states lead the pack in federal spending, where they get back 2 or 3 bucks for every dollar they send in, whereas states like NY, NJ and connecticut get back 65c......so they could make just the same issue as the rural voters, to secede or form more states, because we are being walloped in Taxes to pay for them *shrug*.....
The real answer is if they have grievences, do what they are supposed to and lobby the government and make their voices heard, and do a little political give and take. The biggest problem with people like this is they think in extremes, it is their way or no way, and it is what has paralyzed government. It is childish, it is saying "I am throwing a tantrum because the big,bad old government doesn't let me do what I want", in some ways, it very much was like the secession of the south, that primarily came about because the federal government had limited the expansion of slavery (all the rest is bs, about States Rights, the tariffs and the rest, and the idea that slavery was going to be banned by Lincoln was a fiction created after the war to justify it). What they don't understand is that you don't always get what you want, and you learn to take what you can get and fight for the rest.
If they really feel like they are being bullied by the rest of the state, then lobby people and politicos in the rest of the state, act like adults, like men and women, instead of petulant children. I am not happy about the fact that the government is paralyzed by a bunch of know nothings from the hookworm belt, or that they are whining about government interference in their lives or how people 'live' off the government when they themselves do quite nicely off government largesse in many forms, but I also don't advocate taking my marbles home in a snit either (though sometimes I wish politicians from my neck of the woods, and Obama, would grow a pair and learn from Johnson, and for example, if the tea party want to slash federal spending, make sure their districts are hit hard with cuts in spending.......very effective way to get them to compromise, when they realize it will be hard for them to criticize cutting spending, and then trying to explain it to their constituents.
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