California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact • Hacker News Board

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#71

Post by new_time » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

pascalxus wrote: post #63

new_time wrote: post #20

I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations. It's truly a great system.

In this case it works well. In other areas...

In any sufficiently high dimensional system with resource constraints it's inevitable there will be tradeoffs. Or more simply, no system is perfect.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#72

Post by CodeCube » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

new_time wrote: post #20

I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations. It's truly a great system.

Yeah ... it's a great system unless you live in a part of the country that is not trying a smart approach; a place where "best ideas" are routinely dismissed as partisan politics.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#73

Post by JPKab » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

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.) Sanitize his hands 6.) Hope that the attendant is washing his hands, and that he didn't breathe COVID onto him through the open window.

Not saying this isn't a great, noble effort.

Just saying that, in some aspects, these states aren't doing a good job on obvious things within their own borders.

Why the hell is Oregon still doing this, and not requiring masks from gas attendants anyway? Maybe it is required, but my brother told me he has yet to have an attendant wearing a mask, so possibly not enforced???

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#74

Post by zw123456 » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

new_time wrote: post #20

I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations. It's truly a great system.

It is a great system, but our founding fathers encouraged us to continually tinker with it :) It is never perfect. Remember, they were rebels !

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#75

Post by winter_blue » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

codys wrote: post #61

wahern wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily as flexible as to encompass such sub-federal cooperation: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_O…

Yes, I'm curious about the way they're intending to handling this legally as well. A bit of searching shows a Supreme Court case Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503 (1893) [1]. This restricts the application of that clause somewhat, but it isn't 100% clear to me that this Pact is a perfect match for the facts in that case. It also sounds like [2] things are rather flexible in what approval is and when it is obtained.…

Yep, that Supreme Court decision severely limits the need to get congressional consent to form interstate compacts.

It would be wonderful if all the progressive/blue/Democratic states in the country could get together, and form an interstate compact for their mutual benefit and advancement.

However it's possible that a Republican-majority Supreme Court, seeing the benefit that's coming out a Democratic interstate compact, could strike it down, with partisan motives (just like they struck down parts of the BCRA with Citizens United, or the Voting Rights Act with Shelby County v. Holder).

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#76

Post by yingw787 » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #40

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…

> I fear that tomorrow Why fear? This is my dream! The Senate is irreparably broken. There is no conceivable way that it can become more fairly representative of the people without a breakup of the United States. The smaller less populous states aren't going to just give up their outsized power voluntarily. California is suffering the most due to the Senate's structural unfairness, and it has the most to gain from su…

Dude...if we're talking about secession, we're talking about civil war. In a country with the second most nuclear weapons in the world. With a federal government already looking to adversaries for cooperation.

You're talking nuclear missiles or chemical weapons fired against San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle from land-based silos in the Dakotas, or mutinies aboard our SSBNs, or Russian troops landing en masse in South Carolina to offer foreign assistance. It will mean the Balkanization of the country, where California has to station permanent garrisons in the Sierra Nevada mountains to ward off invasions from Texas or Mexico. You're not talking about a 40% drop in GDP this quarter, you're talking about famine and starvation, and complete international irrelevance after the dust settles. If only tens of millions of Americans die, that probably counts as a win.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#77

Post by rlt » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #62

mjcl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a polite way of these states saying that they're not going to follow any 'national plan to reopen the economy' put out by the White House.

Exactly right. One of the rules of the game is that you're not allowed to say anything negative about Donald Trump even if (perhaps especially if) it is factually correct. If you do, he will retaliate (by, for example, withholding badly needed aid). So the governors have to speak in code. Listen to Newsome's news conference today and the answer he gave to a reporter about his reaction to Trump's announcement that the…

> If you do, he will retaliate (by, for example, withholding badly needed aid)

Has this actually occurred?

I know NY asked for way more ventilators than they got, but as I understood it they were giving them out "just in time" rather than up front in case they were needed more elsewhere.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#78

Post by votepaunchy » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #40

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…

> I fear that tomorrow Why fear? This is my dream! The Senate is irreparably broken. There is no conceivable way that it can become more fairly representative of the people without a breakup of the United States. The smaller less populous states aren't going to just give up their outsized power voluntarily. California is suffering the most due to the Senate's structural unfairness, and it has the most to gain from su…

> California is suffering the most due to the Senate's structural unfairness, and it has the most to gain from succession. I hope it happens in my lifetime.

Someone needs to secede so the rest of us can divest our tens of trillions of national debt.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#79

Post by standardUser » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

RandomTisk wrote: post #38

danhak wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he wanted to dodge responsibility for the unpleasant job of shutting things down. Now he wants to enjoy positive publicity for opening things back up.

He wanted to shut down travel from China in January, something he got reamed for politically by the media and the left. Damned if you do and all that.

That is one tiny step in response to a crisis that requires dozens of quick, bold steps. If he gets one point for decisive action and 20 points for delaying, deferring, muddling and contradicting, how much credit has he really earned?

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#80

Post by brewdad » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #58

djrogers wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, however by design that body does not have authoritarian control over things like 'shelter at home' regulations.

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantin... > Under section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code § 264), the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. Nothing stops them from encouraging states, either. (We did this with speed lim…

Ok, but what do you do when said authority is hellbent on forcing people back to work and reopening the economy when your local metrics show that would be a really bad idea? While the Federal Government may have the ability to restrict the states, I don't see any avenue where they can legally prohibit local/statewide restrictions that are stronger than Federal rules.

Perhaps through "encouragement" but that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions.