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Comment by jameslk | Hacker News Reader

It’s good that it’s a state policy, not a federal one. We need more policies to stay at the state level, regardless of the policy. Federalism is how we can test the effects of competing policies under the same house. If the policy is a problem for you, it’s a lot easier to vote with your feet and move to a different state than to move to a different country

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I think it also gives it a better chance as an experiment. The federal government tends to pendulum swing between left and right on a fairly short cycle. Most states seem to be considerably more stable and less prone to trying to revert policies put in place by the "other side" every few years.

For something like this as a first pass, for sure, but if it can be shown to be "realistic" then I have no problem with the Feds enacting it. I especially feel that we need a single-payer option for health insurance. We're the only major "wealthy" nation with a completely regressive health care policy that punishes people for being poor to the point we just let them die if the $ aren't flowing

We need a public healthcare system, but whether it should be single payer is not readily evident, and I rather suspect that clinging to that particular model is what's causing progressives to get stuck trying to push it through. It's probably because most people in US immediately think of Canada when they think of socialized healthcare, and there's very little awareness of what other countries do on either left or right, so we're essentially perpetually debating the Canadian model. We should look at Europe instead and pick something that's both proven to work and more agreeable with American sensibilities. German, perhaps.

Too many people aren't satisfied with the policies they want affecting only them and their communities. They want to impose their will on people thousands of miles away

For some things, yes. I think this sort of thing is compatible with being legislated at the state level. Other policies are not. See states with strict gun laws being undermined by neighboring states with very loose laws.

To me that seems like a necessary trade off for the benefits gained. The stricter laws wouldn’t have necessarily been achieved nor maintained had they not been enacted at the state level.

What does seem like something the federal government should be doing is mediating issues like this between states, without picking a side (of course, that is easier said than done given polarization in politics currently). Rather than giving us watered down one-size-fits-all policies that nobody likes, or worse yet, deadlocked at no policies or the churn of policies being implemented and then repealed over and over

The churn is largely an artifact of our electoral system IMO. If party seats followed national votes proportionally, the change would be far more gradual without the swings.

Of course, it's also not going to happen because proportional popular vote will strongly favor one party...

Sure but you have to pass a Constitutional amendment to fix that, and I don't see that happening on something as divisive as gun ownership.

At this point I don't think the constitution has much meaning left to it. So many matters have already saw massive changes, sometimes even going back and forth on it. And Wickard v Filburn is still standing precedent. In this kind of climate, SCOTUS could easily chip away at 2A case by case, especially considering that the current expansive interpretation of it only became the new policy less than 20 years ago.

"Vote with your feet" is a privileged assertion

The steel man of your argument sounds like:

If we let states have more power, they may enact good or bad policies that others cannot as easily enjoy or escape because of their financial or family standings prevent them from moving. National policies allow everyone to benefit from good policies.

While this is true, the reality frequently seems to be that no bold policy is made or maintained due to polarization or perceived risk. Isolating policies to places willing to try them out is a better outcome. If the policy seems valuable, more states will adopt it

And if you have bad policies nationally, it’s even harder for those less privileged to escape them due to things like immigration laws, costs, language barrier, xenophobia, etc

Are immigrants privileged then?

Speaking as an immigrant: yes, absolutely! Legal immigrants generally have to be quite privileged in their place of origin to have the education level necessary to clear the bar in most places to be considered for any kind of visa that allows permanent residency, and to be financially well off enough to afford both the paperwork and the move itself.

You added the qualifier “legal”.

What about illegal?

In the US? They're currently treated like animals.

I reassert: voting with your feet is a privilege.

I added the qualifier "legal" because that's the one I can speak of from experience.

For illegal immigrants, I would say that if successful in crossing the border, they are in a more privileged position compared to their compatriots who did not. Not more privileged than citizens or legal immigrants here, though, that's for sure.

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