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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33828 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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It is an appalling injustice that Nevada is something like 90% owned by the Feds, and Virginia is, roughly, 0% owned by the feds.

The Federal Government should not own so much land. It should be returned to the states, and those states can make the land into state parks if the residents there choose to value the land in that way. But assholes in Pennsylvania and New York and Virginia, whose states are entirely private, should not be choking out Nevada and Utah and Idaho because of some desire to arrest development.

Isn't that because most of the land in Nevada is desert with no water access though? The rare bits of it that I've seen for sale are practically free and not being developed any time soon.

That said I would love to see ten more cities like Vegas get built that aren't dedicated strictly to gambling, with lots of indoor public spaces suitable for biking and running.

biking and running

In the desert? How many nuclear reactors are you going to dedicate to hydrating that place?

It's time to build baby

injustice

Why does justice suddenly begin factoring in? Is it just that Utah and Idaho residents have 10x of a NYers political power in the Senate ? Don't even get me started on DC.

But assholes in Pennsylvania and New York and Virginia, whose states are entirely private, should not be choking out Nevada and Utah and Idaho

I hear the similarly-framed arguments in NY, NJ & Massachusetts about the North East subsidizing the lives of Middle America. Either ways, I don't federal control of land has anything to do with low demand for moving to Vegas or Reno

Utah and Idaho residents have 10x of a NYers political power in the Senate

Utah and Idaho are the relevant entities, not their residents.

Within each state is where the residents become relevant political actors.

The states were made for the people, not the people for the states.

The states were made for people.

The Federal Government was made for the states.

There's no returning what was never owned by the states to begin with. Either way, it's not practical. The average rancher is going to have a coronary when he finds out that he has to buy a grazing permit for every cow that might wander into another state or risk fines.

My observation in New Mexico is that the federal government, while not very good, is still a lot better than the state at managing public lands.

[land] should be returned to the states

Or the Native Americans/Indians/First Nations/whatever the preferred nomenclature is this week.

No. They are not American. They were driven out and their lands conquered.

As well as give Alaska back to the Russians and California to Spain.

The Navajo nation is some 27,000 square miles for a population of 400,000 people; there's enough land, anyway.

Only the ones who didn't take it from someone else first.

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