Georgia demands sovereignty

[JigglyJam]

Looks like he wants to cut out the middle management.

[Necronus]

dude.. wtf

I must have re-read that 5 times, necronus. I cannot understand what you are asking or saying?

I must be sleepy or something.

Haha, yeah, well the OP just bugs me cause yes I know we started as 13 independent states working together as one as a set of .. gasp .. united states .... but this shit with GA trying to reassert it "soverignty" is bull .. we're way past independent states of yesteryear and we are one country. Basicailly the TLDR of the above is states should NOT have constitutions, they should be just another abstraction level of administration that should only deal with things that are regionally based.

I know my rant wasn't exactly on topic, but it hit that nerve.

[Kuya]

Incoming conservative rage.

[Elvis]

obligatory, RACE WAR!!1

[guartz]

Haha, yeah, well the OP just bugs me cause yes I know we started as 13 independent states working together as one as a set of .. gasp .. united states .... but this shit with GA trying to reassert it "soverignty" is bull .. we're way past independent states of yesteryear and we are one country. Basicailly the TLDR of the above is states should NOT have constitutions, they should be just another abstraction level of administration that should only deal with things that are regionally based.

I know my rant wasn't exactly on topic, but it hit that nerve.

I can't say I agree with you. By the same account you can just say, well, why have three branches of government?

[Maxxthepenguin]

I've been wondering about something like this. Because of the Republicans being unwilling to work on the spending portions of the stimulus bill, the state representatives and senators of the states that Republicans represent are probably getting a bit of the shaft. They didn't want anything to do with it and, in keeping with that attitude, may have shortchanged the people they represent relative to the other states.

Then again, I'm not reading a fucking 1k page document to find out.

[Maxxthepenguin]

I can't say I agree with you. By the same account you can just say, well, why have three branches of government?

States aren't exactly checks against federal government. It's a completely different argument.

[guartz]

States aren't exactly checks against federal government. It's a completely different argument.

Georgia disagrees, it seems.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Georgia disagrees, it seems.

And there's no way it's going to get the result it wants (All the money; none of the strings)

[Kirin]

Edit: Just to add, I got bitter about the whole "state" thing when I moved to MD and got taken for a financial ride on a few things in my first year here and I got hosed for a couple thousand dollars cause even though I LIVED in MD, I'm not a "Maryland Resident" until I lived here 12 months. And since I sure as hell wasn't a PA resident anymore, I was apparently in some flux where I was some sort of alien from Mars or something. I dunno, all I know is I lost money and took a hit to my credit rating while I tried to appeal it and lost. Either way, working along the I-95 corridor and having coworkers from MD, VA, WV, DC, and even PA ... its ridiculous when a conversation comes up about things we each can and can't do. I just moved into a different house, I don't remember filling out immigration papers to declare my loyalty to a new nation.

Since the original thread is about Georgia, I want to take your example and bring up our HOPE scholarship program here in Georgia. It's a program that pays for public college tuition for 120 hours based on a 3.2 in High School and maintaining a 3.0 through college.

Why should a resident of Florida, who has been paying Florida taxes and playing the Florida lottery (the GA Lottery is what funds HOPE) move to Georgia in July, enrolls in college for August, and have HOPE pick up the tab when they havnt been contributing to it? On that same note, why should a resident of Florida suddenly be able to benefit from UGA state tuition rates when they have not been a taxpayer in Georgia?

Sure when you delve deeper into abortion and whatnot, the arguments become a bit heavier than education. But i think my point stands.

Incoming conservative rage.

I don't see why. Especially if youre talking about this argument about the states, it would take massive undoing of 230+ years of how this nation has operated, not to mention destroy the power of either the House or Senate, pending which way you went. Im pretty sure Califorinia wont stand for only having as much say as as Rhode Island regardless of if they're conservative or liberal.

Not really worth raging about when it will never happen.

[Necronus]

I can't say I agree with you. By the same account you can just say, well, why have three branches of government?

My argument only applies to peoples rights and not management so to speak. I mean when we go to work we have bosses and our bosses have bosses and etc. Each level is there to MANAGE and ENFORCE rules of the greater whole but normally those lower levels don't CREATE rules unless it applies to only that piece of the tree.

For example, a lower level manager making a rule that says all people working in the machine shop must wear protective masks is a proper use of lower level rule creation. Obviously people in HR department upstairs don't need to wear masks until they enter the machine shop.

The problem with states is they try to create constitutional amendments to their state constitution that are below the level of authority that I personally believe they belong at. Good examples of regional rules that states/counties/munincipalities might be envrionmental laws about the ecosystem of a body of water or delegation of funds for keeping up roads and rails etc. Its when states start making laws about abortion, gay marriage, assisted suicide, gambling, death penalties that my brain screams WRONG LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT YOU MORONS. These are the kind of laws that shouldn't make it so that someone I live near or work with are somehow given or restricted access to a different subset of those higher level rights than I am. We either all should be restricted or all allowed since their effects have NOTHING to do with LOCALITY.

The quick check a law maker should ask themselves when writing a law is "Is this something that only applies to my assigned region of the country (be it a city or a state) ... If yes: Proceed to bring the bill to your level of government. .... If No: submit the IDEA to the next guy up the chain" ..that process should repeat until either A) the lawmaker asking himself that question says "yes" or B) you reach the top (Federal)

Btw, I realize that this will NEVER happen anytime soon. Why? Because the guy asking him self that question realizes the answer is "No" but when he looks at the next guy in the chain he realizes his idea will be stopped cold. He then figures he may as well "fix" his region even if he can't "fix" the greater whole (by fix I mean in his opinion)

[_chuchu]

Since the original thread is about Georgia, I want to take your example and bring up our HOPE scholarship program here in Georgia. It's a program that pays for public college tuition for 120 hours based on a 3.2 in High School and maintaining a 3.0 through college.

Why should a resident of Florida, who has been paying Florida taxes and playing the Florida lottery (the GA Lottery is what funds HOPE) move to Georgia in July, enrolls in college for August, and have HOPE pick up the tab when they havnt been contributing to it? On that same note, why should a resident of Florida suddenly be able to benefit from UGA state tuition rates when they have not been a taxpayer in Georgia?

Sure when you delve deeper into abortion and whatnot, the arguments become a bit heavier than education. But i think my point stands.



I don't see why. Especially if youre talking about this argument about the states, it would take massive undoing of 230+ years of how this nation has operated, not to mention destroy the power of either the House or Senate, pending which way you went. Im pretty sure Califorinia wont stand for only having as much say as as Rhode Island regardless of if they're conservative or liberal.

Not really worth raging about when it will never happen.

The lottery funds the Bright Futures Scholarship here in FL and its very similar, but depends on which award you get. I somewhat agree though

[guartz]

My argument only applies to peoples rights and not management so to speak. I mean when we go to work we have bosses and our bosses have bosses and etc. Each level is there to MANAGE and ENFORCE rules of the greater whole but normally those lower levels don't CREATE rules unless it applies to only that piece of the tree.

For example, a lower level manager making a rule that says all people working in the machine shop must wear protective masks is a proper use of lower level rule creation. Obviously people in HR department upstairs don't need to wear masks until they enter the machine shop.

The problem with states is they try to create constitutional amendments to their state constitution that are below the level of authority that I personally believe they belong at. Good examples of regional rules that states/counties/munincipalities might be envrionmental laws about the ecosystem of a body of water or delegation of funds for keeping up roads and rails etc. Its when states start making laws about abortion, gay marriage, assisted suicide, gambling, death penalties that my brain screams WRONG LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT YOU MORONS. These are the kind of laws that shouldn't make it so that someone I live near or work with are somehow given or restricted access to a different subset of those higher level rights than I am. We either all should be restricted or all allowed since their effects have NOTHING to do with LOCALITY.

Article 4, Section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

What that means is, people within states have the right to decide it's policies permitted by the constitution.

So you are right, kind of, those things don't really have anything to do with locality, it's just the people in those states want it that way, and the constitution allows for it.

[pohibaba]

I've been wondering about something like this. Because of the Republicans being unwilling to work on the spending portions of the stimulus bill, the state representatives and senators of the states that Republicans represent are probably getting a bit of the shaft. They didn't want anything to do with it and, in keeping with that attitude, may have shortchanged the people they represent relative to the other states.

To anyone who honestly thinks that the Republicans were actually interested in defeating the stimulus fell for their plan hook-line-and sinker. They were just interested in SEEMING that they were against the bill. They are betting (and it's a very good bet) that come the 2010 midterm elections that the economy will still be in the shits and they'll be able to blame this bill and will be hoping to pick up some seats because of it. As proof of this, I can bet you this, the Republicans who voted for it in the Senate will not lose any of their backing from the party come re-election time. Also, this isn't a strictly Republican thing, the Democrats tried the same thing with the Iraq Authorization bill.

Then again, I'm not reading a fucking 1k page document to find out.

Neither did any of the congressman. Whether you support this bill or not, doesn't it bother anyone that they had less than a day to read and form an opinion on all 1,000 pages of this bill?

[Necronus]

Since the original thread is about Georgia, I want to take your example and bring up our HOPE scholarship program here in Georgia. It's a program that pays for public college tuition for 120 hours based on a 3.2 in High School and maintaining a 3.0 through college.

Why should a resident of Florida, who has been paying Florida taxes and playing the Florida lottery (the GA Lottery is what funds HOPE) move to Georgia in July, enrolls in college for August, and have HOPE pick up the tab when they havnt been contributing to it? On that same note, why should a resident of Florida suddenly be able to benefit from UGA state tuition rates when they have not been a taxpayer in Georgia?

Sure when you delve deeper into abortion and whatnot, the arguments become a bit heavier than education. But i think my point stands.



I don't see why. Especially if youre talking about this argument about the states, it would take massive undoing of 230+ years of how this nation has operated, not to mention destroy the power of either the House or Senate, pending which way you went. Im pretty sure Califorinia wont stand for only having as much say as as Rhode Island regardless of if they're conservative or liberal.

Not really worth raging about when it will never happen.

