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2011-10-03 Economy

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2011-10-03 10:27|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Separatism. Encouraging us not to think of ourselves as Americans, but in a more selfish way. Insidious.

Posted by gromky 2011-10-03 10:45|| 2011-10-03 10:45|| Front Page Top

#2 Realistic, rather, gromky. Until the problem is mapped out, it can't and won't be solved. And honestly, this is a problem of particular state cultures leading to particular state problems. America was designed that way -- the various states proceed independently on local issues with locally funded solutions, fifty smaller petri dishes more rapidly finding solutions than a single large one, and the best solution (if there is a best instead of a best for a certain particular set of circumstances) then applied by the others. The experiment has now been running since Johnson was president, and the results are clearly quantifiable for those who care to look.

And why should we send our money to California to prop up a situation we believe to be both unnecessary and wrong? Let them copy the behaviour of the successful states, and then we will help them on the way.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-10-03 11:26|| 2011-10-03 11:26|| Front Page Top

#3 All states may have been created equal, but they were equal no longer.

High school level posit. There's a reason we have a House of Representatives and a Senate from the very beginning of the present federal system. All states weren't equal. The smaller states would have refused to ratify if they didn't have protection from big states overwhelming them in the national government.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-10-03 11:44|| 2011-10-03 11:44|| Front Page Top

#4 I think whitney's description is more or less in line with what the founders would have expected.

Posted by rjschwarz 2011-10-03 14:30|| 2011-10-03 14:30|| Front Page Top

#5 Since about the Civil War, America has had several demographic waves. After WWI, the rural population moved to the big cities. After WWII, there was a great western migration to the new cities of the West.

From the "progressive era" at the start of the 20th Century, there was a strong effort to strip Americans of their State citizenship identities and "Americanize" everyone. This needs to be done in a situation of a transient population.

As late as the mid-1960s, there were a few linguists in the US who could still tell to within 50 miles where someone had been raised, because of the unique character of their speech. But television eventually wiped out much of this distinction by creating a "continental English".

And yet, the irony of it all is that the great demographic movements are drawing to a close. And the longer people remain in a State, the more they will identify with it, to the point where they will again claim "citizenship" of that State, as a meaningful unique thing, becoming as important as being a "generic" American.

Americans in the last 50 years have been somewhat hesitant in calling themselves Americans, because of the vast amount of cultural baggage this entails, others not being able to distinguish Americans as a culture apart from their government.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-10-03 18:40|| 2011-10-03 18:40|| Front Page Top

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