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Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split
Daniel_Stuckey writes that venture capitalist Tim Draper has mooted a plan "to split California into six separate states, he told Tech Crunch, with Silicon Valley emerging as the richest and most powerful of all. The mockery is already pouring in. Of course a rich tech guru wants Silicon Valley to get its own government, so it can be freed from the dusty laws and regulations of California 1.0. Of course a deep undercurrent of self-aggrandizing narcissism runs through the proposal — only one other state-to-be gets an actual name, (inexplicably, 'Jefferson') and the rest are lazily affixed with topographical descriptors: West, South, Central, and North California...Yes, in shaping his doctrine, Draper has conjured the perfect blend of Seasteading's offshore tech nirvana lawlessness, boilerplate Tea Party antiestablishmentarianism, and good ol' secessionist chutzpah."
Any mention of 'Splitting up California' is just tempting fate at this point..
Of course a rich tech guru wants Silicon Valley to get its own government, so it can be freed from the dusty laws and regulations of
Replace "tech guru" with "cotton plantation owner" and suddenly it all makes sense.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
He's never heard of the "House of Representatives"?
Or is he just unhappy that each state gets an equal vote in the Senate?
Because it's a preexisting movement: http://www.jeffersonstate.com/
It could be argued that Silicon Valley has benefitted the most from the California taxpayer. This proposal doesn't sound too bad as long as Old California's debt is distributed to the new states in a equitable way. The problem would be defining equitable.
There is a really small but similar sentiment in Illinois too. The people who live in rural Illinois feel like the people who live in Chicago and the suburban areas surrounding Chicago disproportionately affect Illinois politics. They feel that the state would be better without Chicago.
And could they please take Texas and Florida with them?
The only reason it is this big is because it was established at a time when the population was MUCH lower. Were you to do the same thing in the east coast but in reverse, you might get all of new england as ONE state.
Now do you understand? California is much too big.
The government is almost indifferent to voter opinion because they can always play one part of the state off the other part. Which means they never have to do anything anyone wants. They just mommy/daddy the whole thing and then lie when that doesn't work.
Look. It needs to split because its unweldy, inherently corrupt, and incapable of serving the local needs of its residents.
Everything revolves around Sacramento which is the least consequential portion of the state BESIDES for the politics. Its our version of Washington DC. What does DC do? Tell people what to do. Does it produce anything? Nope. Does it create anything? Nope. It just collects the taxes and decides what to do with it all.
Genius ideas like our "bullet" train which as everyone knows is a giant fiasco... which we knew it would be from the start... because a bullet train in California makes about as much sense as a beach resort on the moon.
But it sounds good to the twits in Sacramento so whatever.
Look, you don't like his plan to split the state... Fine. It doesn't really matter what the plan is so long as its reasonable. We just need a more local government in california. A government that actually lives where we live and cares about us because they're ACTUALLY our neighbors. Sacramento doesn't care about San Diego. It doesn't care about the Imperial Valley. It only cares about Los Angeles because that is where most of the votes come from. But it only cares about it in so far as those votes are concerned. Etc.
Too big. Split it. Even in half isn't enough. It needs to be broken into something like three to six pieces.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There is a really small but similar sentiment in Illinois too. The people who live in rural Illinois feel like the people who live in Chicago and the suburban areas surrounding Chicago disproportionately affect Illinois politics. They feel that the state would be better without Chicago.
I can actually understand that sentiment. But the California equivalent would be Central Valley or far northern secessionists. Silicon Valley can't really make the same kind of argument, because it is already very influential in California politics. Of course, it shares that influence with Los Angeles rather than having it entirely to itself, but the Bay Area is one of the state's main political power bases.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It really should be pointed out that this guy's idea is in no way new. There has been calls for breaking up California into a number of smaller states for years. Mostly for the reason I put into my previous post. In short: having a very large population being nominally controlled by the whims of LA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(Pacific_state)
For those of you who haven't been out there, when you walk along the streams, you will see signs that say "DO NOT DRINK FROM THE STREAM!".
Why?
Because they are heavily polluted.
From what?
Silicone Valley companies that operated before our environmental laws existed.
Tragedy of the commons indeed.
Business people are too irresponsible not to be regulated.
A split that puts Marin in a different state from SF doesn't make a lot of sense, considering how much commuting goes across the Golden Gate. The greater SF Bay Area should at least be in the same state.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
number of people that would like to see the South go. They take in more federal dollars than they give while electing Representatives that campaign against receiving those dollars. They're largely the reason the rest of the Country can't have socialized medicine.
