"Ross A. Finlayson" wrote:
> Hi Mike,
> Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
> > "Ross A. Finlayson" wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > Will the United States have more than 50 states? There are procedures
> > > to admit states into the union.
> > > The flag does not have to change.
> > Traditionally it does, since the flag laws say that the stars represent
> > the number of states. I personally would bet on there being fewer states
> > in the future (there are secessionist movements in Hawaii and Alaska).
> I don't think many Alaskans or Hawaiins are secessionists.
>From what I've heard, secession is popular in Hawaii among natives and
asians, and while I'm not too concerned about too much support in Alaska
now, if Gore had won you can bet that it would likely grow like a
wildfire. The rate at which Clinton is unilaterally placing Alaska land
off limits to any kind of mixed use has pissed off a lot of Alaskans. If
Bush doesn't reverse Clinton's declarations, I'd be surprised.
>
> Consider the Louisiana Purchase or Alaska. If the United States can
> purchase and maintain land outside of its current boundaries, it might be
> economically feasible to do so on terms perhaps less comparable to those
> purchases.
>
> I could understand the mindset to keep the flag at 50 stars for the fifty
> original states, if there were more than fifty states.
Why? Purely aesthetics? It wouldn't represent anything if it did and we
had more or less states. Symbols on flags are supposed to represent
things, not just be pretty.
>
> So, maybe there are more islands in the various seas of the world that are
> actually American territory. Current U.S. areas, for example, Puerto Rico,
> maintain about equal population opinion on the opposite sides of federal
> statehood. There are U.S. possessions in the Pacific besides Hawaii. The
> District of Columbia is a Federal District and might as well remain that
> way, although perhaps broader voting rights should apply.
The reason that the federal district is not supposed to be a state is
that it was assumed that it would be inhabited by federal employees, and
the last thing the founding fathers wanted was a bureaucracy that could
vote itself into office, vote itself a raise, etc. The fact is that
almost every resident of DC is wholely dependent upon federal spending
either directly or indirectly. They are there for the expressed purpose
of either influencing and manipulating, and/or benefitting from the
federal government. Every one of the founding fathers was fully aware
that Athens and Rome fell when demagogues were able to gain control of
the government with the support of the mob that was bribed with funds
from the government coffers, who elected the demagogues into power as
tyrants over the private productive citizenry of the nation. Restricting
the ability of the residents of the federal district to vote itself into
tyranny is one of the lynchpins that protects our nation against
would-be tyrants like Al Gore. If they had any electoral votes they
would have. We really were saved by a hair.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:38 MDT