For God's sake, Birthers...

[SlyPokerDog]

I wonder if anyone asked to see his passport when he landed in Afghanistan today?

 

[barfo]

Even though a state like Wyoming might have less population than the city of San Jose CA, it deserves attention

Why? Because of some borders that were more or less arbitrarily drawn ~150 years ago?

What we need to do is redraw state boundaries.

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

Things are gerrymandered enough as it is, thanks.

 

[Minstrel]

While it seems great on the surface that "majority wins," the problem is that the strategy for winning would be to start marketing at the biggest cities and work your way down. It wouldn't take much, in that respect, to get to the 50% + 1.

Which makes perfect sense. Biggest cities = more of the people. Government is of the people, for the people. More population should mean more representation.

Even though a state like Wyoming might have less population than the city of San Jose CA, it deserves attention

It deserves attention in proportion with the number of people it has. Thus, it "deserves" less attention than the city of San Jose. Government isn't representing land mass...it's representing people. If there was a state with 1 person in it, it would deserve plenty of representation?

The electoral college makes the votes of people in small states worth more than the votes of people in larger states, because they get disproportionate representation. That's quite counter to the democratic ideal of one person, one (equal) vote.

 

[Denny Crane]

Which makes perfect sense. Biggest cities = more of the people. Government is of the people, for the people. More population should mean more representation.



It deserves attention in proportion with the number of people it has. Thus, it "deserves" less attention than the city of San Jose. Government isn't representing land mass...it's representing people. If there was a state with 1 person in it, it would deserve plenty of representation?

The electoral college makes the votes of people in small states worth more than the votes of people in larger states, because they get disproportionate representation. That's quite counter to the democratic ideal of one person, one (equal) vote.

No, govt. is of the people BUT no tyranny of the masses. People in cities have very different interests and issues than people in urban areas.

And govt. sure is interested in the less populated land. Your guy Clinton nationalized a huge part of the state of Utah near the end of his 2nd term. The offshore drilling ban is another good example.

 

[Minstrel]

No, govt. is of the people BUT no tyranny of the masses. People in cities have very different interests and issues than people in urban areas.

Not a tyranny, no. That's what the Constitution (and Bill of Rights) is for. Majority vote can't abridge rights of others. Majority rules on non-Constitutionally-protected issues, though.

And govt. sure is interested in the less populated land.

Interested in it is quite a bit different than representing it. Government does nothing about land mass for the happiness of the land mass. It does things with/about land because people want that. Your examples aren't counters to what I said, they're still examples of government representing people, not land mass.

 

[ehizzy3]

wyoming is such a fucking lame state

 

[Denny Crane]

Not a tyranny, no. That's what the Constitution (and Bill of Rights) is for. Majority vote can't abridge rights of others. Majority rules on non-Constitutionally-protected issues, though.



Interested in it is quite a bit different than representing it. Government does nothing about land mass for the happiness of the land mass. It does things with/about land because people want that. Your examples aren't counters to what I said, they're still examples of government representing people, not land mass.

Government TAKES from those people in Utah, and TAKES rights away from people where offshore drilling would make sense. The people whose rights and resources are TAKEN by the feds absolutely deserve to address the candidates in person.

The constitution is itself a bill of rights for the states.

We're a Republic, not a Democracy, exactly for the reasons I've stated (taking without equal representation). The electoral college is required to have a republic.

If you think your argument has merit, then argue why there should be a senate at all.

 

[barfo]

Government TAKES from those people in Utah

Wrong.

Utah taxpayers receive more federal funding per dollar of federal taxes paid than the average state. Per dollar of Federal tax collected in 2005, Utah citizens received approximately $1.07 in the way of federal spending. This ranks the state 29th highest nationally and represents a decline from 1995 when Utah received $1.08 per dollar of taxes in federal spending (ranked 22nd nationally). Neighboring states and the amount of federal spending received per dollar of federal taxes collected were: Idaho ($1.21), Nevada ($0.65), Arizona ($1.19), New Mexico ($2.03), Colorado ($0.81), and Wyoming ($1.11).

barfo

 

[speeds]

 

[Denny Crane]

Wrong.



barfo

You do realize that the entire state of Utah has about 2.7M population. Getting back $1.07 for so few (relative) tax dollars paid doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

Especially compared to the $trillions in coal, oil, and/or minerals that land (~1.7M acres) likely holds.

http://www.governor.utah.gov/budget/Budget/Agency Recommendations/FY2011/Budget Overview.pdf

Their state tax revenues are ~$4.4B (a $163M deficit). Triple that and you get a good guess of what the feds take. $13.2B or so. Get back $1.07 and it's $14.1B. The $.07 difference is really what matters, about $900M/year.

To recover the $1T value of the land TAKEN by the feds, it'd take 1,111 years at $900M/year.

Try again.

EDIT:

http://www.landandfarm.com/lf/asp/search_results.asp?landstateid=57

Utah wind farm site, 273 acres for $990,000 or $3626/acre. 1.7M acres @ $3626/acre = $6.2T value of the land.

Asking prices for other land on that page are significantly higher.

 

[barfo]

You do realize that the entire state of Utah has about 2.7M population. Getting back $1.07 for so few (relative) tax dollars paid doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

Yes it does. Maybe it doesn't prove what you think I think it proves, but it does prove what I think it proves.

To recover the $1T value of the land TAKEN by the feds, it'd take 1,111 years at $900M/year.

TAKEN by the feds? Are you talking about the Staircase-Escalante National Monument? That was Federal land to begin with.

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

A Bold Stroke: Clinton takes a 1.7 million-acre stand in Utah


Then, with a stroke of his pen, President Clinton signs a document establishing 1.7 million acres in southern Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Thanks to the little-known Antiquities Act of 1906, which grants the president executive powers to designate new monuments, the declaration is final. No Congress, no mind-numbing or raucous public hearings, no mess: "Here Utah, have a monument."

And see my edit above.

You suggested that Utah somehow gets back more than its fair share, the 1.7M acre land grab notwithstanding.

 

[barfo]

You suggested that Utah somehow gets back more than its fair share, the 1.7M acre land grab notwithstanding.

And I ask, how is the US designating some of it's property a national monument a "land grab"?

Yes, Utah gets back more than its fair share. As do most of the red states.

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

And I ask, how is the US designating some of it's property a national monument a "land grab"?

Yes, Utah gets back more than its fair share. As do most of the red states.

barfo

The lands were to belong to Utah from the beginning of its statehood. A trust was set up to help the state fund its public schools, and the lands were the state's to use as it saw fit - including mining, drilling for oil, speculation, etc.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...B0PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0YQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6925,6611915

According to the law, those school lands were to be managed, developed, leased, sold or held on speculation for the benefit of Utah schools. In return, Utah would give up its right to tax any federal lands.

The law provided for the state to select other parcels of land to replace sections or parts of sections that had already been sold or that were located within Indian, military or other federal reservations.

Unlike other government owned lands, these lands are not public lands managed for the overall public welfare. They are trust lands managed under the strict definitions of the trust.

It all looked good on paper in 1896 before environmental impact statements, archaeological surveys, and the Bureau of Land Management were created, complicating the issue of who owns the land and whether, when, how, and why it should be used.

Today, the lands that were to provide ongoing revenue to Utah schools, giving taxpayers a bit of relief, are islands in a sea of federal lands, managed according to federal land policy and returning very little to the trust.

Despite the guarantee in the enablingh act, Utah has never actually been granted in-lieu lands in many instances, said Douglas Bates, legal and legislative counesl to the State Board of Education.

Through the years, more and more trust lands have been locked up within the boundaries of military installations, national parks and monuments, wildlife refuges, recreation areas, and other special-use areas, again sometimes without recompense or the granting of in-lieu lands, Bates said.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

And I ask, how is the US designating some of it's property a national monument a "land grab"?

Yes, Utah gets back more than its fair share. As do most of the red states.

barfo

Are you really that dumb? Anything, ANYTHING done by a President of the USA who is a member of the Democratic party is evil and corrupt.

The best thing this country can do is next election if you vote for a Republican you get a free gun. If you vote for a Democrat you get a target tattooed on your forehead.

 

[Denny Crane]

Are you really that dumb? Anything, ANYTHING done by a President of the USA who is a member of the Democratic party is evil and corrupt.

The best thing this country can do is next election if you vote for a Republican you get a free gun. If you vote for a Democrat you get a target tattooed on your forehead.

I don't have a gripe with Clinton's executive order, just that the state wasn't duly compensated.

 

[barfo]

I don't have a gripe with Clinton's executive order, just that the state wasn't duly compensated.

Certain plots of land were assigned when Utah became a state (in 1896) as School and Institutional Trust Lands (SITLa, a Utah state agency), to be managed to produce funds for the state school system. These lands included scattered plots in the Monument that, critics claimed, could no longer be developed for the sake of Utah's school children. The SITLa plots within the Monument were exchanged for federal lands elsewhere in Utah, plus equivalent mineral rights and $13 million dollars cash by an act of Congress, the Utah Schools and Lands Exchange Act of 1998, supported by Democrats and Republicans, and signed into law as Public Law 105-335 on October 31, 1998

Sounds to me like Utah was duly compensated.

barfo

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I don't have a gripe with Clinton's executive order, just that the state wasn't duly compensated.

You're, lets keep this gun thing our little secret.

 

[Denny Crane]

Sounds to me like Utah was duly compensated.

barfo

Tyranny of the majority in action.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/utah-fights-states-rights-land-push/story?id=10013198

Utah Fights for States' Rights with Land Push
Bill Will Increase Oil Drilling, Provide Much-Needed Tax Revenue to the Cash-Strapped State

By MICHAEL B. FARRELL
March 6, 2010

In a move meant to provoke a legal challenge over limits placed on federally controlled land in Utah, lawmakers there passed a bill last week giving the state power to seize national forests and other federal lands for development.

The Utah House of Representatives overwhelming passed the bill that Republicans say will provide the cash-strapped state with much-needed tax revenues through increased oil and gas drilling.

While the lawmakers want to grab portions of the federal land, they are also looking to make a strong statement about states' rights and Utah's frustrations over having two-thirds of its land under federal authority.

Republican lawmaker Rep. Mike Noel called the bill "an act of self-preservation," according to the Salt Lake Tribune, and others have said the state has "sovereign" rights over all the land within its borders.

If the law is eventually passed, it will certainly meet swift legal challenges. And that's largely the point, say many Utah lawmakers, who want the issue argued in the US Supreme Court even though the court has ruled against states in similar cases.

Utah has long been at loggerheads with the federal government over land use and at the forefront of pushing for states' rights.

"Utah's been at this for decades," wrote Jodi Peterson on the Goat blog at High Country News. She points out that the state has attempted to claim right-of-way access on federal land, wrecked signs forbidding off-road vehicle access and bulldozed roads leading to national monuments.

An uproar in Utah recently followed news of a leaked Interior Department memo that said the government was considering new national monuments in Utah and elsewhere in the West. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), along with other lawmakers, quickly penned a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stressing that any new monument designations should be subject to rigorous public debate.

While Utah's lawmakers may have succeeded in reviving the debate over land rights, environmental groups say they doubt the bill is going anywhere.

"This is an ideological fantasy," Scott Groene of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance told the LA Times. "The federal public lands are the thing that makes the American West so great."

 

[Minstrel]

We're a Republic, not a Democracy, exactly for the reasons I've stated (taking without equal representation).

It's not either/or, it's both. And the fact that it's a republic is true, but fairly antiquated at this point, IMO. This is no longer some loose confederacy of largely sovereign states. So, really, I guess my response is...who cares?

As far as "taking without equal representation," you're right...but still in my favour. The states that get the most taken by the federal government are generally the larger states. And they don't have equal representation, as I've pointed out...a vote in a larger state is worth proportionally less than a vote in a smaller state.

If you think your argument has merit, then argue why there should be a senate at all.

I don't think there should be a Senate.

 

[barfo]

Tyranny of the majority in action.

Surely you jest. Sounds to me like Utah is trying to steal land from the USA.

In a move meant to provoke a legal challenge over limits placed on federally controlled land in Utah, lawmakers there passed a bill last week giving the state power to seize national forests and other federal lands for development.