Personally I can't see abandoning them, but then again I think the point of civilization isn't to protect property but to improve the lives of everyone. That's a fundamental philosophy that a lot disagree with.
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Government doesn't want that and any forwarding thinking citizen should hate the idea too. There is no way for a single body government to effectively govern a mass of people of such diverse backgrounds and over such a diverse landscape effectively. Unless you have them do much less than they do today and let the people do for themselves again...
I've lived in a number of areas of the country. The common political element that rose above all the rest is the differences between the large cities and the rural areas. So, instead of a split by area, make each large city -- San Francisco/San Jose, Los Angeles/Hollywood -- its own state. (What to do about Sacremento? Is it a city or a condition as the State capitol?) Then City interests could be served by the City States, and the rest of the state with its agriculture base would be able to set policies and law for their own.
Other states/areas could be split the same way: Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington DC area, Michigin (peal Detroit from the rest of the State), New York/New Jersey/Connecticut...and the list goes on. We could combine small states into large states -- think Providence Rhode Island versus the rest of the State.
I'm not sure the Democrats would go for this.
Jefferson was proposed for parts of southern Oregon and northern California as far back as 1941, according to Wikipedia. I've seen a sign for the State of Jefferson Chamber of Commerce along I-5 somewhere in that area.
exactly, Smaller governments are easier to maintain. I am all for more choice in the country. I would love if the same thing happened in NY, make NYC and long island into their own states and leave upstate NY as its own state. Where I live, the hudson valley we pay more in taxes and get less back than northern NY or the city all while we have to worry about our bridges 50 miles 75 miles north of the city tolls going up for one example, when the money is being used down in NYC not up here.
I am a firm believer in "think local first" If we could keep more of our own money in our own communities rather than giving it to the feds and state to ship all over the country and world we would all be better off
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It's a good idea, because California, all by itself, has the 8th largest economy in the whole world. It doesn't need the rest of America.
Maybe Oregon and Washington would like to join it, plus some of the other western states like Nevada. All together, they'd easily be the most economically powerful country on Earth, home of all the major tech industries, and free from the idiocy in Washington (DC; the state should rename itself to eliminate this association) and the east coast states, especially the South.
By George, I think you've hit on exactly the right solution! Merge all states, so that they are a single entity. That's brilliant!
Now, what could we call this entity? The Grouped Together Localities? The Aggregated Places Between Mexico and Canada? The Strongly Connected States of America?
Well, I'm sure we'll come up with something.
6 pieces is really too much, I think. A better plan is to start with the 38 States proposal from the 70s, and update it a bit for the times.
No comment on whether or not the state of Jefferson would ever be able to support itself without the rest of California, but Tim Draper didn't pull that particular state out of the ether. I have some parents that used to live up in North State, and the hill folk there love the idea of Jefferson.
They even have a website: http://www.jeffersonstate.com/
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I think you'll find this sentiment in the agricultural areas of most states that have a lot of agricultural area and a few large (1 million +) metropolitan areas, as the metro areas are usually much more liberal than the agricultural areas. Their primary issues are often quite different also. Look at North Carolina, which lumps most of the liberals into a district that is Charlotte, Raleigh, and the interstate highway between them.
Nah California can go fuck itself. You're liberals aren't realistic and you have way too many conservatives.
Signed, Cascadia
I've often said that when times get tough, you find out what people are really like; when times are good and everyone has plenty, then it's easy to be nice, and courteous, and generous, but when times get tough, you find out who's really like that, and who's just been putting on a false face. In this case what we discover from tough times is who's actually smart, and who's actually dumb as a box of rocks. Splitting up California would wreck havoc with everyone in the former State, and would likely throw the entire U.S. into chaos, and all for the greed and lust for power of (excuse my using an over-used metaphor) the 1%. What they'd actually be doing is very transparent: Leave behind the poorer parts of the former California, so the rich don't have to be "burdened" by them anymore. For the northernmost parts of the State, you may as well just merge it with Oregon in that case, so you can have one larger state full of poor people living in relatively rural areas, all without anywhere near enough jobs to keep them all housed, clothed, and fed. Give the central valley a new spanish name, so the people who live and work there, working the fields, will feel more at home. I don't think I need to go on, you all get the picture, probably without my help in the first place. Of course like all rich despots this wouldn't go like they planned, the northern State could cut off all the water they've been sending to the south and hold it for ransom, jacking the price way up, and the central state could make the food they're growing so expensive that even the richest would be shocked at their grocery bill.
This guy needs to be slapped.
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Hell no. S. Cal has to take Bakersfield and Fresno.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
why would you want to put people who disagree on the way of living together instead of allowing them to be free to live as they wish in their own smaller states??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Fragmented local governments make less and less sense as travel speeds increase and communication costs drop. I think that was already evident when the last 20 states were admitted to the union. Land area of states, and even counties, have trended upwards, and not just because populations were small.
If you fragment the tax base into little local communities, the poor stay poor. It's been a good thing for the "natural splendor" of Arkansas, but mostly, I think we're all better off it we take more even care of everyone, rather than ignoring the poor neighbors over the other side of some line on a map.
Things have changed in 40 years. Not that much, but some: just look at the populations of cities in the rust-belt states then and now. They've shrunk. Southern states (east and west) have gained population. Phoenix, for example, is much, much larger than it was in the 70s.
Also, the 38-state plan was made by some college class. It was based on some really good principles and ideas, such as making sure no metro areas cross state lines, however it surely didn't involve actually going around the country and asking people everywhere which nearby areas they'd like to be in the same state as, or not. A real reorganization needs to have a lot more stakeholder input than that.
Actually, I think it would be best to just get rid of the Senate completely.
It's totally non-functional due to arcane rules and inherently undemocratic since states like Rhode Island and Wyoming (population less than 1 million) get the same number of senators as large states like New York and California.
A parliamentary system would make for a much more functional government.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
That will be cool.
We would impose an import tariff on all goods leaving California and we will give tax incentives to companies to move to the other 49 states. You will no longer enjoy all that pork from US military bases or contracts. Oh and you will have to pay 100% of your welfare, medicaid, and medicare expenses. Any of that technology that originates from federal grants will move out, and ITAR will prevent any new tech being easily exported to California.
Let's know how it works out.
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When you see stuff like Texas editing school books or North Carolina allowing cousins to marry, but not gay cousins, the states don't know much better than the federal government what is best for their citizens. We might as well either combine it all into one piece and pool the disfunctionality, or break the country into pieces that better resemble the regional needs of modern America.
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That seems highly unlikely, if you actually look at the map. California's entire coastline, except for the San Diego area, skews heavily blue (and even San Diego is lightly blue), so the opposite would probably be true - only California 4 (on his map) would likely elect Republican senators. Keep in mind the coasts are also far more heavily populated. So it'd probably be 8-2 the other way.
http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/healey/US_election/figs/CA.png
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Except some of the same idiocy in the rest of America also exists in CA. CA politicians have supported some of the more awful stuff to come out of DC as much as they have opposed it. And locally you still have the same struggles. One mix that has been proposed before was splitting CA into a North and South - but even that is problematic.
It's sad that an artifact of the nation's early history results in a Senate where a few square post-independence states with tiny populations are effectively able to veto ideas supported by very large majorities of Americans. Splitting states to provide relatively equal populations per Senate district would go a long way towards eliminating the existing gridlock in American politics.
There is simply no reason beyond historical accident why the 40 million people of California have two senators, while the combined 3 million people of the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana have eight senators.
It's sad that an artifact of the nation's early history results in a Senate where a few square post-independence states with tiny populations are effectively able to veto ideas supported by very large majorities of Americans.
It's a political check on the urban areas.
The entire point of the senate is to provide an equal voice to all members of the federation....besides....the most undemocratic behavior is gerrimandering and that is a behavior seen in the house.
Congressional districts should be required to be closed and compact boarders that meet the population requirements for a district to exist. These things should be drawn by a computer using standard topological analysis, not a committee created by what ever party happens to be in control of the state at the time.
The point is that if you dont agree with what one local government does or state, you have choices. On the other hand if the federal law was the only law what choice do we have? none if we dont like it too fucking bad. I prefer having choice
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I think the flaw in your logic is the belief that democracy is an ideal that ought to be strived for. Also, I question your assertion that the Senate wasn't intended as a check on urban areas. It gave the rural southern states representation they wouldn't have had if population was the only metric, especially considering that blacks only counted as 3/5th of a person. Without the senate the south would have been similar to the thirteen colonies compared to England (which, as the urban centers in the north grew exponentially, eventually happened and caused a civil war).
