[Cthulhu D]

barmar, on 2012-March-29, 11:15, said:

The country is so polarized these days, do we need two capitals?

Pretty sure you make it two countries at the same time - Louisiana and New York have about the same amount in common as Greece and Germany.

Then you tell the confederates that they really won, honest. Offer California it's choice of Louisiana or Boston. Splitting the country will give the states more individual rights, enable the north and the south to move closer to their typical voting patterns, and help the economy of some states by enabling their currency to further depreciate. Additionally it will reduce the power of lobbyists because they will have to attack two legislatures with the same budget.

What's not to love?

[nigel_k]

Cthulhu D, on 2012-March-29, 22:31, said:

Pretty sure you make it two countries at the same time - Louisiana and New York have about the same amount in common as Greece and Germany.

Then you tell the confederates that they really won, honest. Offer California it's choice of Louisiana or Boston. Splitting the country will give the states more individual rights, enable the north and the south to move closer to their typical voting patterns, and help the economy of some states by enabling their currency to further depreciate. Additionally it will reduce the power of lobbyists because they will have to attack two legislatures with the same budget.

What's not to love?

And you could just have a small centralized administration to deal with things like foreign policy and take care of any need to regulate commercial disputes between the separate states. Great idea. Why has it taken until now for someone to come up with this?

[Bbradley62]

jdeegan, on 2012-March-29, 05:12, said:

Relocate the political capital of North America. Where would you put it?

I don't know how things work with the EU, but there is no such thing as the capital of North America

[Winstonm]

I'm pretty sure we should keep it in North America - what with the cost of gasoline and all.

The only other option for me would be to capitalize the O and M and make it, nOrth aMerica.

[mike777]

At some point move it to Chicago...the town that works......well it used to work if we can get the education system back.....

[Cyberyeti]

nigel_k, on 2012-March-29, 13:11, said:

Is Three Mile Island an option or has it been cleaned up now?

Missed the boat on Mount St Helens too.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2012-March-30, 23:57, said:

At some point move it to Chicago...the town that works......well it used to work if we can get the education system back.....

2 million dead voters can't be wrong - that often.

[Cthulhu D]

nigel_k, on 2012-March-30, 17:47, said:

And you could just have a small centralized administration to deal with things like foreign policy and take care of any need to regulate commercial disputes between the separate states. Great idea. Why has it taken until now for someone to come up with this?

That doesn't work either, because then they are free to run around with segregation or whatever. It's like Goldilocks But really you want as much stuff as possible to be harmonised across the country - it just makes sense from an economic perspective as well as effective social justice and jurisprudence. Differing labour laws, OH&S conditions across states is madness, should be the same everywhere - any business operator will tell you that.

I'm not a slaving leftist or anything, facilitating big business is key here, and centralisation is much better for this. However when it comes to should we let a saw mill operate here or there and where should the border of this park be, the ultimate decision maker needs to be 'close' to the community - except for broad spectrum stuff like 'maximum safe water levels for bleach are X' and then it's up to the local government to decide how they will manage to X.

Otherwise you end up with absurd stuff like a city rounding up homeless people and busing them to the next town, or the stupid situation in Australia where the states at the head of the Murray Darling system basically dump on South Australia because they don't have to deal with the fall out. I understand that the US water rights system has similar issues.

It only makes sense to break up the US because it's governance is completely ineffectual because it's sharply divided between the Massachusetts and Louisiana ends of the scale. It wouldn't make sense to devolve more functions to lower levels of government in Australia, we probably need more centralisation.

[Codo]

Move it to Beijing, most critical descissions are made there anywhow...