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The US Constitution makes states almost like countries. For those who don't know, laws are different, sometimes in major ways, when you cross a state line.

And that's just fine. A big problem in politics is trying to push 300M people to all follow the same set of laws. That's how we ended up with illegal marijuana in the first place.

Vote for what you believe in in your state, and leave the rest alone. Singapore doesn't nees the same drug laws as California. Mississippi doesn't need the same minimum wage as Massachusetts.

And when you travel, it's a good idea to follow a baseline of behavior that is acceptable almost anywhere. If you don't live there, you are a guest.

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>Singapore doesn't nees the same drug laws as California. Mississippi doesn't need the same minimum wage as Massachusetts.

You call that "united"?

We were just talking about why that approach sucks here in Canada for health care. The cost of health care is paid for by the province (state) you live in. Once you're not in that province for 3 months, they won't pay for it, so you have to register in the new province.

That's fine if you've moving province to province, but what happens when you leave the country for > 3 months? You have no health care, and you won't have any till you've been back for more than 3 months.

Compare that to Australia, where Health Care is federal, and you always have it, end of discussion. I haven't been there for 8 years, I could fly back tomorrow and get full coverage.

Apply this to 10 thousand other nuances like education, driving licenses, etc. etc. and even little things become a pain in the ass - i.e. My car has a crack in the windshield which is perfectly legal and insured in state X, but as soon as I drive in to state Y I'm breaking some law... uh. Life is too short for crap like that, make stupid rules and certificates and permits and approvals all transparent so day-to-day I don't have to know or think about them.

"You call that "united"?"

"Union" and "United" are the same word, so you could make an equal criticism of the EU for not being "united" enough because laws happen to vary between Germany and Spain.

What if some bureaucrat decided to move your family and 10 others (from radically different cultures) into big house? You can all agree on who cleans what common areas at what times, who cooks, what pets everyone can have, when are the quiet hours, etc. Does that sound appealing?

If so, then I see why you have a different opinion than I do, and I'm not sure we'll ever agree. If that doesn't sound appealing, then you should acknowledge that "united" is only good in reasonable doses.

The problem is that it's too easy for the majority on an issue to feel like they are universally right, and it's just fine to impose their will on the 40% minority. But the people in the minority rightly feel oppressed. And guess what: opinions change and sometimes you will end up in the minority, so it's a good idea to set up a system of tolerance where people can live in the same country without telling each other what to do in every situation.

There are vast differences between the EU and the interaction with states and federal government. Everyone views other countries as just that - other countries. The government systems even vary. The thing is that no one looks at states as countries. People state their nationality as American, not Hoosier or .. um.. whatever else locals name themselves. Most Americans fully expect free travel without worry of arrest throughout the entire US. An arrest, even without a conviction, can cause someone to lose their livelyhood.

And it IS important to protect the minority, but that is different laws: sometimes having basic federal laws to protect the minority is most definitely needed as I don't trust states to do it themselves, especially in places with a voter base intent on keeping things 'traditional' over making sure people are free enough to be happy.

Switzerland enjoys the same "state-level" autonomy, and they still get to call themselves "Swiss" at the end of the day.

Having studied the Constitution and surrounding documents with some degree of rigor, I think it's incorrect to assert that that a large difference was intended between the United States and the European Union.

It's of course open to interpretation, but the idea that states espouse a degree of autonomy beyond a monolithic federal government isn't absurd, and is even codified into both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

> For those who don't know, laws are different, sometimes in major ways, when you cross a state line

That seems like a recipe for a huge disaster that we should rectify.

It's incredibly easy to cross state lines without purposely intending to, especially in the northeast (e.g. you can easily be ushered into NJ trying to get to upstate NY through NYC). It's exactly why 'safe passage' laws exist, even if it doesn't apply in these two scenarios.

It's not as though there's a customs check point at interstate boundaries where you are urged to dispose of materials that might cause you to be in violation of another state's laws.

Actually, California has precisely that. Shortly after driving across the California border, you'll usually find an agricultural checkpoint or "Border Protection Station".

Their focus is mainly on agricultural products, but they're there to get you to dispose of (plant/animal-based) materials that violate CA law.

http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/pe/ExteriorExclusion/borders.ht...

Interesting! Certainly seems to be the exception, but good to know nonetheless.

"That seems like a recipe for a huge disaster that we should rectify."

Not nearly as much of a disaster as trying to get different kinds of people to agree to the same laws at the same time.