Personally, I don't think it's right for people in cities a thousand+ miles away from my rural home to dictate the laws around here because there's more of them. Democracy only works on a very small scale. When it's expanded from sea to shining sea it becomes a tyranny throughout most the land, whether it's a tyranny for of most the people or not.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Last year, California sent $292.6 billion in federal taxes to the US government. California received $258.9 billion in federal spending. In other words, the federal government received nearly $34 billion dollars more from the state of California than was spent in the state.
Let's see how it works out indeed.
California has a huge agriculture industry, you idiot.
Democracy only works on a very small scale. When it's expanded from sea to shining sea it becomes a tyranny throughout most the land, whether it's a tyranny for of most the people or not.
Exactly, which is why the country needs to be broken up into smaller, more homogeneous units. Those European countries with the highest standards of living in the world, and the least amounts of corruption, are all small and relatively homogeneous culturally. They don't constantly argue internally over issues like abortion, or the role of government, or socialized healthcare. Democracy is a good thing, compared to the alternatives, but as you say, it just doesn't work on a large scale. The only rational solution is to reduce the scale, by breaking apart the country.
Dear Mr. President, There are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. P.S. I am not a crackpot.
God spoke to me
Ah, the blissful European countries with cultural homogeneity. Perhaps they don't argue internally, I can't say I pay that much attention. I do recall hearing once or twice of the occasional war between one or two of them, and I note that they've attempted to form overarching economic and political structures in hopes of making such wars less common in the future than they've been in the past.
No doubt the internal arguments in the United States would be fewer if Utah, for example, were its own country. But the thought of a nuclear armed Utah doesn't strike me as an improved geopolitical situation.
If two demographically different groups are also geographically distant, is one group being larger a reason to give it dominion over the other?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
California is already split into numerous pieces. Drawing some lines and formalizing it will allow each of those pieces to govern themselves as they see fit and allow people to stop bitching at each other for tromping on each others "rights".
This is certainly true on paper. In practice California is tied together in ways that aren't easy to undo. Take, for example, disputes over water underlies some of the regional hostility; under the plan region 4 realistically can't gain control of its water resources. It still must supply region 3 and 5 with water lest they dry up and blow away.
A specialized state loses some economic flexibility; in a tech down turn they aren't as buoyed agriculture and vice versa. You lose some economies of scale; wineries in region 2 and farms in region 5 and 6 and biotech companies in region 3 lose access to the life sciences programs at UC Davis. People priced out of region 3 into region 4 will potentially pay income tax in two states.
For better or worse, California is made up of diverse regions that are uncomfortably tied together.
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CA is broke.
California has a $2.4 billion surplus, about same as Texas.
The Supreme Court just struck down the specific state provisions of the voting rights act.
The act was passed by the Senate so presumably the needs of all states were considered when it was originally passed.
No need for the Senate.
The "commerce clause" has been broadly interpreted as the justification for a lot of Federal legislation. There are limits on what you can do to your citizens. Frankly, I trust the Federal government to do a better job of passing "fair" legislation than the States. Mississippi would probably still have segregation if it weren't for the Federal government.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You can move from Texas to Arizona if you don't like the book thing, and you can move from North Carolina to Massachusetts if you don't like the cousin thing. Or to those states if you filter the other way on those issues.
If there's only one government, though, you're putting a lot of pressure on that government to satisfy everyone. Without the relief valve of relocating, you're only increasing the chance that the people who don't like various policies will feel their only option remaining is violence.
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I'm rather confused why anyone in this thread thinks it's a good idea to create state boundaries with the express intent of breaking apart people of different affiliations, political or otherwise. If I'm in a different party than you and we don't see eye to eye, we should talk and reach a compromise, not be put in different rooms so that we can separately stew about what a mean guy that other person is. And what makes political affiliations so special? Why not break up the states based on the predominant religion in the region instead? It's just a different form of affiliation, after all.
