13 years on what are your thoughts on the U.S. presidential election of 2000?

[Tupac Shakur]

Only a **** would think that borders that were shaped by hundreds of years of colonial and post-independence history are "arbitrary". Drawing a line on a map at 44º 30' to divide Montana from Wyoming is arbitrary; three hundred years of negotiating over "The Wedge" is not.

[ColdWizard]

Some people need to watch more tv.

[Hauldren Collider]

The Mormon population doesn't stop suddenly at the Utah border.

But its proportion does decrease significantly.

[giblets]

Only a **** would think that borders that were shaped by hundreds of years of colonial and post-independence history are "arbitrary". Drawing a line on a map at 44º 30' to divide Montana from Wyoming is arbitrary; three hundred years of negotiating over "The Wedge" is not.

A dispute over that resulted from three arbitrarily drawn lines and involved a tiny amount of territory. I'm convinced.

[regexcellent]

Getting rid of the states is one of the dumbest ideas I've seen presented on this forum. If anything, we should be giving them more power (or rather returning them the power which they were granted), not taking it away.

[Tupac Shakur]

A dispute over that resulted from three arbitrarily drawn lines and involved a tiny amount of territory. I'm convinced.

It doesn't bother me if you choose to remain ignorant.

[giblets]

It doesn't bother me if you choose to remain ignorant.

Yes, anyone you disagree with is an ignorant ****

[Tupac Shakur]

No. Only most of them.

[regexcellent]

Presumably you've looked at a map of the United States. Why do you think most of the state boundaries are perfectly straight lines?

Because when the lines were drawn the states which have straight line borders were so sparsely populated, there were only a few settlements with some surrounding farms so the borders just had to encompass all of the right towns, and otherwise could be straight. You see this in Australia as well, where most of the people are concentrated in 5 or so cities which are for the most part geographically separated by very long distances. Where the towns are closer together, in New South Wales and Victoria, the border is more irregular and surveyed in detail (although it mostly just follows the Murray River).

[Hauldren Collider]

Most of those states still are sparsely populated.

[regexcellent]

Correct. The only places where state borders start to seem arbitrary are where you get large populations straddling the border.

[korn469]

I still think that most U.S. states had fairly arbitrary borders when they were first created. Over time they may have came to develop a unique and overriding culture; however, I think many things have worked to decimate any kind of unique sense of state citizenship.

1800's:
Civil War. Lincoln said **** states rights. More than half a million dead later, America is a little bit more nationalized.
New technologies: Telegraph. Railroad. Steamship. Telephone. Phonograph.
Westward migration: Hard to feel state pride when you just moved to dakota territory a month ago for 40 acres and a mule.
Rise of the trusts: Americans can come together to hate the Robber Barons.
Immigration: Europe sent the U.S. it's tired, poor, huddled masses. These people certainly weren't Connecticut Yankees.

Early 1990's:
WWI and WWII: Both wars called for massive federal action. People from all across the country were drafted and formed bonds with their fellow Soldiers. They fought all across the globe.
More technology: Movies. Radio. Cars.
More immigration: Especially in the first part of the century.

Now I think individual state cultures really have some problems. Just going from 1946 on:

First I think the Civil Rights Movement really destroyed states rights and culture. No longer could one section of the country act however it wanted. Federal law now prevents states from doing any crazy things. Political correctness and state culture and diametrically opposed.

Second, TV and the internet have really changed entertainment, thereby changing culture. In 1850 you would need to participate in some locally produced entertainment (except for books), since the rise of TV after WWII and the rise of the internet, most people consume some form of entertainment produced somewhere else. Though with the internet and cable TV entertainment has began to fragment again, but this time it is along demographics, not geography.

The interstate system and jet passenger aircraft. It's hard to think about natural boundaries when you can jump in your car, and drive across the country on the interstate in 2-3 days. It's even harder to imagine them when you can fly from New York to LA in less than six hours. Also most of the goods you consume are trucked in from some distant location. An archaeologist looking at pottery shards 10,000 years from now, will probably determine that everyone who lived in America was Chinese.

EDIT:

If you get on a plane at breakfast in NYC (7:00am departs JFK) , you can still arrive in LA in time for breakfast (10:03am arrives at LAX)

END edit.

Telecom technology. If we wanted we could have this debate in real time in a google hangout with virtually no effort to set it up. I still have my old phone number from a different state. I have a national cell phone plan. I move, but I keep my number, because all of my calls cost the same either way, plus everyone has my old number programmed into their phones. No reason to change it.

The rise of modern transnational corporations. They influence with marketing. They have locations, resellers, or franchises everywhere. They sell standardized products to us in virtually identical stores.

I would say that Apple and Microsoft, two corporations founded in the 1970's, have far more of an effect on nearly anyone living in the U.S. than the state they live in. From the way people work, or game, or listen to music, or stay in contact with people, or interact with their TV these two corporations have a huge impact. I doubt anyone feels the same kind of impact in how they actually go about their lives because they live in Little Rock AR, rather than Charlotte NC, or Columbus OH.

[Jon Miller]

Have you been to small town america, it is like 10-20 years before.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Have you been to small town america, it is like 10-20 years before.

JM

[Hauldren Collider]

The big cities have less cultural differences, but medium to small cities (I would say 750,000 people or less) definitely still do.