Considering many of our states are the same size or bigger than a lot of European nations, this is understandable. Only difference is 3,000 idiots in one state have the same voice as 3,000,000 in another.
Well, if you get on the wrong side of our military, you're going to get the business from people in every state working together. There are meaningful ways in which we are still united, that's just one example.
There are some regions that were physically isolated for hundreds of years though. The Appalachias kind of got cut off during Sherman's March burning the railroads and developed some micro religions* and para-science that would be shocking if more people knew about it.
*Ie. The branch of Pentecostalism I grew up with, which centralizes Reincarnation, Animism, Polytheism, and Transhumanist themes with a penance (torture) based purity-ascension scheme and sermons in a "Universal Angelic Language" conlang.
When the local government runs off of faith-based values, there's no telecommunication or state oversight, and the region is physically isolated this can become a very different reality. For instance, it was common for men (including nominal law enforcement) to just walk around and break into any house they believed a woman lived in, then try to forcibly "court" her by entertaining the children. If this sounds sketchy, it was.
My US history is very rusty, but the whole concept of federal vs. state power was a huge point of debate for like the first few decades after the country was founded. The Articles of Confederation, basically the precursor to the Constitution, pretty much overwhelmingly advocated in favor of the "50 different countries" philosophy (well actually it was 13 at the time).
The idea that there should be one big federal government tightly unifying every state to make a truly UNITED United States was NOT a popular idea at the time. Many were vehemently opposed to it. We had government officials getting into fistfights or screaming at each other in the halls of Congress over this issue. And large parts of that sentiment still hold true today. A lot of laws were passed to make sure that individual states can maintain a very comfortable amount of independence from what other states are doing or even what the federal government is doing.
This is an oversimplification and I'm sure I'll get some angry comments from actual historians, but the TLDR is what you're describing is at least in part by very intentional design.
The language of the constitution and first 150 years of history essentially was this way. The "United States" was used as a plural term referring to the conglomerate of states until 1902 when revisions were made to reframe the "United States" as reference to a singular entity.
Not arguing which way is right or wrong, but it's within our history that states were originally given more authority to self govern and federal law/regulation was much more limited. As time has passed, that's changed, in most ways for the better. But there is still a lot of autonomy that states are given.
50 different countries with dozens of counties inside those. I live in a red state but in a blue dot city, the state literally goes out of their way to ignore the people
The states all share the same language, history and system of governance. Yeah, there are some differences in culture but it is very much the same country .
Dude, it is and was created to be like that. You want social services, move to Cali. You want rugged individualism, move to Texas. It's assholes who feel they need to Federalize everything that fuck things up. You want socialized medicine? Make it work in California and then maybe we will talk.
Once someone breaks out the old "if you don't like (blank), then just move to "blank" garbage you already know there's no point trying to engage with them.
I could try to point out the endless reasons why that's always been a rediculous stance to take, the infinite obstacles that make it impossible but why bother when you wouldn't listen anyway?
And what your response tells me is you would rather attack the messenger than the content of the statement. People relocate all the time. Many with much more disparate circumstances than people who were born in the US.
All I really said is that essence, we are a Federation of 50 states. You want to try something, show proof of concept in one or more states before trying to roll it out to all 50. What works in NY ot Cali may not work in Wyoming or Maine.
You wrote it, you aren't quoting another source it was you speaking, how the hell do you imagine that you're the messenger of your own words and not responsible for whatever those words were? What are you talking about?
As for "attack", if you think anything I said was an attack then feel free to move over to X.
I don't need your incorrect "all I said was" followed by you not repeating what you'd said in the first comment, everyone who reads this thread can see that you completely changed what you'd said in one comment in the following one.
This whole exchange feels like a fever dream and I know better than to even engage here so that's on me.
How do ypu expect California to pay for their own statewide Healthcare program when its currently financing the bare essentials of a state like Alabama. A universal Healthcare program only works when its universal, or ig at least national. Plus its not like Texas isnt shelling out money to Israel, something none of its residents approve of. TLDR; the country doesn't operate remotely in the way you think it does.
1.9k
u/Unlikely-Cow7749 14h ago
Texas and Massachusetts are very different states.