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California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

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Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#171

Post by yingw787 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #102
yingw787 wrote: post #23

Well, that was quick. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354 Today it is pandemic resolution. I fear that tomorrow, it might be economic ties, lockstep voting at the federal level, and National Guard drills, deployments, and contingency planning, where the West Coast slowly splits away from the rest of the country, with other states teaming up and following suit. This isn't the end, and it's the only appropria…

> National Guard drills, deployments, and contingency planning That seems pretty far-fetched. Much more likely (and welcome) would be a sort of "legal coup", where the states that still have functioning governments band together in the task of reshaping the federal government through voting and legislative power. We're certainly approaching a breaking point in the dysfunction of the federal government and its inabili…

Maybe. I mean, I would acknowledge that given post-9/11 deployments of National Guard troops to active combat zones, all you would need to do to mess up any planning would be to deploy those troops separately and randomly far away. Then it wouldn't matter if the governor called up the National Guard in self-defense and if they wanted to obey despite being federalized, because they wouldn't be in-theater. You'd have to raise fresh troops and train / arm them and by that point it'll already be far too late. Not to mention the firepower of existing federal garrisons in-state, complete air supremacy by federal air assets, and existing tensions between urban/rural areas preventing a retreat to the hinterlands. Whether these facts will change remains to be seen, but secession today is impractical.

I think the situation we're in right now is pretty much a "legal coup" by a motivated minority. It'll be a slog to get back to representative democracy.

I read "The Black Swan" by Nassim Taleb recently, and he mentioned how his home country of Lebanon went from diverse paradise to all-out civil war in six weeks, or 1.5 months. About the same time as "just a flu" to today.

For all our sakes, I hope to God I'm wrong and I hope to God you're right.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#172

Post by jschwartzi »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

As someone who lives in one of these states, I'm nonplussed at the announcement. It doesn't really seem to say anything concrete that I can tell. "We've agreed that we will use metrics...we are still deciding what these metrics will be." I thought the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order (in Washington state) wasn't unreasonable and wasn't just political babble, but I don't really know what to make of this piece. Anyone wan…

It's essentially saying that the governors of these three states aren't going to follow what Trump orders them to do unless the medical professionals and the state emergency management teams give the go-ahead.

Trump has been downplaying the seriousness of the disaster since January. He contradicts the statements of his own staff in the same press conference as the staff speaks. He exuberantly proclaims the effectiveness of "treatments" that haven't been studied in any serious way. All this is to say that we can't trust any decision he makes.

Contrast this with the way the Western governors have handled this. Inslee was one of the first governors to announce any kind of Social Distancing rules. And he followed Illinois in issuing a statewide Stay Home order that is probably the most restrictive such order in the states. There's a lot of evidence on the Washington DOH website that this is working and the spread of the disease is under control.

The fact is that Trump's response is mostly to bury the problem and apply wishful thinking when he can't bury the problem. The governors in this union are taking a facts-based approach to solving the problem that has largely been successful. And so it's a really bad idea to do anything that Trump advises the country to do because he has a track record of making really bad decisions throughout this crisis.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#173

Post by samsonradu »

nostromo wrote: post #124
anoncareer0212 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea how crazy you sound as a European lol, the most straightforward way to put it is you're using an anonymous account on a website to dunk on someone in the comments section for implying they may care about avoiding infection during a pandemic

> You have no idea how crazy you sound as a European Europe, a group of many independent states, trying different approaches to a common problem, with an over-arching bureaucracy to coordinate between them... and the US approach sounds crazy to you?

You're comparing apples to oranges. Europe is comprised of sovereign states which can and actually have closed their borders. From my understanding, but correct me if I'm wrong, this would be a legal and political nightmare in the US right?

Edit: not endorsing parent comment

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#174

Post by mullen »

vondur wrote: post #120
mrb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this Western States Pact is a result of lack of leadership at the White House and federal level. They feel the US government is not doing enough, so they took the matter into their own hands.

So what are the issues with the Federal Government response? I often hear people criticize it, without any concrete examples

You are joking, right?

