Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "Old Glory" video.

I recommend we pass a Constitutional amendment to freeze the number of states at 50 and only allow a new state to be admitted if two or more existing states agree to merge into one.
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@STho205 I think we are in violent agreement. Under my concept a state could split in two if one section joins another state or if two other states agree to merge. The Constitution does not allow DC to become a state, bu I'm sure there are those who will try to do it anyway. The desire to make the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, etc. states is nothing more than a cnyical power play by one political party to retain permanent hegemony over American politics.
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@lisahinton9682 Nope.
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@STho205 This is why I recommend an amendment to allow the subdivision or fusion of adjoining states, but only if the total remains fifty. Your comment about the splitting of WV from Virginia is not the only example of possible Constitutional abuse. All amendments to the Constitution require ratification by 3/4 of the states. From my own analysis it appears the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments fell just short of this requirement, but were incorporated into the US Constitution anyway. Feel free to check my math.
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@-oiiio-3993 There's a couple of reasons. Congress has grown from 26 Senate members and 65 House members to 100 senate members and 435 House members. That's nearly a sixfold increase in size. The bigger Congress gets, the more unwieldy it becomes. The likely result of an ever expanding Congress is diluted power for the members. Politics abhors a vacuum and I have little doubt the Executive and Judiciary branches will gladly assume more unelected and unconstitutional authority if the opportunity presents itself. We have enough problems with the current size of Congress, so any growth in the number of states will be done for purely partisan reasons in a bid to gain permanent hegemony over the opposing party.
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@goodun2974 Neither do the American territories. Actually, DC does have representation in Congress and they are allowed to vote on committees but they cannot cast votes on bills brought to the floor for passage. DC also votes for three electors as part of the electoral college. Part of the problem is DC residents appear to want to have their cake and eat it, meaning they want voting reps in Congress but they don't want to become residents of either Maryland or Virginia and pay state taxes, nor does the DC political machine want to fall under another state's governmental control. I suspect the DC politicians would be more than happy to become their own city-state, but that flies in the face of American tradition and the Constitution. I can just see every other American city with an equal or larger population demanding the same status. That should bring us up to about 70 states.
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@STho205 I, for one, do not want a Constitutional Convention. Nobody knows what will come out of it, but I doubt it will be anything more elegant than came from the last convention - and even that required ten amendments before it could get ratified.
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@goodun2974 America has never been a democracy. it has always been a representative republic, which is an extremely important distinction. In a democracy the will of the majority can crush the desires and rights of the minority. The whole reason for states having an equal voice in the Senate is to serve as a counterbalance to larger states that otherwise could use their simple majority to impose their will on the minority. This was the fear of smaller states in the 18th century and is one of the reasons the Constitution was written to create a representative republic. The fear remains justifiable today for any small population state. One potential way to circumvent this safeguard is to create enough like-minded mini-states to allow one political party to control all of Congress. The desire to turn DC into a state serves this ulterior motive. You say there are states today with smaller populations than DC, but that was not the case when these states were created. Indeed, if population is the only pertinent factor (it isn't), then why not make every state the same size? If there are roughly 330 million citizens, then each state should have 6.6 million residents unless you want to create more or fewer states. In this case, adjust the state boundaries accordingly to maintain parity. Now that's being fair and democratic.
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