

Billionaire's breakup plan would chop California into six states - bane
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-usa-california-breakup-idUSKBN0FK03P20140715

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azinman2
I love how he says 'it would solve the water crisis' without saying how. It's
not like California as a state somehow makes things difficult -- you don't all
of the sudden gain water supplies by chopping everything up. There's a battle
of LA vs farmers vs everyone else, and only so many aqueducts and sources.

Basically if you did this you'd end up with a poor northern California with no
economy, farm land with little educational prowess, and then the cities that
turn into states. So yah if you live in a city-state that economically does
well then things are good, just expect the prices of
food/water/power/education to increase.

Wonder what would become of the UC system?

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ejain
Incidentally, this would also change the balance in the senate...

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cratermoon
Didn't this play in the news cycle a few weeks or months ago already? Why is
it back?

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5555624
Because they have enough signatures to put this on the ballot and present it
to the voters.

When it came out earlier, it was because Debra Bowen, California Secretary of
State, gave Draper the go-ahead to gather the necessary signatures to put this
on the ballot. They had a deadline of this Friday, 18 July. Draper announced
on Monday he had enough signatures and would be filing them on Tuesday.

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nemasu
"Proponents say the division would help create a more business-friendly
environment, solve the state’s water issues, and ease traffic congestion."

Ummm, so if you re-name places on a map, the cars will go away? Wut?

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jjoonathan
California currently has tax, labor, and real-estate regulations that run
counter to his interests (and in some of those cases against ours as well).
Unfortunately, California also has a labor pool and other resources that he
wants to take advantage of, giving it enough leverage to stay the course. As a
shrewd businessman he understands that if he were to chop California into 6
pieces its collective bargaining power would dramatically decrease as he would
be able to play each chunk off of the others. It would most definitely be a
pro-business move. Whether or not it's in your or my best interest or the
interest of the citizenry of California is another matter entirely.

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closetnerd
I'd argue that it would be in the interests of the citizens.

Big governments are more easily susceptible to corruption and therefor
inevitably benefit big corporations.

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gulfie
Bull pucky. Have you ever been to Louisiana?

[http://www.businessinsider.com/most-corrupt-states-and-
terri...](http://www.businessinsider.com/most-corrupt-states-and-
territories-2013-9)

and

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)

If the big government effect was large then California, with the most people
in it should be the most corrupt. Check out Mississippi. With a paltry 2.9
million people it should be a bucolic bastion of upstanding government... And
Alaska, with only 0.7 Million people must be the shining light of sanity in
our world... ( ranks 5th in corruption, remember senator Ted Stevens?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens)
)

The big government theory doesn't hold water.

~~~
closetnerd
Heh, I love the use of "bull pucky".

Anyways, its quite a long shot to claim the "big government theory doesn't
hold water" because of the specific examples you pointed out. Moreover, I'd
argue that most of your examples aren't devoid of the influences of big
government as all these states are under the increasing central authority of
D.C.

To clarify, it seems it might be pertinent to explicitly point out that there
are many factors involved with corruption: some chance, education, culture,
geopolitics, etc. Size of government is what I'm arguing as an important
factor. Your examples are NOT without influence of the factors mentioned.

Actually, I find the capacity and likelihood of smaller governments being less
susceptible to corruption as being quite intuitive as well. Though I'm not
arguing by merit of intuition alone. Government theory is exclusively based on
human understanding. My understanding of humans is that societies can feel
abstracted away from large beuracratic governments. And indeed this is an
observation as well.

There are logistical issues with large governments as well. Its far more
difficult to voice an opinion to large governments because they inevitably
fall into the trap of bureaucracies. So when a handful of thousands of people
petition online for something it often gets ignored and rejected by some clerk
of a secretary working for some office for some congressmen/women. Lots of
smaller issues go unchecked by the people.

So, though its not an explicit part of the 3 branch government check system, I
don't think we need to argue about the fact that the general public is an
important, if not the most important check on the government.

And if we recognize the fact that the general public has the most crucial
responsibility the in the role of the government, then it shortly thereafter
follows that it easier for smaller populations to agree, argue, deliberate,
process, charge, incriminate, build most suitably.

