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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'

#401

Post by anigbrowl »

Pfhreak wrote: post #206
omegaworks wrote: post #93

The Greater Idaho project would absorb nearly the entire water resources of the East Cascades, placing them under the control of a single state entity. Doesn't bode well for a Western US that will be increasingly dependent on freshwater as the Earth warms.

The coastal cities would have access to the major international ports. I suspect the states would have to get along or everyone loses.

Research suggests about 25-30% of people are willing to suffer a disadvantage if it will result in someone else suffering a great one. So this isn't an reliable as incentive as most economists imagine.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600451

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

#402

Post by WesleyHale »

not2b wrote: post #220

The US constitution requires that, for this to happen, Congress, the Oregon legislature, and the Idaho legislature must all agree. There's no provision that it is a matter that local country residents get to decide.

I believe an important first step would be to gauge the support of the constituents in the move before deciding to move without their voice.

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

#403

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

vineyardmike wrote: post #381
URSpider94 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see the data, but from the data I have seen, the data conflict with the popular (populist) narrative. A lot of people in America seem to believe that the hardworking "real Americans" in the middle of the country are subsidizing the poorly-run coastal liberal enclaves. In reality, the money almost always flows in the other direction; taxpayers in cities are subsidizing the rural-dwellers. This has noth…

I drove through a few of the counties (eg. baker) mentioned in the article to visit a dog breeder, and the breeder had (nearly) her own highway exit. Complete with 2 overpasses. Must cost millions to build and maintain. Her house was the only one visible for as far as you could see from that exit. All i could think about was how much better her life was for that exit and how all her total tax income forever could nev…

There's a false dichotomy, because everyone in the US is subsidising a super-caste of 0.1%ers.

They're the ones who pay PR companies, think tanks, and other influencers to create the illusion of consensus narratives by generating these talking points and making sure they're repeated by various apparently independent sources.

It makes it almost impossible to argue the merits of public subsidy funding on its own terms because the truth about costs and benefits is aggressively obscured.

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

#404

Post by ModernMech »

chrononaut wrote: post #399
ModernMech wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but what does this have to do with guns? I don't think anyone in this thread brought up guns at all.

They are providing an example of another situation that has been difficult as the two parties can take polar opposite positions on (1) whether something is an issue, and (2) how to solve that issue, often without understanding each other's view point and how they came to that view point. I see the outside reference fitting here.

I just thought it brought an unnecessary and questionable dichotomy to the discussion. For example, I support gun rights and own many guns. My libertarian and conservative friends support drug decriminalization. The other poster brought up an "either-or, both-sides" framing into what seemed to otherwise be a productive discussion. There was no mention of "parties" or "sides". I have no idea what "side" anyone else belongs to, and I don't see why it matters.

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

#405

Post by rootusrootus »

nickff wrote: post #394
lainga wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The balance of seats in the Senate

>" The balance of seats in the Senate " Do you mean the House? I think the Senate would still have 2 senators per state, and state-level electoral results are unlikely to change if an alienated minority from one state secedes, in favor of joining a more (politically) similar state.

What happens when you get down to the last county and they also want to join another state?

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

#407

Post by jpollock »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #296
rhacker wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own land in a rural area (house coming in maybe a year) and I have spoken to the neighbors. For the most part it's little things actually. Rules that the major cities deal with, like not being allowed to put up a specific kind of fence because the bureaucrats in the city look at .1 acre plots of land and don't like how certain fences look - where out here we're dealing with 5 to 100 acres (and in some cases a 40000…

> One guy had to dismantle a building he erected (he's a builder) because he maxed out on "how much roof" he can have. Please tell me what part of the country this is so I can avoid it.

Floor Area Ratio regulations are pretty standard rules.

However, rules like these are "zoning/planning" and are usually set by the city or county, not the state.

The county shifting to Idaho is likely to have no effect on that regulation.

FAR's are why Palo Alto had to bring in regulations on basement sizes (the majority of the house was underground!), and why Zuckerberg is having problems with his renovation plans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floor_area_ratio

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/31/palo-alto-zuckerberg-...

https://padailypost.com/2019/08/26/is-city-going-to-far-with...

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

#408

Post by generalizations »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #373
generalizations wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out something important. In 1996, Clinton won the African-American vote 84% to 12%. In 2008, Obama won the African-American vote 95% to 4%. That's a far larger difference. You're right: let's not ignore race. By your own logic, if you're saying the white polling numbers show white racism, then you have to admit that the African American polling numbers show far more extreme racism on the part of African Amer…

I know you already know how silly this comparison is. Replace White with Han Chinese and Black with Uyghur if you need help. It's not exactly a surprise when the repressed and discriminated against minority sees race as a more important issue. Equating racism without considering the context of who holds what power is simply disingenuous.

I used exactly the same argument you did, with equivalent data. You're now trying to wiggle out of admitting equivalent conclusions.

That stinks of gross and explicit doublethink.

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

#409

Post by rootusrootus »

nxc18 wrote: post #352
catgary wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Oregon necessarily be against this? This seems like a great way to (a) get rid of nut jobs from the state legislature, and (b) get rid of a bunch of counties that sinkholes (financially speaking).

You’re being downvoted, but living in Oregon I don’t really see the problem. I’m not really attached to borders and I’m trying to understand why other people are. It is an aspect of political science I’d like to know more about if people have useful sources.

It's pretty messy and would need to have some constitutional support drawn up. E.g. you probably wouldn't do it by county per se, it might be better to make it work by congressional district.

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

#410

Post by iammisc »

joshka wrote: post #126
GongOfFour wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the website for one of the groups pushing for this: https://www.greateridaho.org/ Taxes are just one part of this. They list these other issues of concern: > 1. American Values: Oregon will continue to violate more and more American values and American freedoms because normal rural Americans are outnumbered in Oregon. Not in Idaho. Addicts will be attracted to Oregon from all over the world by the 2020 drug d…

>American Values ... normal rural Americans are outnumbered in Oregon What sort of logic supports that American values are those held by a minority of Americans. What possible values suggest they are the normal ones? > 3. Low Tax The counties involved have median household incomes of 30-35K, making their tax burden $600-1100 total, a far cry from the average quoted, which is skewed right strongly by outliers (1%), wh…

> What sort of logic supports that American values are those held by a minority of Americans. What possible values suggest they are the normal ones?

There are two conflicting meanings of the word 'American' that is causing your confusion. American can refer to an individual who is American. It can also refer to things associated with the government currently controlling the land known as the United States of America. The land of the USA has -- in its time -- been held by several government. Firstly there is the current one. Then there is the previous one, the confederated states of America. Some parts of the USA have at times been held by smaller governments, for example, the Southern confederacy (not to be confused with the USA under the articles of confederation).

Anyway, there are American values -- i.e., those held by individuals in America -- and then there are American values -- i.e., those in line with the constitution of the United States of America.

The Oregonians clearly are using the second meaning. They believe that the State of Oregon has failed to uphold values inherent to the Constitution of the United States of America. For example, if tomorrow, 98% of Oregonians decided Monarchy were the best form of government, in this usage, we can unequivocally say that that is not American, because monarchy is fundamentally at odds with the constitution. Thus, even if -- in my hypothetical -- monarchy were an American value in the individual sense, it would not be in the second usage.

As another unrelated example illustrating the difference in the usages, the majority of American Catholics believe contraceptives are okay. If you ask 'what is the opinion of the church on contraception', there are two correct answers. One can say 'Catholics believe contraception is okay' because most Catholics (in this country at least) agree. One can equally say 'Catholics believe contraception is not okay' because the institution of the Catholic church in this country has -- through official channels -- said it's not.

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