I think you may find you statement incorrect. California may not be were is is today is it wasn't part of the US and it could lose some income etc but I hardly think it would into some starving 3rd world hell hole. http://www.stuffaboutstates.com/california/agriculture.htm http://glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/ca/ca_economy.html
They were fifth cousins, not first cousins. Also, 20 states allow first-cousin marriage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#United_States_2
You don't even need to go as far as you did. First they have to get by Article IV Section 3 of the US Constitution:
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Other than the Basques, it doesn't sound like France's various regions have too much trouble getting along, so there's likely no issue there. The Basques should probably have their own country; their region straddles the France-Spain border, and they've had separatist tendencies for a long time. Spain is definitely not a good example, with 4 different languages, and two of those regions wanting separation (Basque and Catalan). But most other European countries don't have these problems. You mention some other small minority languages like the Saamis, but again that's just like our Amish people speaking Pennsylvania Dutch: they're such a small minority they don't really matter that much, nor do they have too much trouble getting along with the rest of the country or learning the national language (I don't think there's any Amish people who don't speak English). You usually get problems when you have very large groups of people not speaking the same language, having clashing cultures, and trying to live in the same country together. With very small minorities, they usually recognize they're better off as a part of the larger nation, as long as they aren't being oppressed and can mostly do their own thing in peace. I've never heard of Samoans complain about being part of the US, and Puerto Ricans seem to like their US territory status; they get economic benefits from being US territories instead of independent nations with such small populations.
If you want to fix that problem the answer you want is proportional representation. You'll pretty much kiss any idea of true local representation goodbye. Gerrymandering up a bunch of low population red states is just more corruption of the system.
When aren't the Italians talking about revolution? The south of Europe isn't having problems because of the European Union, they're having economic issues for the same reason most of the US is; the New York banksters.
Most of Europe has abandoned local currencies for the Euro, which is pretty much an irreversible process. Many of their economies could not have survived the last decade if their currencies had still been susceptible to the predation of currency speculators like George Soros and the slime at Bank of America and CitiCorp. Think Portugal and Spain have problems now? Imagine what it would have been like if this were two decades ago, when Soros took advantage of a weak British position to crash the British pound and destroy the country's economy. The Euro is probably the only thing that saved most of the weaker European countries from further economic attack and total collapse, and their leaders are quite aware of that.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
You, and everyone else bitching about the makeup of the US Congress and specifically the senate, need to go back and retake middle school civics.
The Senate, at the country's inception, WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE POPULARLY ELECTED.
You have a bicameral legislature - the House of Representatives, who's members are popularly elected by the residents of the states, and the Senate - who's membership was, until the horrific fuck up that is the 17th Amendment was passed shortly after the turn of the 20th century, selected by the legislatures of the states to represent their interests in crafting national law - and SPECIFICALLY to prevent large states, like California, New York, Florida, and Texas today; New York and Pennsylvania in 1789, from running roughshod over the interests and needs of the smaller states. So yes, the Senate makeup IS DELIBERATELY set up to fuck over the large population states, because they are able to fuck over the small states in the House of Representatives.
Welcome to basic civics.
If you want to fix the Senate, repeal the 17th.
The dream world you live in is actually the current state of the State of California. California has a bicameral legislature with a house and a senate, just like Washington D.C., but both elected by population. The result is exactly as others have pointed out--the urban areas run roughshod over the rural areas like the one I live in. The courts adjudicate the law, they don't write it, and in a state where the Constitution can be amended as easily as a whiteboard 'equal justice' is more like 'mob rule'. Why do I suspect your 'minority rights' don't include the right to own and use a gun, follow my religious conscious, or run my own business as I see fit?
We were talking about "culturally homogenous" European countries, not linguistically. Languages are one indicator of cultural identity, but not the only one. The situation in France is actually particularly acrimonious, even more so than in Spain, and the French regions do not have any of the protections they have in Spain. Spain seems more troublesome than France precisely because the problem is officially recognised. In France, there is a flat-out denial of regional identities, with administrative boundaries redrawn contrary to local will (the city of Nantes, the capital of old Brittany, is no longer part of Brittany, and this is frequently protested about) and the French government refusing to ratify the European Charter of Minority Languages because "French is the language of the republic". Breton activists regularly protest by spraypainting or taking down French roadsigns (and I believe they've actually succeeded in getting some of their railway stations bilingually signed) and the Corsicans have a long history of shooting holes in the French half of bilingual roadsigns. While I was living in Corsica, the North Corsican assembly was putting through a bill to make Corsican co-official with French in the area, even though technically they had no powers to do so. It was an illegal act as an act of protest to France's treatment of regional languages.
The Saami are not analogous to the Pennsylvania Dutch. They're a minority population-wise, but they have a huge territory which leads to conflicts between the needs of the reindeer herders and the state's desire to open up mineral explorations in the area.
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