On Mon, 16 Sep 2013 19:14:25 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Mon, 16 Sep 2013 16:05:11 -0700, Winston_Smith
wrote:

On Mon, 16 Sep 2013 08:53:38 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Mon, 16 Sep 2013 04:40:08 -0700, Gunner Asch wrote:

Western Maryland is made up of five counties whose residents largely
vote Republican and feel under-represented at the state capitol, run
by Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and a Democrat-controlled
legislature.

snip

I can see that. Having lived in one of those western counties when I
was a kid, it's hard for me to imagine that Washington County, where I
lived, is really in the same state as Anne Arundel or Baltimore
County, for example.

Western MD should be part of West Virginia. The two of them together
would make up a real state.

Isn't that the same as the evolution of the state borders we now have?
Originally, most of the states went west to ..... Undefined. West
Virginia is one example, originally being the western part of
Virginia.

The people west of the Appalachian chain found their interests were
different than the more urbane, sea port cites and lobbied for a
split. Some got it, some did not. The usual argument was - you guessed
it - taxation without representation - by the eastern part of the
states.

I think the continuing evolution of the states is leaving some strange
bedfellows within them.

Maybe that was always true, but it seems particularly divisive these
days -- with West Virginia being the extreme example of divisiveness
then.

When I lived in and near Hagerstown, MD (late '50s), they were still
fighting the Civil War out there. Hagerstown was a
brother-against-brother border town and we had two living Civil War
vets in town at the time: one Union, one Confederate.
In the last twenty years I can think of two movements to carve
out a new state or county on the west coast. In both cases it was
folks on the right who wanted to secede from the existing state or
county.
There was lots of hoopla surrounding both efforts, lots of
people saying that it was gonna happen for sure, and still to this day
some hang on to the idea that it is gonna happen. Well it ain't. There
is just plain too much money involved, if nothing else, to prevent it.
The State of Jefferson was supposed to be carved out of
Northern California and part of eastern King County was supposed to
secede but I have forgotten what they were going to call the new
county. In both cases there were not a majority of people living in
the questioned areas that wanted the change. And not because of
politics. Because the areas received too much money from the rest of
the state or county.
Eastern Washington sometimes says it wants to secede to. But
just like in the other two cases they receive more money from the rest
of the state or county than they collect from taxes and fees and so
on. They depend on other people to pay for their roads and fire
protection, paramedics and police.
Rabble rousers may say they can get along without the
services but when the chips are down they take advantage of them just
like anybody else. Gunner is a perfect example. If he lived in a state
that acted the way he says he wants it to then he would be dead now.
Because nobody would have paid for him to get repaired by the medical
services.
I'm frankly sick and tired of all the folks saying that they
can take care of themselves, that they depend on nobody, are
self-made, and shouldn't have to pay for roads they don't drive on and
the like. As children we all depended on someone. So the only way to
describe self-made is after the age of 18 or so.
But we all have the advantage of a great interstate road
system, and a great military to protect our borders and interests
abroad, and police to protect us internally, and the FDA which keeps
us from being poisoned by bad food and drugs, and the EPA which has
reduced air pollution to the extent that early deaths from lung and
heart disease have been markedly decreased, and fire departments that
prevent our house from burning down when the neighbor's house, where
meth was being cooked, start to burn down.
None of that described above is perfect and even so cannot be
done by one person alone. No matter how imperfect the interstate road
system is, for example, there is no way an individual, or a small
group of individuals, could duplicate it.
These people who want to secede usually say that they are
being overtaxed and this is a major reason for the way they think. If
we had a perfectly libertarian form of government here we would not
even be a third world nation. In fact, I can't think of a way
libertarians could even have a government. Even though our government
does not work perfectly it does not mean that we can get along better
without it.
I don't usually reply to the political bull**** that goes on
here but I'm tired of all these people who complain about the system
but don't do anything about it but complain.
And I'm tired of all the people who say they want out but
don't really want out, they just want it their way and don't have any
room in their life for folks who want it different. They sound like a
bunch of whining babies to me.
I'm pretty sure that almost all of the people who post all the
political rantings here keep their efforts confined to posting
messages on the internet. I'd bet money that they don't participate in
local government, sign petitions, organize or join in a march, go to
the local caucus, vote in primaries, read the voter's pamphlet, write
letters to the editor, and so on.
And I think all this noise about new states is the same. A few
folks make noise and actually organize but the majority can't be
bothered to do more than make noise. And those that will be affected
the most, when they finally realize it, will do something because it
affects their wallets.
Feh.
Eric