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#175

Post by brayhite »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #93
mullingitover wrote: post #14

This is great, and it's a big chunk of population, but I keep feeling like we could do better. For example, these three States could do a great job, but there's nothing stopping a bunch of the other States from bungling it (like, say, ignoring health experts and exempting certain groups from mass gathering restrictions). Then those States end up exporting infectious individuals into the States which are doing things…

> If only we had some sort of united group of all the States, where the response could be coordinated and centralized for maximum effectiveness. We do! It's called the United States government. I'll be letting the president know you're interested in him taking over and using his own ideas, instead of this one you seem to be particularly fond of. Or, if that idea is slightly terrifying for you, perhaps it's a better i…

I may be wrong, but I think you missed OP's point. I took his tongue-in-cheek "If only we had some sort of united group of all the States" comment to mean if only we had a president who exercised his influence to encourage this type of coordinated response versus what he's done up to this point, which is nearly the opposite of coordinated.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#176

Post by kevingadd »

ambivalents wrote: post #91

Naive question: how is this better than each of these states doing its own thing (even if those things end up looking similar)? What does California gain by teaming up with WA and OR, for example?

Better coordination between the states helps reduce chaos at the borders between the states. If OR opens a week before WA the people living near the border will be in a weird limbo, especially if they need to cross the border for work etc.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#177

Post by Fjolsvith »

JPKab wrote: post #73
DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

As someone who lives in one of these states, I'm nonplussed at the announcement. It doesn't really seem to say anything concrete that I can tell. "We've agreed that we will use metrics...we are still deciding what these metrics will be." I thought the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order (in Washington state) wasn't unreasonable and wasn't just political babble, but I don't really know what to make of this piece. Anyone wan…

My brother lives in Oregon. He was complaining to me the other day that Oregon's requirement that you are not allowed to pump your own gas is an obvious COVID transmission vector. To get gas in Oregon, he follows these steps: 1.) pull up to gas station 2.) Roll down window to hand attendant (who isn't wearing a mask, nor is required to) his debit card. 3.) Get card back from attendant. 4.) Sanitize the debit card 5.)…

Seen something similar at Walmart. An attendant at the self-checkout area was wiping down the scanners but wasn't wiping the keypad.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#178

Post by theferalrobot »

dahdum wrote: post #85

Stay at home is doing enormous economic damage, which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social and health programs. Especially in CA where high progressive taxation amplifies the impact of recessions. So there's a lot of pressure to reopen but no political cover to do so. I think the entire point of this pact is to provide that cover.

Right on the nose.

Even when reopening is clearly the right thing to do nobody will want to personally take the fall. It's the reason the US has a high incarceration rate, nobody wants to be the one to release a ton of people from jail even if it's the right thing to do.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#179

Post by jschwartzi »

wolco wrote: post #129
DoreenMichele wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, I would be vastly more comfortable if the answer were "No, Doreen, you really are as dumb as you think. Their plan is 1... 2.... 3...." The US governmental system has a long history of injecting bureaucratic nonsense that takes on a life of its own and ends up with outcomes like "teaching to the test" instead of being a net benefit. I would feel differently if this were an announcement of a joint task f…

It means these states will together decide when to reopen. A task force would provide that bureaucratic waste. What is the advantage of Oregon having more data to decide to reopen a week before California. The value of them standing together gives poltical shielding against a national government. They speak for the entire west coast. I wonder if other regions will do the same. Mountain states, Northern states, the So…

It almost sounds like we three states are preparing for some kind of federal intervention in our politics if we continue social distancing after Trump orders our states to reopen.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#180

Post by the_pwner224 »

ummwhat wrote: post #136
catchingsun wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If other states don't do a good enough job at controlling their outbreaks, it is maybe, potentially legal to close our borders to residents from those states in order to control spread. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Coronavirus-FAQ-...

I'm fairly certain that Constitutional speaking "interstate commerce" can only be regulated by the federal government. The free movement of people may not be commerce per se, but it is inextricably linked. In realpolitik terms, I doubt the federal government can stop this. What are they going to do? Send the army to force states to accept potentially infected people? That's basically an order to go kill your countrym…

The states also have their own well-equipped militias (National Guard). The U.S. Army can't just roll in and occupy a state if the state does not want it to - they will have to wage a war. Not at all politically acceptable.
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