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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'

#521

Post by oceanplexian »

chrononaut wrote: post #365
j_walter wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. Pretty much anytime the government takes anything over or has a new program...it's a shit show from the beginning. See "Cover Oregon" for a waste of a few hundred million dollars...see "Pandemic Unemployment Fraud" for what is probably a hundred billion...see "PPP program" for what is continuously being found as having tons of fraud...see "Oregon Unemployment still programmed in COBOL and can't…

I am not certain the point you are making. Are you saying you believe that there are no programs in existence, which are government-run, that are not "shit shows" ?

There are some programs out there that are OK, but I think the gist of the problem is you are missing out on free market forces like price discovery, private equity, and are manipulating risk so anything the government touches ends up becoming less efficient and built with different constraints.

Of course, there are times when efficiency is not the thing we’re optimizing for. The Space Program is an example of a pretty great government program; there was no profit or benefit to private space travel in the 1950s and 60s so the government had to subsidize it, but now that we are starting to see private business catch up, the best thing to do is get government out of the way. This is not all that different during the Age of Discovery where kings and queens subsidized trans-oceanic travel.

IMHO government should only exist to fix free market deficiencies (Monopolies, unfair competition, fledgling industries, lack of players). Not to take over a market and try to dictate it from the top down. Ultimately the goal should be that all people make enough of a wage to afford healthcare and let the market handle it. And still have a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, but the safety net should never be the goal.

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

#522

Post by ianai »

joshka wrote: post #238
troutwine wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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's a very present "last bastion" framing in most of the right-wing media I track. It'll depend on exactly what the foundational beliefs of the community are that drive this framing -- John Birch society derivative folks arrive here via a different path than white su…

Thanks - as a non-American living there, this is pretty helpful to further my understanding. I wonder whether there's any actual examples of the values being brought back from a point where they have disappeared.

“Evil Geniuses: the unmasking of America” was pretty good at tracking this. Basically politicians are using the framing of the glorified past within “American values” to manufacture dissent and create us/them other-izing between US citizens. The book explains it much more in depth. Get people to stop thinking of their fellow citizens as part of the same group as them in a fundamental way and chaos reigns. Maybe eventually it’s civil war. (It definitely drives that country from thinking of international factors.)

Probably another interesting definition of American values would be the ones held in foreign people. Sort of in the same way there’s who you are and then there’s the person in the minds of everyone who knows you. Except the US is a super power that’s done a lot of steering the world over the last century and that’s instilled some common practices across the world. Like citing CDC guidelines or using the US currency for reserve.

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

#523

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ralusek wrote: post #476
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 are of the opinion that the "nut jobs" in Oregon are not currently residing in Portland, attempting to burn down federal courthouses for hundreds of days at a time?

Fox News reports the same dumpster fire each night (often just reusing video footage each day), I’m not sure how serious they are if they are aiming to burn down the courthouse. Yes, dumpster fires are illegal and those starting them should be punished, but it’s a stretch to say they are trying to burn down the courthouse.

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

#524

Post by dcolkitt »

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.

I'd imagine a common theme would be for red counties in deep blue states to leave and join their light blue neighbors, which may shift them red. (Or vice versa.)

For example if upstate NY joined Pennsylvania, then the D senator from PA would very likely lose. Or if (Republican-leaning) inland California joined Nevada, then Nevada would probably tip red. Or maybe (heavily blue) Jacksonville and Gainesville get fed up with DeSantis, and leave Florida for Georgia, cementing GA as a solid blue state.

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

#525

Post by not2b »

ralusek wrote: post #476
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 are of the opinion that the "nut jobs" in Oregon are not currently residing in Portland, attempting to burn down federal courthouses for hundreds of days at a time?

There were several incidents involving a fire near the federal courthouse in Portland, but not "for hundreds of days at a time" and reports also indicate that in at least some cases the fires were on the pavement and were not attempts to burn down the courthouse. You could argue that the people who set them are nut jobs, but they don't represent the majority of Portland residents, even more than the Proud Boys who regularly invade Portland looking for hippies and antifa people to beat up are the majority.

