Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho' • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by kingsuper20 » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #110

kingsuper20 wrote: post #97

I do have to wonder if it wouldn't be simpler to just move state functions, as many as are practical, to the county level. Counties are perfectly capable of being 100% in charge of their own schools, roads, police. They largely are, but subject to a great deal of probably unnecessary state control.

That sounds to me like it would create a ton of redundancy, as different organizations reimplement nearly-identical policies. And then it creates a ton of uncertainty. A different thread was already complaining about the uncertainty of whether children can inherit debts from their parents, which varies from state to state. Is it really a boon to have it vary county by county? "Simpler" would generally be to centraliz…

The natural endgame for that is to place all governmental function at the federal level.

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

#262

Post by ABeeSea » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #235

ABeeSea wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republican Reagan signed EMTALA which makes it so hospitals can’t refuse service in emergencies due to ability to pay. It stopped people from dying in the street. They did not fund this new mandate and so we currently pay for this through higher insurance premiums and county/municipal emergency service budgets. Universal healthcare would be a more efficient way to pay for an already existing benefit. When uninsured c…

I live in a predominantly right-leaning area and know a lot of people who are against universal healthcare. I've talked with a lot of them about it, and every single person would be in favor of it if there was a magical guarantee the money would actually be spent properly and not corruptly misallocated. But the track record is so poor, and there is such little transparency, that they have no trust whatsoever. I can h…

>But the track record is poor, and there is such little transparency

What exactly are you talking about? Don’t republicans have a 40+ year strategy of “starve the beast” to purposely make government services worse specifically to build this distrust?

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

#263

Post by CountDrewku » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #219

CountDrewku wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI if they starve to death there's no one to plant or harvest the food. Also, if your argument is that the subsidies are unnecessary that would indicate that farming is profitable and they would in fact not starve to death. The point you're trying to make kinda collapsed on itself bud.

Your reading comprehension skills are terrible. 1. In this hypothetical situation, the cheaper food comes from abroad, now that there are no import tariffs. 2. I never said subsidies aren't necessary: I don't know how you can infer that point from what I wrote. I said that subsidies exist to protect American farmers, so American farmers should stop complaining about those who fund them. American farming is as profita…

I think you need to read up on why the subsidies were started in the first place because you're obviously clueless.

The rest of your argument is laden with all sorts of cognitive dissonance. Subsidies are given for things like food because if a society doesn't of have food it's a really bad thing so the government props up the industry in bad times (in this case during the Great Depression) and we don't starve. It's not an altruistic handout, it's way of keeping you from starving to death genius.

The fact that you think it's a generous handout from the "elites" and government indicates that you think it's unnecessary which means the farmers are profitable on their own and your entire asinine "hypothetical" comment about them starving to death without it gets thrown out the window. The subsidies cannot be both necessary and considered a generous handout from the coastal elites. Pick one.

We import about 15% of our food supply right now. Good luck making up the other 85% with cheaper imports. Relying on external food supplies is a massive security risk and disadvantage as well.

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

#264

Post by BobbyJo » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

throwaway6734 wrote: post #214

BobbyJo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth considering whether or not rural vs urban is the best way to partition the argument. Cities tend to be very office/payroll dense, and rural areas more home dense. Some of the people who work in the city, and generate some of that revenue, may live in a rural area and consume services there. As far as cost scaling, I kind of disagree. That calculation doesn't work well in the US, where a large porti…

>Same with emergency services, they were waaaayyyy better in my (very small and poor) hometown in terms of response times (or responding at all), and I can't see how that would cost more than running the same services here. It matters on a per capita basis. What's the ratio of emergency service workers and their salaries to residents in your small and poort hometown compared to the bay area? Also infrastructure (road…

I'll agree with the latter point, but I think having less per-capita emergency services is a bug as opposed to a feature. I'd be willing to bet it's a matter of the land/buildings/employees necessary to run such services are far more expensive in areas where land/labor/everything is more expensive.

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

#265

Post by ABeeSea » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #248

ABeeSea wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you start with the basis that the government will force private companies to take on customers that can't pay for service, EMTALA already does this and I don’t see a push on the right to repeal EMTALA. Universal healthcare is a more efficient model of what is already happening.

I also don't see a push from republicans to repeal social security. That doesn't mean it isn't a socialist policy.

Are you saying EMTALA (people not left to die on the street) is socialism? I don’t think that meets the definition of socialism.

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

#266

Post by jessaustin » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

JohnWhigham wrote: post #209

dumbfoundded wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>I wouldn't respect or legitimize a violent insurrection. You know that's how the US was formed, right?

Sure, but the future can be better than the past. It would be wonderful for humans if the process of changing sovereignty were normally non-violent.

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

#267

Post by jmcdl » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #111

cwbrandsma wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't just move a farm. And there isn't a lot of extra farm land available in Idaho anymore.

I've been assured that moving a farm is very easy. That way, if the climate heats up part of the country, you just pack up and move the farm further north. I suspect that if you asked in Malheur, Sherman, Grant, Baker, Lake, Jefferson and Union counties, they'd agree that we can afford to ignore carbon dioxide production.

Bill Gates doesn't seem to think climate change is a problem either https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/bill-and-melinda-...

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

#268

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #235

ABeeSea wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republican Reagan signed EMTALA which makes it so hospitals can’t refuse service in emergencies due to ability to pay. It stopped people from dying in the street. They did not fund this new mandate and so we currently pay for this through higher insurance premiums and county/municipal emergency service budgets. Universal healthcare would be a more efficient way to pay for an already existing benefit. When uninsured c…

I live in a predominantly right-leaning area and know a lot of people who are against universal healthcare. I've talked with a lot of them about it, and every single person would be in favor of it if there was a magical guarantee the money would actually be spent properly and not corruptly misallocated. But the track record is so poor, and there is such little transparency, that they have no trust whatsoever. I can h…

[deleted]

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

#269

Post by BobbyJo » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #256

rsj_hn wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning plastic straws, asserting that men should compete against women in sports if they identify as women, and eliminating SAT scores doesn't seem like a science-driven approach, but more of a faith-based science-denialism.

There's a lot to unpack in your short utterance I just would like to comment on eliminating SAT scores. > Noninstructional factors explain most of the variance among test scores when schools or districts are compared. A study of math results on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the combination of four such variables (number of parents living at home, parents' educational background, type…

Those same factors explain a large portion of differences in educational achievement. Doesn't that mean the test is then doing what it is designed to do?

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

#270

Post by kingsuper20 » Thu, May 20, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

teclordphrack2 wrote: post #243

UncleOxidant wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different lens to view this through has to do with economic and population shifts over the last century. Specifically the huge increase in agricultural productivity. "In 1900, just under 40 percent of the total US population lived on farms, and 60 percent lived in rural areas. Today, the respective figures are only about 1 percent and 20 percent." [1] That's a large erosion of political and economic power in those…

The current definition of what is urban vs rural is very shaky. I don't think when theses numbers are brought up there is an understanding of what counted as rural then and what counts as rural now.

In addition there's urban and there's urban.

Remove the imperial capitals (DC or London) or financial capitals (London or New York) and the next tier down ain't so much.