
When California Was the Bear Republic - benbreen
https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2018/07/when-california-was-bear-republic.html
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devmunchies
> Led from his base in Sonoma by a Mormon farmer and miner named William B.
> Ide, the California Republic officially declared independence on June 14,
> 1846

I had learned recently that the first mayor of San Fran was also mormon. Did
the mormons have a bigger influence on western expansion and the early "wild
west" than public schools taught me?

~~~
Aloha
There are huge swaths of the west (particularly the intermountain west) that
never would have been settled without LDS pioneers.

Say what you may about their religion (though in a vacuum, I'd argue its no
stranger than any other faith, it just has less history between founding and
now, to loose details to the sands of time) - they had a huge effect on the
west overall.

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chlvsl
What's the likelihood of California actually splitting?

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claydavisss
Zero and if it did, in each "state" there would immediately be calls to split
each of them vertically to reflect the legitimate schism of
"blue"-coast/"red"-valley.

There is legitimate polarization in California - only the coastal areas are
reliably "blue"...the three-state proposal does nothing to address that and
only seeks to create more Democratic Senators.

California-split-in-three would also create an eventuality most liberals would
likely want to avoid - Texas as the eventual "superstate" acting as power
broker.

~~~
dragonwriter
> in each "state" there would immediately be calls to split each of them
> vertically to reflect the legitimate schism of "blue"-coast/"red"-valley.

The new “California” in the proposal is _purely_ coastal counties.

What you suggest might, I suppose, be an issue in the new NorCal and SoCal
(though Imperial County and some other inland counties in the south, and those
on the I-80 corridor from Sacramento west, are pretty reliably blue, so the
“coast”/“valley” split, aside from missing that not everything off the coast
is valley, is quite oversimplistic.)

> There is legitimate polarization in California - only the coastal areas are
> reliably "blue"

Well, the densely populated parts of the coast, plus the I-80 corridor inland
about as far as Sacramento, plus Imperial County.

> the three-state proposal does nothing to address that and only seeks to
> create more Democratic Senators.

The three states would be, basically, two blue one red, which would add one
blue- and one red-leaning state, keeping the expected absolute difference
between Democratic and Republican votes in the Senate the same (what matters
for simple majority votes), but narrowing the ratio of Republican structural
advantage (which matters for supermajority votes.)

> California-split-in-three would also create an eventuality most liberals
> would likely want to avoid - Texas as the eventual "superstate" acting as
> power broker.

Well, and New York. (CA, TX, and NY all play that role to a degree now.)

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claydavisss
Texas has taken the place of NY as the "second state". In terms of population
and economic growth, Texas left NY behind a while ago.

If California splits in three, Texas undoubtedly becomes the new superpower
state.

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joshuaheard
My understanding is that, while California voted to become a Republic, it was
never made official. Texas is the only state in America to be its own country
first.

~~~
excitom
There is also the Republic of Hawaii, which existed for 4 years between the
Kingdom of Hawaii and becoming part of the U.S.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Hawaii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Hawaii)

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ryandrake
Don’t most US states have this same demographic/cultural split? Where there
are one or two urban centers where all the economic activity is and vast
swaths of rural wasteland in between? Why aren’t all these other states
constantly talking about splitting up (or are they?) I lived in Pennsylvania
where we had Philly and Pittsburgh and then “Pensyltucky” everywhere else.
Same with Florida. Yet these states don’t seem as dysfunctional as California.
What gives?

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bebop
Do you live in California? As a resident of the great state, I do not see our
government as dysfunctional. I find it interesting that people who do not live
here think that we are somehow doing it wrong. Last time I checked everything
was running fairly well and we had a surplus of 9 billion dollars.

~~~
briandear
It’s great until you spend literally 4 hours at the DMV and “appointments” are
available two months away at a minimum.

And, if we have a 9 billion surplus, why are my taxes so high? Other than the
weather, there’s nothing I see running better than Texas where taxes are much
lower. Downtown San Francisco, especially near Tenderloin, looks like a
refugee camp — if the refugees were crazed drug addicts. Houston is a city of
millions and has fewer homeless than the city of San Francisco. You also don’t
have tent cities on the sidewalks. Nor do you have parking garages blaming
thefts of auto owners who have the audacity to leave items in their car. It’s
as if local governments were warning girls to not wear revealing clothing,
lest they be raped. Rather than locking up smash-and-grab theives, Prop 47
treats that crime like a traffic ticket — and then blames the victim for
“tempting” the crime. How backwards is that? Prop 47 — more “great”
government?

But sure, it’s a “great” government here in California — the weather outside
this morning is delightful. The California Office of Weather Control is doing
a smashing good job.

To be fair, I am happy I relocated here; but it isn’t because of the
competency of the government. Taxes, politics and government were in the
“cons” column when I made the decision. Even housing costs were not a
particular negative because I’d also be making a salary that could more easily
afford it. But, I am not convinced that our expensive government provides a
good value compared to other states.

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lliamander
> It’s great until you spend literally 4 hours at the DMV and “appointments”
> are available two months away at a minimum.

In case you (or anyone in this thread) is unaware, AAA ("Triple-A") is a
fantastic way of circumventing the DMV. I've never waited more than 15 minutes
(no appointment), and the staff is quite adept at helping with more
complicated situations.

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asteli
+1. Well worth the ~$70 annual fee. Granted, you can't do everything there
(e.g. replacement photo ID), but for vehicle registration tasks it's super
fast.

There are, uhh, some times of day where you can get through the DMV in under
an hour and a half, in my experience. But I'll let y'all figure that one out.

