A Good Idea That’s Going Nowhere
Fox News and others have covered this story emanating out of Colorado where some of the northern counties want to have their own state.
A proposal backed by several Colorado counties to form a new state called North Colorado is getting public support.
More than four dozen people showed up Thursday at the first public meeting to discuss a proposal to form a 51st state. Nearly all of them said they support secession.
“I think people, when they feel disenfranchised, when they feel that their voices are not being heard, I think that’s a problem in a representative form of government,” Weld County commissioner Sean Conway was quoted as saying.
In my opinion, this is a great idea. Many Americans living in the more rural part of “Blue” states know that many of their Congressmen and Senators do not represent their views. Their states are politically dominated by the large metropolitan areas within their states.
Early this year I wrote a post titled “One Mane?One Vote” Does Not Mean All Voted Are Equal. It included this US map that is colored Red (Republican) and Blue (Democrat) by county instead of by State.
Now it’s dangerous to equate “Republicans” with “conservatives”. We know that is not true. So, let’s just say that the Red counties are likely more conservative than the Blue metropolitan areas. So, the good folks of northern Colorado do have a great idea. If Northern Colorado became the 51st state, it would likely send Republicans to Washington as their Congressmen and, more importantly, as their Senators. Do you see where I am going with this? The same thing could be done with the western counties of Washington State, Oregon and California. All the counties of Nevada except Clark County (the Las Vegas area) could form a Blue state. This could also be done with the southern two-thirds of Illinois and with a large part of Michigan. The Republicans could likely control the Senate with these additional Red states. (I would hopefully be a more “conservative” Senate.)
Sadly, these new Red states are not likely to come into being. The constitution does allow for it, but only with the approval of both the State’s legislature and of Congress. I wish the folks of northern Colorado good luck with that.
A Bad Idea That Will Likely Go Too Far
According to this Fox News story, President Obama is implementing a program to control your behavior.
The federal government is hiring what it calls a “Behavioral Insights Team” that will look for ways to subtly influence people’s behavior, according to a document describing the program obtained by FoxNews.com. Critics warn there could be unintended consequences to such policies, while supporters say the team could make government and society more efficient.
{…}
Such policies — which encourage behavior subtly rather than outright require it — have come to be known as “nudges,” after an influential 2008 book titled “Nudge” by former Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and Chicago Booth School of Business professor Richard Thaler popularized the term.
{…}
Richard Thaler told FoxNews.com that the new program sounds good.
“I don’t know who those people are who would not want such a program, but they must either be misinformed or misguided,” he said.
Yeah. It’s all for our own good, right Mr. Thaler? It sounds eerily similar to the Cold War “Psy-Ops” schemes of the CIA and the KGB to me. The proponents tell us not to worry because the UK has had these programs for a while and they have good results. I thought we stopped wanting to be like England in 1776. Maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical. They only want to make the government more efficient and cost-effective.
Asked about details, Dan Cruz, spokesman for the U.S. General Services Administration (the department which the team will be a part of) told FoxNews.com: “As part of the Administration’s ongoing efforts to promote efficiency and savings, GSA is considering adding some expertise from academia in the area of program efficiency and evaluation under its Performance Improvement Council.” (bold added)
The Obama administration’s on-going efforts to promote efficiency and savings? Is this guy looking to get some laughs? On-going since when, Mr. Cruz?
Well, that’s what I;m thinking. What are your thoughts?
Asylum Watch 
It’s all about control for the regressive, fascist liberals, isn’t it?
And unfortunately the blue areas are the population centers so the Red/conservative/traditional areas will always be screwed.
I’m originally from upstate New York. Very red. Conservative. But 3/4 of the population of New York State lives within 75 miles of Manhattan. So of course the representatives could care less about the red counties.
That 3/4 of the populations deserve their own state, don’t you think? Oh, that’s right. They already have their own state.
We can’t secede state by state; we would have to begin to concentrate our numbers in a particular region that we would control. After that begins the demand for secession. Honest, the international precedent for recognizing separatist entities — which we were pivotal in setting — will back a serious demand that, if denied could increase the possibilities for civil conflict. Everybody wants to avoid that.
You make an excellent point about international recognition of seperatist groups. I;ve long advocated the those conservative Americans who can, should vote with their feet and move to a state where they’ll find like minded people. What you are suggesting it what it may come down to in the long run.
Thanks for this comment, Norma.
These communists take the cake. They don’t even pretend not to be Marxists anymore.
Nah! There is no pretending anymore. Most of the media talking heads are Marxist too.
Promote efficiency and savings…Ha Ha Ha, I am laughing too much my friends.
Aha! Now we understand why there are more foreigners than Englishmen residing in the British Isles free to spread the word of Allah and whomever is the rastifarian deity . Their Behavioral Insight Teams and Performance Improvement Councils must have implanted the lemming gene in those jolly old bloody fools. It’s rather surprising that little prince George wasn’t given an inclusive middle name like Rashid or Hesham or Hussein… you get the picture. But then the British don’t want to be like us although we wait with baited breath for the mind control crowd over here to do their thing and we join them in the destruction of the english speaking world.
A suggestion for northern Colorado: smoke a bone (it’s legal) and imagine the defeat of the blue meanies…..
Welcome to Asylum Watch, Peter. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. Yes, the Brits and the Europeans are a ways ahead of us on the road to “Progressive” hell. But, in the true American spirit, our “Progressives” are determined to catch and pass them by.
Glad to contribute my two cents….
While in theory I like the idea of portions of states breaking off from states in order to let the people of those areas have better representation the problem is that the Constitution forbids the creation of new states from existing states, which is why I believe that technically West Virginia and even Maine were states which were created unconstitutionally. So I see this going nowhere and in fact would probably be struck down by SCOTUS. I say go for it anyway because it will send a message.
As for the Behavioral Insights Team, that is something that I can see moving forward and I already don’t like the direction it will take us.
The “Behavior Insight Teams” concept really bothers me. This is Big Brother writ big, Pardon the unintended pun,
If anyone would have told me a few years ago we would be where we are I would have said they were crazy. What a day.
It’s been a hell of a four and a half years!
And we still have three to go!