Sure, it all sounds great and harmonious when you imagine it, because you imagine all of the laws being what you want.

What is your feeling about open carry laws? Someone comes from another state wearing their gun collection into the grocery store, and they think your state's laws against it are picky and burdensome.

> trying to get different kinds of people to agree to the same laws at the same time.

That seems inevitable, even two people won't agree on an entire body of laws.

> What is your feeling about open carry laws? Someone comes from another state wearing their gun collection into the grocery store, and they think your state's laws against it are picky and burdensome.

The same as I feel about the individuals in the article transporting marijuana - it's, at worst, a civil matter. A small fine, possibly of increasing amounts for repeated violations, is appropriate if the individual wasn't merely passing through your state (as would've been appropriate for the individuals in the article).

Imprisonment for accidentally staying on the interstate too long is silly. It's incredibly easy to make a mistake and end up in another state - rarely as easy to enter another country by mistake.

>> For those who don't know, laws are different, sometimes in major ways, when you cross a state line

> That seems like a recipe for a huge disaster that we should rectify.

Naw, bro. It's by design. I'd rather not get into the US's extensive history of states rights vs. federal goverment, but you have to appreciate the fact that it's even possible for a state to independently and legally override a federal law.

Why is it a problem to have 300 million people follow the same set of laws, but it's okay to have 38 million people with the same laws? Or maybe California is too big to be a viable state too? Maybe 6 million is the right magic number, and that's why Singapore is still okay? Or maybe 3 million would be better (like Mississippi.)? Then again, the founding fathers knew best (right?) and the largest colony/state at that time was well under a million, so maybe that's the right size?

While the magic number might take some time to arrive at, nothing stops California to run its own system of federalization inside the state if they think they are too big to manage. The cities usually handle their own police force, for example, and can also pass quite a few laws within power structure of California.

I agree that there's no magic number, but I think we dramatically err on the side of centralization, so cutting it down by an order of magnitude is fine by me. And states do have a general character/culture -- consider the differences between California and Arizona or Nevada.

Also, the borders aren't arbitrary: there are governmental structures that have built up and settled over centuries.

Really, I think there's no reason most of the laws we argue about should even be done at the federal level. We just do because the media is national, so it seems convenient and it makes for a more firey discussion, and we forget that we don't even need to agree with the other side. We can each do what we want.

Let me turn the question around and ask why you're so determined to tell people in another state what to do?

I guess we disagree on the general character/culture front. I see a lot of similarities across state boundaries (for example: people think murder is bad) and a lot of differences within states (especially in the city vs. rural divide). Lots of values aren't even geographical (e.g. should religion be a part of public schools?). Similarly, I'd say that most boarders are arbitrary and have very little lasting meaning, but whatever.

To try to answer your question. I think there are common rules that make sense to apply globally (eg no murder, slavery, theft of private property, etc...), and some rules that should be very local (eg maximum sizes for billboards), and there's some middle ground for things like regulation and management of watersheds.

> And states do have a general character/culture -- consider the differences between California and Arizona or Nevada.

IMO this isn't true now, and it's demonstrably been getting less and less true in recent years[1]. The claim that states seem like they have different cultures if you consider it isn't really helpful either: The human brain loves imposing structure on things, so if you claim that a certain area is a single entity, naturally one's tendency is to think of things as "Californian" or "Arizonan", etc. In much the same way, one thinks of an Italian living on the French border as ethnically Italian, and a guy living a few miles away as ethnically French. Drawing arbitrary lines is convenient enough, but pretending there's any sound reason behind these distinctions is silly (look at the recent history of Central/Eastern Europe to see exactly how arbitrary state lines are).

[1] I'm referring specifically to the fact that it's a well-studied phenomenon that the urban/suburban/rural divide in culture+values is becoming a lot more significant than the state-to-state ones.

"Leave the rest alone" is a massive failure as a blanket statement.

There are some things that should be enforced for everybody, like basic human rights. And there are some things that should be left up to more local governments. But where do you draw the line? There are no easy answers.

The standard example out of US history is, of course, slavery. Would you apply your "leave the rest alone" there? If so, I disagree in the most strenuous manner possible. If not, what makes slavery different from, say, drug laws?

The US Constitution makes states almost like countries, but exactly where the line is drawn has been an extremely contentious issue since before the Constitution was even written, and has remained so up to the present day and for the foreseeable future.

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