Skip to main content

Splitting California


Image result for cal-3 map

As of the time of this writing, it appears that Californians will NOT vote this November on a proposal to split their state into three parts. The state's supreme court found technical reasons for excluding it from the ballot, although it also said it wanted to hear more arguments from counsel, so this could change.

The reason I mention it here is simply that the whole idea just seems so bat-shit crazy it is amazing it even got close to being on the ballot. 

Consider that the only time in US history when anything even remotely similar to this happened there was a civil war underway. One region of Virginia firmly wanted to remain in the union and so wanted to secede from the secessionists. The motivating factor in the prospective 2018 initiative, though, seems to have been, "hey it might be fun to put on a play." 

"Uh I can't get the use of the barn for a play, guys, but how about we break up a state, instead!"

"Wowza what a great idea." 

I don't say "wowza" lightly. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. HenryAugust 5, 2018 at 2:53 AM

    Christopher,

    Far from batshit crazy, the proposal doesn't go nearly far enough. California ought to split up into 67 states. That would give its residents the same political power as the residents of Wyoming. This is because California has 67 times the population of Wyoming, yet gets the same number of U.S. senators that Wyoming does. In addition, the number of electoral votes each state gets is the sum of its representatives and senators, so Wyoming residents have more power in choosing the President as well.

    At the time of the founding of the nation, the population differences among the states were much smaller. People said "The United States are," rather than "is," because we did not think of ourselves as a unified nation in the same sense that we have since the Civil War. If we equalized representation in the Senate, we would take one important step toward becoming a democracy. Outlawing gerrymandering, overturning Citizens United (if not fully publicly financing political campaigns), strengthening the Voting Rights Act, and eliminating the Electoral College are other steps that would begin to allow majority rule in this country.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HenryAugust 5, 2018 at 3:13 AM

    By "equalized representation in the Senate," I meant, of course, "made it proportional to each state's population," as the House of Representatives is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ChristopherAugust 5, 2018 at 5:21 AM

    I take your point, but that could obviously be addressed without splitting p any of the existing states. Further, given the complexities of straightening out such things as water rights and the management of infrastructure projects that cross the new states' new borders ... this IS batshit crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. HenryAugust 5, 2018 at 11:30 AM

    Well, maybe splitting into 67 states would be a bit crazy, but I imagine that two potential states could straighten out the complexities you mention, negotiating the details before the split. If disputes arose afterwards, well, lawyers gotta eat too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ChristopherAugust 5, 2018 at 11:54 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ChristopherAugust 6, 2018 at 2:26 PM

    THREE potential states, you mean. Unless you're counting the south-coastal one as the continuation of the existing state, and the other two as the "potential" (new) states. I think in reality they'd all be new states, starting from scratch in a chaotic scramble.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti
7 comments
Read more

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

  Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave.   First, Plato  is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I  only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers
Post a Comment
Read more

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere.  At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak
13 comments
Read more