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

#526

Post by seanmcdirmid »

srswtf123 wrote: post #368
SllX wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have have that every two years: it’s called elections.

If every state is gerrymandered beyond all sanity, are any of our elections valid?

MA few states don’t practice gerrymandering; eg Washington and California both use non partisan or bi-partisan redistricting committees (so legislative majorities don’t matter).

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

#527

Post by thepasswordis »

threatofrain wrote: post #369
thepasswordis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people in the middle of the country believe that if they all quit their jobs and demanded a government-given wage, that the country would starve to death. If all of the people at facebook, google, and twitter quit their jobs, however, all that would really happen would be that the country would get a bit more peaceful. You're talking about how much is taken in taxes. These people are talking about how much is g…

Are you talking about immigrant Latinos, who constitute the supermajority of the farm and meat production labor you're talking about? Yes, I can totally see how they feel left out of the American political process; sometimes they are even called "illegals"! And the families who own farms capture the lion's share of the fruits of labor!

You should make friends with some of those immigrant Latinos and ask them which is more important: a stable, reliable food supply, or faster file retrieval for twitter videos.

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

#528

Post by not2b »

DFHippie wrote: post #396
srswtf123 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every state is gerrymandered beyond all sanity, are any of our elections valid?

Elections for senators and governors are, or at least are more valid: no electoral college and no gerrymandering of districts. Of course, vote suppression is still there, and simply lying, but it's an improvement.

Governors, yes. Senators: Wyoming gets 2 (500k people), California gets 2 (40M people). Rural people are hugely represented. Statehood for DC would help a bit with the rural/urban imbalance.

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

#529

Post by _-david-_ »

yesBoot wrote: post #371
_-david-_ wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you were responding to in all likelihood meant majority of the rural / eastern part of the state not the entire state,

It does not matter. They have no power in our system to simply upend norms as they choose. They can pack up and move themselves if they don’t like it. The onus is not on everyone else to cater to them. It’s to abide laws as they are written within our constitutional system of elections and statutes overseeing them. I’m not saying that’s ideal. I’m saying that’s how it works. Down votes do nothing to make it any less…

Frankly you are just ranting about conservatives and not talking about topic at hand. It is completely irrelevant if conservatives are hypocrites and whatever else you are accusing them of being.

If you believe in democratic institutions then people will sometimes vote for things you do not support. If Oregon and Idaho legislatures along with the US Congress also agree to this then it should happen.

Nobody is saying that we should not follow the rules and have the legislatures and congress vote on this. Your accusation that they are not abiding by the Constitution is ridiculous and just an outright lie. This vote is just an indication of what they would like to see. So instead of ranting about off topic things why don't you actually make a real argument about why this should not happen.

It is very clear you are not even trying to understand these people. You are not listening to them and are just being a jerk. It is people like you that cause these rural people to want to leave states filled with people who make libelous statements against them.

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

#530

Post by autokad »

halostatue wrote: post #506
autokad wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the government pays farmers (subsidizes) based on a lot of planning. this is done because special aspects about food (go read an economics 101 book - inelastic demand, prefect competition). in short, its meant to stabilize the system such that we don't all starve next year due to surpluses this year. its not because we can just get it cheaper from other countries (sometimes that may be true, but not true on a macro s…

Not so much on the famine bit, except perhaps in the U.S. and Canada. The unfairness of farm subsidies is that there’s also essentially no _controls_ on the output. The government can’t turn around and mandate particular growing practices, in part because farming companies and larger farmers have gotten used to the subsidies and how they work. In Canada, at least, subsidies are also tied to production controls and st…

#1 ) I dont think you understand how sensitive the global food supply is to changes.

#2) The US isn't just a net exporter of food, its one of the dominant food producers (in exports) in the world. A country like Canada only became a net exporter of food in ~2019. These US exports are primary stables like corn, beef, pork, etc.

#3) f-35 funding is tangential to the conversation. bringing it up only makes you sound un-informed and polarizes your argument for the issue at hand.

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