November 19, 2024
Fixing the state borders — not the borders with Mexico and Canada — the state-on-state borders.
They ought to have more to do with mountains and rivers — and give the Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin:
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Heh. David Blaska was all in with annexing the UP. Even made a map with a town named for him and, of course, another named for then-Governor Scott Walker.
Now do expanding the number of judges on the Supreme Court.
These sort of "eliminate states" videos only appear after Republican Electoral College victories. Now Democrats want to eliminate states instead of expanding the number of them (like they tried to do with DC and the garbage island ... can't remember the name of that one.)
"They'll take Baja Alabama from our cold, dead hands" - Florida
eH. I do like the larger Utah idea.
THE HELL WE ARE GIVING BACK THE UPPER PENINSULA.
If only Geoff appreciated the earnestness of the colonials who established the borders of the eastern provinces of British North America. For example, does he know the history of "Dixie" the ante-bellum nickname of slave-holding states of the Union. Does he realize the expense and desperation of the astronomical survey involved. Does he know that the western border of North Carolina theoretically extended to the Pacific shore until some disgruntled frontiersmen tried to create a 14th state named in honor of Benjamin Franklin? (Davy Crockett was not born on a mountaintop in Tennessee) Does he realize a redraw of the state borders would require a Constitutional Convention?
Nebraska is perfect as it is.
Amazing how the “fixes” eliminate multiple Republican senators and virtually no Democrat ones. I mean for efficiency you could mash up all those tiny northeastern states into Jumbo LibLand to be “fair”.
Like evolution, history is very good at producing random and “illogical” borders for reasons that at the time made sense. No thanks for this correction.
AZ and Cali are already divided by a river. For someone who says he'll use natural boundaries, this guy tosses that onto the heap pretty quickly.
This is bullshit. His desire to acquiesce to some politial boundaries but not others is... awful.
Fix the borders by removing Michigan entirely.
Vermont seceded from New York State. West Virginia seceded from Virginia, I don't know if any region ever seceded and joined another state though.
Fun exercise…. I would’ve combined some states in the NE though. They’re significantly smaller than others….
Connecticut can go. New England’s true boarder is the Connecticut River. Everything west of it is New York centric. Roll east of the river into Massachusetts. I would also make Rhode Island part of Massachusetts.
New England could be divided into two coherent states, right along Massachusetts northern border. Why does Rhode Island have two Senators?
Nah, Vermont is not New York. You can see the differences and they are very plain, Plattsburgh, NY looks a lot more like Olean or Dunkirk, than it does Burlington, just across the lake, but the differences between Vermont and New Hampshire are not so pronounced, or Maine, either.
The UP was given to MI to compensate them for losing the Battle of Ohio and the port of Toledo
There's a really nice series (based on a book) called How The States Got Their Shapes. The host (Brian Unger) is excellent in it.
Instead of adding Mariana and Puerto Rico, just split Wash and Or at the cascades. This will make the eastern halves extremely happy and keep the the natural barrier theme.
Killington has been pitching for years seceding from Vermont and joining New Hampshire - tax reasons, I believe.
Them's fighting words, buddy!
To go from being an awkward appendage of one state to an awkward appendage of another isn't much of a fate. Maybe make the UP a state of its own -- or even independent.
How the States Got Their Shapes was an interesting book (and a less interesting television series) if anyone is interested. My personal favorite story is the jagged border between Tennessee and Kentucky. It was supposed to be straight, but the surveyors were incompetent, or poorly coordinated, or just drunk.
If Rhode Island can be a state, Plymouth (Southeastern Massachusetts) should have been one as well, but they sold out to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the North. East Jersey and West Jersey (basically North and South New Jersey) could also have stayed separate. There was also some controversy about whether Pennsylvania and Delaware were two separate colonies or just one. Recent events make me think that we made the wrong decision on that.
how ridiculous. We're going to wipe out North Dakota and North carolina because they have the same last name as another state? But not do that to west VA? Crazy.
And its absurd to keep these postage stamp states in the East. At the very least, Conn and RI should be one state. Give maine back to Massachutes. And NH and Vermont should be one state. Or just make New England one state.
As for Delaware just get rid of it and make it part of MD. New York is a senseless hodge podge of NYC/Long Island/Upstate. So, cut NJ in half - join it with NYC/Long Island. Upstate NY is now on its own. Give southern NJ to Pennsylvannia. Or join it with "New MD".
Then we get to Wash and Oregon. As everyone knows these are really two competely different areas joined together. Split them at the Cascades and have the Eastern Parts join other states. Calf is too big. Northern Cal joins Oregon. Split the rest of the state in Two.
Texas? Too big. Agree about giving the panhandle to Oklahoma. But east Texas should be its own state.
Slavery really fucked up the USA. Because of slavery, the Politicians were constantly trying to balance the Slave and Free states. Thats why we ended up with six New England states. And Calf and Texas, which both should have split up, were kept their huge size because they "balanced" each other.
Alaska and Hawaii should go back to being territories. DC should be joined with MD. Lets start rearranging the USA, its a crazy patch quilt.
give the Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin
When they pry it from our cold, dead mitten.
