Comment by squiggleblaz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by squiggleblaz | Hacker News Reader

American state boundaries clearly do not reflect these national regions. Federal states have boundaries that either serve to unite separate territories or to administer a united territory. It has probably a source of strength in the US, that states are either much too small or contain multiple different areas in them, since it fosters a broader, national US identity rather than an identity as a New Netherlander or a Far Westerner.

If Americans tried to reorganise their boundaries along the lines of the article's map, they would probably stop "coming together" and start "moving apart" in the course of a few generations. In the short term, though, it would probably ease a lot of the pressure currently felt.

Germany is another federal state made stronger by having internal boundaries that don't reflect historical identities (Bavaria being the weakness), and which has been able to foster a unified national identity in the past seventy years despite excluding Austria and losing much territory.

Canada's borders are more ... logical and accurate (visible in the map), and their federation is much weaker for it. The long border with the culturally similar US probably contributes to the weakness of Canada as a federal state.

What do you mean by “weakness as a federal state”?

In terms of division of power between states and federal, the Canadian federal government has much more power than the US federal government.

After I learned more about it, I was quite surprised at the level of autonomy that US states have.

US states are (in most respects) theoretically more powerful than Canadian provinces, and this does show up, for example, in the criminal code being federal legislation in Canada, but state legislation in the US (though the US federal government also gets to enact criminal law, which seems rather bizarre).

However, in practice, Canada provinces tend to be more powerful than US states, perhaps because there are fewer of them. In both countries, the federal government tries to intrude using means such as conditional transfers of funds - taxing the citizens of states/provinces and only giving back the money if the state/province does as they wish. In Canada, this is most notable for health care, which is supposedly a provincial responsibility, but which the federal government meddles in extensively.

> In both countries, the federal government tries to intrude using means such as conditional transfers of funds - taxing the citizens of states/provinces and only giving back the money if the state/province does as they wish.

Yeah, that's super annoying. For an example here in the states: "In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required states to raise their ages for purchase and public possession to 21 by October 1986 or lose 10% of their federal highway funds" [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._history_of_alcohol_minimu...

US states had even more autonomy up to the Wickard vs Filburn[1] case, which paved the way for regulatory bodies at the federal level. That's why it took a full fucking amendment to prohibit alcohol in the 1920s whereas today the DEA can slap drugs on and off at whim.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Switzerland seems to be doing OK as a counterexample. Its cantons have a high level of self-government and a history as independent states and cultures. Yet Switzerland is a prosperous country with a strong national identity and minimal talk of secession by the cantons.

Being a much smaller country, in terms of land and population, I would assume variations within must be lighter too.

I don't understand what you mean by "lighter". You're aware that Switzerland has four national languages, right? That's a big variation!

As a tourist, crossing from the German-speaking to the French-speaking part, the differences were quite noticeable. I was told that something like 30% of the population never cross the language line. "Never" is probably a hyperbole, but the point is that even within such a small territory there are significant cultural differences.

Smaller countries are far less likely to suffer from secessionist or identitarian agitations, especially small and wealthy countries like Switzerland. Comparison to Switzerland and similar countries is not instructive.

This is especially true for language. Linguistic division within countries is often a source of tension, even in smaller countries. In larger countries, it is almost assuredly going to lead to tension, especially so during times of hardship. This is why the United States must remain an English speaking country. Major regional linguistic differences would quickly fuel secessionist energy in the US, given how much diversity already exists even with relative linguistic homogeneity.

Just to harp on the language point a bit more: language is the soil in which culture grows, and a unified culture is critical for any functioning entity, whether that be a family, a corporation, a club, or a country.

A counter example is India. Every state is divided along language and cultural lines. The individual states look more like countries in the EU. But there is no strong separatist movement.

Switzerland individually is a bad example because it is pretty much the size of an individual US state, so it's cantons would just be counties in that example. A better comparison would be Switzerland's power-balance with the EU, especially in comparison to the extremes in population like Germany or Malta

It's it possible the USSR drew the boundaries of all the 'stans with this logic in mind? Creating diversity which they could argue needed Moscow to unite and supervise. I think Kazakhstan for example was largely nomadic prior to Soviet invasion? Though others e.g. Uzbekistan had a stronger identity already.

"Germany is another federal state made stronger by having internal boundaries that don't reflect historical identities (Bavaria being the weakness)"

Wouldn't the former East German region also reflect historical identify with a hard borderline? (albeit on a short time scale)

What do you mean by "weaker federal state" when describing Canada?

I'm guessing this is the undercurrents of demand for independence from Quebec.

I think this shows the importance of linguistic unity in cultural unity and therefore national unity. Germany's "strong federal state" (which is pretty decentralised in practice) is likely also a result of this.

Of course, some people like to turn "is" into "ought", resulting in the problems of the 20th century when some people tried to make the German national borders match the linguistic border.

I live in rural USA. State boundaries do bring our town together with the major city in our state, the problem is their voice drowns ours out. Wouldn’t more people be represented if we started splitting up states? Wouldn’t we all be better off from less monopolized regions?

on the one hand I think you are probably right in practical terms, but isn't this apologism for what is essentially gerrymandering at a large scale?

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