You started out accusing the US of a "land grab". Now the facts come out that it is quite the opposite. Yet apparently you support a land grab as long as it is Utah doing it. Explain.

barfo

 

[maxiep]

Can't birthers just be idiots without being racist? I don't see the connection between some crazy ass conspiracy theory and hating black people.

 

[barfo]

Can't birthers just be idiots without being racist? I don't see the connection between some crazy ass conspiracy theory and hating black people.

I agree. While there is surely some overlap between the two groups, the demographic seems to me to be different. On the one hand you've got the conspiracy theorists sitting at home in their underwear in their mom's basement typing on the internets, and on the other hand you've got the racists out crawling through the woods with their 2nd amendment rifles and their 1st amendment swastika face tattoos.

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

It's not either/or, it's both. And the fact that it's a republic is true, but fairly antiquated at this point, IMO. This is no longer some loose confederacy of largely sovereign states. So, really, I guess my response is...who cares?

As far as "taking without equal representation," you're right...but still in my favour. The states that get the most taken by the federal government are generally the larger states. And they don't have equal representation, as I've pointed out...a vote in a larger state is worth proportionally less than a vote in a smaller state.



I don't think there should be a Senate.

California 55 electoral votes / 30M = 1.8e-6

Utah 5 electoral votes / 2.8M = 1.8e-6

Wyoming 1 electoral vote / 570K = 1.8e-6

That would be your representation in the house of representatives as well.

 

[Denny Crane]

I agree. While there is surely some overlap between the two groups, the demographic seems to me to be different. On the one hand you've got the conspiracy theorists sitting at home in their underwear in their mom's basement typing on the internets, and on the other hand you've got the racists out crawling through the woods with their 2nd amendment rifles and their 1st amendment swastika face tattoos.

barfo

And on the other other hand, you have people out sinking ships or spiking trees with their 1st amendment hammer and sickle face tattoos.

 

[Denny Crane]

Surely you jest. Sounds to me like Utah is trying to steal land from the USA.



You started out accusing the US of a "land grab". Now the facts come out that it is quite the opposite. Yet apparently you support a land grab as long as it is Utah doing it. Explain.

barfo

I don't think the federal govt. should own any land at all. That's a widely held Libertarian principle. Though it's ultimately the utility of the land in this case that matters. The feds owned the land for decades yet the use was dedicated for the state of Utah's use. Utah could even sell the land.

It's beyond absurd when it owns all those toxic assets (TARP program) - homes that people have been evicted from. It's even more absurd when they're going to sell those homes at a fraction of what they originally sold for - a price those evicted could actually afford.

 

[Minstrel]

California 55 electoral votes / 30M = 1.8e-6

Utah 5 electoral votes / 2.8M = 1.8e-6

Wyoming 1 electoral vote / 570K = 1.8e-6

That would be your representation in the house of representatives as well.

Your numbers are off.

California: 55 electoral votes / 36,961,664 = 1.48e-6

Utah: 5 electoral votes / 2,784,572 = 1.79e-6

Wyoming: 3 electoral votes / 544,270 = 5.51e-6

Sources:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/elecvote.htm
U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division via Google Public Data

As you can see, the smaller the state, the larger the influence of each individual vote. In the case of Wyoming, the disparity is massive.

So, no, this wouldn't be the representation in the House, if representation were proportional to population.

 

[Denny Crane]

Your numbers are off.

California: 55 electoral votes / 36,961,664 = 1.48e-6

Utah: 5 electoral votes / 2,784,572 = 1.79e-6

Wyoming: 3 electoral votes / 544,270 = 5.51e-6

Sources:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/elecvote.htm
U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division via Google Public Data

As you can see, the smaller the state, the larger the influence of each individual vote. In the case of Wyoming, the disparity is massive.

So, no, this wouldn't be the representation in the House, if representation were proportional to population.

You're talking about millionths of a representative here. Large influence indeed.

 

[Minstrel]

You're talking about millionths of a representative here. Large influence indeed.

No, that's the relative influence of a single vote. Obviously its in tiny notation, since a single person is one of hundreds of thousands to one of tens of millions (depending on the state).

A Wyoming voter has roughly 3.72 times more influence than a California voter. That's quite a difference.