Michigan got the Upper Peninsula to balance Ohio getting the Toledo Strip after the Toledo War, which was an armed conflict between the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan.
Inaccurate maps regarding the southern tip of Lake Michigan led to uncertainty as to where the border between Ohio and Michigan was. The Toledo Strip was a slice of land between the two claimed by both sides and included desirable farm land and the city of Toledo.
Militia on both sides were called out, threats were made, and at the Battle of Philips Corners, the Michigan militia attacked a group of surveyors commission by Ohio. Other skirmishes followed.
Confusing the issue was the fact that Michigan was approved for admission as a state during this time, potentially rendering the territorial government void - and the territorial militia as well.
Finally, Ohio got the strip, and Michigan got the UP in compensation. Michiganders thought they got a raw deal until copper and iron were discovered in the UP.
I don’t trust anyone to pull this kind of bullshit right now
Cappy said…
“Fix the borders by removing Michigan entirely.”
Fans of THE Ohio State University nod in approval.
There's been talk of having the easternmost counties of WV (the Eastern Panhandle) rejoin Virginia. The proponents make much of the fact that several other states' capitals are closer to the Panhandle than Charleston is. Enthusiasm is pretty low, though. I got the feeling when we lived there that most people, except that little enclave around Shepherd University, would sooner be governed from Charleston rather than Richmond.
The proposed State of Jefferson was discussed again as recently as 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state).
eliminate the old political boundaries for…new political boundaries with better or more geographic divisions? That’s the gist of this? I want to play- split 50 ways with latitudes. No more east coast/west coast places- we all have both!
The terms of Texas’ admission to the Union included the option that they could split into up to up to 5 states without needing congressional approval.
The guys at my dad’s golf course in the northeast kingdom would be happy to be ceded to Quebec. The ones with DWIs could get in to Canada to play the golf courses there…
And add northern Idaho. Hell, take it all the way to the Continental Divide
Combine states until they are all able to operate autonomously in a federal Republic, without having to beg the central government for funds to run basic services. Also, just get rid of Delaware, it's just the slaveholding counties of Pennsylvania.
Out west, the problem is that much of the Pacific coast has gone bonkers hard left (and now maintained by mail in balloting). Geographically, much of CA hates being in CA. And eastern WA and OR want to join ID. Oh, and the 9th Circuit desperately needs to be chopped up. That’s something that Congress could do fairly easily legally, but not politically, since it is heavily dominated by esp CA.
The three eastern counties of West Virginia were basically Virginia. They were added to the new state to keep the rail line westward from DC out of Virginia's rebel hands. Many DC employees live in the easternmost county, but this time (and last time) all of West Virginia's counties (like all of Oklahoma's) voted for Trump.
Gov. Doug Burgum, soon to be Sec. of the Interior, had a pet project to rename North Dakota to, simply... Dakota. But not to eliminate the state.
Other states make no sense. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine should be one state. Same with Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Delaware is not a state, it's a courthouse for corporations, and should be a county of Maryland. And New York City should be part of New Jersey, so that upstate New Yorkers could be freed from the big-city jerks who rule over them but have little interest in their concerns.
Would giving Wisconsin the UP turn it sold red and Michigan solid blue? I'd take that trade. Many of these are a bit silly, especially in the east, where he really imbalances the sizes of states. Mountains and rivers are sometimes good borders, but a big part is that is because of how strongly they influence cultural borders, which is more important.
Heh. Our Caribbean protectorates are perfectly happy sucking off tax dollars with little oversight and acting as offshore banking holes. With the exception of some loud academicians, they’d rather keep receiving than giving.
Except, of course, when it comes to baseball.
I've heard that there is only one highway joining northern and southern Idaho. Are they really one state rather than two? There's plenty of reason to redivide the Northwest corner of the country. Admitting Oregon in 1859 when the region was thinly settled preempted other possibilities and meant that Washington would be admitted as one state 30 years later, rather than dividing the Northwest at the Cascades, and that Idaho would contain whatever wasn't Montana or a coastal state.
If we were going to do this, though, there's no reason to leave the little northeastern states intact while rejiggering the states to the west. New York should also be divided: upstate and downstate don't have much in common. Pennsylvania could also be divided, but I doubt Pittsburgh would be any happier being paired with Ohio or West Virginia, rather than with Philadelphia. It's rather the eastern part of the state that should join up with southern New Jersey.
With all the money invested in state capitals and state capitols, though, none of this is going to happen.
Yeah, I have a good friend who can't go to Montreal with us.
My sister's friend from Charlotte, which is right near the border, called South Carolina "The Armpit of the South."
If the Continental divide is important, why isn't the fall line? Of course, neither are.
One of the things that the British were trying to win in the War of 1812 was to turn Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio, well, they weren't states yet, into a sovereign country for the Indians.
The British went home and called it even with a shrug, but the Indians were soundly defeated in that war, I think that we assassinated Tecumseh, who was the Indians' best leader, the most effective militarily, then we genocided them and took their land.
Damn right. Uff Da!
If we genocided them why are they still here?