Actually when I refer to the "financial losses" I incurred while moving, education was one of those losses, and frankly I don't agree with your example. Sure looking at ONE person it seems fair, but you need to think about the fact that people are moving around all of the time.

I moved to MD, and yet I got charged DOUBLE for my tuition cause I'm exactly like your example, I just moved on in and tried to "take some MD funds" according to your wording, even tough I "didn't contribute" as you put it. What you fail to take into account is I paid taxes to PA and yeah I contributed to a different fund, but I'm sure that there had to be at least 1 person who moved from MD to PA and got shafted in the same way as I did. Why can't the taxes I paid go to that persons education and his taxes go to my education .... we're all in this together. I paid those taxes so someone could get an education, I don't care who it is.

Hell, I hate referring to myself as a "Marylander" or a "Pennsylvanian" ... I'm neither ... I'm just a person who deserves as much as the next guy. Some invisible line down the road doesn't mean anything to me. So while I'm now here in MD paying taxes I don't care if its someone from FL or someone from Canada or an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy that gets an education cause of my money, as long as SOMEONE gets an education.


Edit: And to Guartz, who replied while I was typing this response:

I agree, the constitution says that GA has the right to do exactly what its doing, and until we change it I would in no way try to interfere with them doing it directly. The point I'm trying to make is that its an outdated idea and the correct thing to do would be to change the constitution, which should only happen if a majority of the country agrees with me. If the country want to keep it that way, then the best I can do is try to convince people to change to my side ... that's how Democracy is supposed to work.

Dont get me wrong, the Constitution isn't something that should change on a weekly basis, but just because its in the constitution doesn't mean it can't be changed. I basically want an amendment that says "States are locality based administrations, just like counties, cities, etc"

[guartz]

well, just be glad that you are allowed by the constitution to move freely from state to state. Also, not realizing that state aid only applies to people who established residence within that state is an oversight on your part, if you wanna be honest about it.

and states are locality based administration.....you are seriously confusing me.

[Maxxthepenguin]

To anyone who honestly thinks that the Republicans were actually interested in defeating the stimulus fell for their plan hook-line-and sinker. They were just interested in SEEMING that they were against the bill. They are betting (and it's a very good bet) that come the 2010 midterm elections that the economy will still be in the shits and they'll be able to blame this bill and will be hoping to pick up some seats because of it. As proof of this, I can bet you this, the Republicans who voted for it in the Senate will not lose any of their backing from the party come re-election time. Also, this isn't a strictly Republican thing, the Democrats tried the same thing with the Iraq Authorization bill.

Yeah, but they still had to make a show of it. I guarantee that the Republicans sacrificed some potential influence for their states because they had to make a big deal about opposing it united.

Neither did any of the congressman. Whether you support this bill or not, doesn't it bother anyone that they had less than a day to read and form an opinion on all 1,000 pages of this bill?

Absolutely. I support the bill in theory but hell if I know if I actually support what was passed.

[Necronus]

well, just be glad that you are allowed by the constitution to move freely from state to state. Also, not realizing that state aid only applies to people who established residence within that state is an oversight on your part, if you wanna be honest about it.

and states are locality based administration.....you are seriously confusing me.

They are locality based in that they APPLY laws to that locality.

But what I mean is that they should only make laws for that locality if the matter at hand is something that only affects that locality.


A fetus in NJ and a fetus in ND are the same thing, thus the locality of the matter of "abortion" is on the NATIONAL level.

The Great Salt Lake is in Utah exclusively .... thus a proposal on how to protect its ecosystem would be on the STATE level, in this case Utah.

The problem is that right now the abortion issue is handled on the state level. By the same token, many other right that I do have an opinion on are also incorrectly being handled on the state level when I believe its national.

[TheShadyMan]

But what happens when everyone in X state don't want abortion, but the other 49 want it? If I recall, the states can't deny any rights the federal government gives, only grant additional ones. Or maybe I'm thinking of it backwards? Either way, if you did something like that, then you're not allowed to move somewhere where the law is different. This sort of thing was in mind as the constitution was written to prevent 'tyranny of the majority' imposing their opinion on everyone. Divide people up more, and they're less likely to have conformed opinions which means no ruling class. Rather than just one, or just the other, and no choice besides leaving the country in order to live under different laws (Or putting together a lolpetition), as a state right thing, you can just be like "Well, fuck this, I'm gonna drive x miles in y direction, and I can live how I want there."
Krye

EDIT: Also, its easier to get a state full of people to agree on one thing then it is for an entire country.

[guartz]

They are locality based in that they APPLY laws to that locality.

But what I mean is that they should only make laws for that locality if the matter at hand is something that only affects that locality.


A fetus in NJ and a fetus in ND are the same thing, thus the locality of the matter of "abortion" is on the NATIONAL level.

The Great Salt Lake is in Utah exclusively .... thus a proposal on how to protect its ecosystem would be on the STATE level, in this case Utah.

The problem is that right now the abortion issue is handled on the state level. By the same token, many other right that I do have an opinion on are also incorrectly being handled on the state level when I believe its national.

Well, who would decide these policies? Like for abortion, as an example. Who would decide whether it's okay to have an abortion or not?