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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark via extropy-chat<br><br><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>>…So if you were devising a system from scratch and were looking at a map of the country but knew nothing about the states…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>If you were devising a system from scratch you would have a map of the states but would know nothing about the country. It wasn’t yet a country in the 1780s. But there were governments for the colonies. The United States was formed by unifying 13 countries, which is why this sentence starts with “The United Sates was…” rather than “The United States were…” Unifying 13 independent countries into one powerful union made the transition from our saying “the US are” to the “the US is.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>It can be undone however. All you need is a constitutional convention to abolish the electoral college. You need to get 38 of the states to buy in, most of which would be giving up power. So do it. Go for it. I will even take one of your bumper stickers. Then I will put it in my filing cabinet along with my Johnson/Weld sticker I never put on my truck.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Since we are talking about data, and Wyoming keeps coming up, notice if you go by total counts, Wyoming is doing the best job of any state. California and New York were the first to turn dark red. If that is a useful data, then Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota are the government models we should be following, ja? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>I read disparaging comments here about Arkansas, but they are doing well, far better in total cases than California and New York. Perhaps that anonymous politician from Arkansas who wrote the legal definition the militia isn’t stupid, but rather knows what she is doing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><img width=373 height=335 style='width:3.8854in;height:3.4895in' id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D61558.20D16EF0"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Whatever California and New York are doing is clearly failing. Wyoming Montana and North Dakota are succeeding.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>See the value of states? I love state governments and the whole notion of uniting states in common defense, in establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare and securing to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty. State governments are our friends. States show us the way. Unite them, support them, salute them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>