The "Atlas Pro" channel did a similar video 3 years ago. It's a lot longer and a bit more in-depth as to his throught processes behind the borders he came up with. Well worht the half-hour watch time, IMO --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnaRppzurpw
Borders were created for "stupid political reasons." Yeah, some seem stupid in retrospect. But people are complex and sometimes stupid. You don't want this stuff done by the Central Planning Committee.
Sloppy is better.
When I was in college in PA, we came up with the idea of donating Philadephia to New Jersey because it would raise the average IQ of both states.
Northern Delaware should be part of PA (Wilmington is basically a suburb of Philly, at least culturally). Southern Delaware should be part of Maryland.
So we're supposed to get rid of the NC - SC border and make them into a single state again and restart the fight over where the state capitol should be? Ridiculous! Whoever came up with this crap has too much time on their hands.
If nothing else- Staten Island should be part of NJ. Geographically it makes sense. Historically, it doesn't.
Yeah, OK. We killed all of the ones who were living freely. Is that better?
Wisconsin’s claim to the Upper Peninsula is not as strong as Michigan’s claim to the whole of Wisconsin, plus Iowa, Minnesota, and Eastern North and South Dakota.
Ohio and Michigan fought a war over Toledo and Ohio lost.
This isn't really fair, at one point Toledo was the glass capital of the world and one of the top ten wealthiest cities in the country. Things have changed since the 1920s.
Part of the genius/happenstance of America is not just that we have states but we have very different types of states.
MTG: There's also a movement to have several Western VA counties join WV.
Well hell, let's just add Mexico and save the hassle of deportation.
A Trump idea…
"Would giving Wisconsin the UP turn it sold red and Michigan solid blue?"
The UP is sparsely populated — only about 300,000. Wisconsin currently has 5.9 million and Michigan about 10 million, so I don't think it would make much difference.
No. We killed all the ones who tried to kill us. For the Indians brutality was a way of life. And by "brutality" I mean torture , killing and slavery. Early and often and everyone who wasn't a member of their tribe.
They never lived freely. They were at constant war with their neighbors with nature and themselves.
Since no one else is saying it; Colorado and New Mexico should give their land back to Texas.
I was out in Guam recently for a work trip and was sitting across from a Guamanian at a group dinner. We had an interesting discussion about territory vs statehood for Guam. Ultimately, Guam is too small to be a state by itself and would concentrate too much federal power in too small of a population. I floated the idea of it becoming part of the state of Hawaii, but the downside there is that they would not get good representation for their needs in the Hawaii government because their population is too small. Another option would be to unite all of our western pacific territories into a western pacific state, but, again, the overall population isn't big enough to really make it palatable for the other states to allow it.
The way he was talking, it sounds like, for Guam at least, remaining a territory gives almost all of the benefits of statehood while avoiding a lot of the downsides. It still kills me that I need my passport to fly there. Come on, man! No joking!
The US stopped admitting new States as a concession to the Commies during the Cold War. No reason not to start up again, except for civilizational exhaustion.
I have said for years I'd be all for Wisconsin secession if there was a legitimate shot at it, the only drawback being the need to go to war with Michigan to get the UP back. It may be largely empty, but it should be our empty space, dammit!
We ended up with six New England states because (except for Vermont and Maine) they were all separate colonies long before the Revolution. It had nothing to do with slavery. And splitting off Maine and Vermont had nothing to do with slavery, either. There was plenty of balancing admissions of slave v. free states in the runup to the Civil War but Texas wasn't part of that (although California was).
Agreed! We won it fair and square after winning the Toledo War!
And there is the lost peninsula situation to be sorted out...
Guy has no idea what he's talking about--he's too impressed by 'natural' features that look neat on maps, without regard to the larger patterns that dictate the boundaries.
Rivers unite as much as they divide, to name just one problem with his proposal, but there are others.
Look up Etzel Pearcy's Thirty-Eight States for a realistic and much better-informed idea.
Carve out a spot for the state of Whiteopia while you're at it.
Or Trumpland, if you prefer.
Vermont's admission while close to the same time as Kentucky in 1792 was not specifically a balancing of a free and slave state, however by 1820 when Maine's succession from Massachusetts allowed it to be paired with the admission of Missouri, the Missouri Compromise had made the free or slave status of states significant.
Highly doubtful. For most territories such as Puerto Rico there's little benefit to be gained from achieving statehood and thus becoming responsible for all the services that states typically provide. The only other territory that might logically become a state is D.C. which has some of the same issues plus thorny problems with the legality of converting land originally held by Virginia and Maryland to another state.
If we do wind up adding any states my long-term bet would be on Alberta and Saskatchewan switching allegiances.
The story they taught us in Georgia history was that the surveyors who marked the northern boundary with Tennessee were inebriated. While moving westward, the line suddenly moves south. You can see it on Google maps.
But that does bring up the question of why Ohio, IN, ill, etc, are in the Midwest, and not Mideast. Geographically, everything east of, say, the Missouri River should be Mideast.
Plus that the Constitution calls for a federal district. And, as you noted, the precedent that the VA part of the federal district was returned to VA, so why shouldn’t the MD portion be returned to MD?
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