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Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

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Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#31

Post by xrd »

avalys wrote: post #26
UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

As an Oregonian not living in one of those sparsely-populated counties that voted for secession, I wonder why the folks who want to be part of Idaho don't just vote with their feet and move there? There's no border wall keeping them in Oregon. These votes are just symbolic and won't get them to their Idaho paradise near as quickly as a U-Haul could.

Maybe they like their home, their community, and their neighborhood, but what they don’t like is having a bunch of people living in population centers far away who don’t share their values telling them how to live their lives?

I'm confused, are we talking about the electoral college system, or about Oregon?

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#33

Post by abnry »

jerf wrote: post #28

One of the things I periodically mentally noodle with is, what would the world look like if it was a lot easier for units to choose what larger units they would aggregate into? Like, cities choosing a county, counties choosing a state, states choosing their country, etc. I originally was noodling with this in the context of a space civilization, where there is no equivalent of "solid ground", everything's always movi…

I wonder if what you have in mind is like what Germany was before it was unified. Lots of city states that essentially ally together or don't. I don't think it is a stable situation once someone gains the means to conquer by force.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#34

Post by UncleOxidant »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #24
UncleOxidant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies a lot. I spent some growing up years in Southern Oregon and there definitely was a strong evangelical, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion etc. contingent in the town where I was. Lots of Birchers & KKK types as well. This was in the 70s and while the whole QAnon thing now is epistemlogically shocking, it seems like we had a lot of similar kinds of conspiracies running rampant in small southern Oregon towns ba…

I recently moved from Eagle Point so probably not too far away from where you were. It's certainly a strange and diverse set of people. Everything from weed growers to hippies to evangelicals to conspiracy nuts and everything in between. Most of the people I met there generally distrusted the government and couldn't care less about what you did on your own land.

It really is kind of a weird place. I recall that soon after we moved there one of my dad's colleagues explained the situation something like this: "You know about Appalachia, right? Well, it's like there was a part of the Oregon trail that went directly from Appalachia to Southern Oregon - this is Appalachia West." The KKK was really active in that area for a long time which seems weird for a place on the West Coast - but then again, Oregon was founded on excluding Black people.

But then we also had The Rainbow People which were a large hippie group that traveled around the PNW and often came into our area for big camp outs. Talk about a cultural divide.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#35

Post by mjevans »

Given the article's mention of Rural vs Urban I lean towards the belief that this is driven by a sense of both conservative values in government and probably a lack of understanding in how the government of the people serves the people. More precisely how taxes and math work.

The GAO and similar offices should do a better job of preparing reports on where every collected tax dollar is being spent; both in the physical sense as well as in the sourced income sense. A citizen should be able to approach this from either the government side (pick a city or unincorporated area) or enter their zipcode and approximate income and see where the money is flowing from and to. Of particular interest would be trying to categorize areas with positive or negative contributions to a person's or region's productivity. Investments in infrastructure, such as education or for transport (of various things), should also be given special categorization as they are some combination of a shared burden and long term payoff.

Though I find understanding the deeply divided viewpoints in the US very elusive. My personal believe is presently, for lack of data that I can digest, that the far right is probably focused around emotions.

# Possibly religious, in that some interpretation of ancient values systems drives them to desire a simple world in which those are imposed upon others?

# Possibly anarchist, in the sense of some romantic fantasy of self reliance (minimal government) and true grit; while forgetting or being ignorant of how society and government provide benefits (E.G. civil services such as fire, medical, and security aid).

# Possibly just believing the lies of people that say things they want to hear.

Or maybe the driving force is something different entirely that I haven't realized because it's just so obvious to someone that believes in it that it doesn't get said.

Offhand I don't think it's likely to be religiously based, and if it's charismatic attraction based I'm not sure what siren song is luring the voters.

I wonder if the interactive report on government spending and tax effectiveness might help find a common ground, or at least salient points to discuss for those who don't understand the benefits of buying in bulk and enriching the commons.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#36

Post by medium_burrito »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

As an Oregonian not living in one of those sparsely-populated counties that voted for secession, I wonder why the folks who want to be part of Idaho don't just vote with their feet and move there? There's no border wall keeping them in Oregon. These votes are just symbolic and won't get them to their Idaho paradise near as quickly as a U-Haul could.

Idaho has become very expensive in the last few years. It's basically Western Wyoming, but for poors.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#37

Post by wizzwizz4 »

abnry wrote: post #33
jerf wrote: post #28

One of the things I periodically mentally noodle with is, what would the world look like if it was a lot easier for units to choose what larger units they would aggregate into? Like, cities choosing a county, counties choosing a state, states choosing their country, etc. I originally was noodling with this in the context of a space civilization, where there is no equivalent of "solid ground", everything's always movi…

I wonder if what you have in mind is like what Germany was before it was unified. Lots of city states that essentially ally together or don't. I don't think it is a stable situation once someone gains the means to conquer by force.

But if everyone agrees to prevent conquering-by-force, why wouldn't it work?

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#39

Post by UncleOxidant »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #13
UncleOxidant wrote: post #5

As an Oregonian not living in one of those sparsely-populated counties that voted for secession, I wonder why the folks who want to be part of Idaho don't just vote with their feet and move there? There's no border wall keeping them in Oregon. These votes are just symbolic and won't get them to their Idaho paradise near as quickly as a U-Haul could.

The whole point of democracy is to vote to change things you don't like about your government. I don't agree with them but I respect their right to vote on it. I wouldn't respect or legitimize a violent insurrection.

Yeah, but it's not like this vote is going to accomplish anything. It's just symbolic. If they really want to live under a more conservative government, well, there's one right there to the east.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#40

Post by ativzzz »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #37
abnry wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if what you have in mind is like what Germany was before it was unified. Lots of city states that essentially ally together or don't. I don't think it is a stable situation once someone gains the means to conquer by force.

But if everyone agrees to prevent conquering-by-force, why wouldn't it work?

Because whoever has the largest force wouldn't agree to it. For instance, if these counties chose to ignore all the rules and join Idaho, the U.S. has a very large force that it can use to prevent this from happening. In fact, it doesn't even have to use the force, simply having the force is probably enough.
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