13 Nov
2013
13 Nov
'13
11:34 a.m.
I think we could put a DIY dockyard at lake merritt, undercut the competition
Nov 13, 2013 10:57:45 AM, eddan(a)sudoroom.tv wrote:
I've often thought of Sudo Room a little bit like the District of Columbia. and
Rachel's subject for her email reminded me of that.
It is often forgotten that there was a first
constitution of the United States after Independence before the one that people call the
Constitution. It was called the Confederacy of States. The nation's capital was in
Philadelphia and through a series of events ended up moving to a newly formed neutral
district - that we all know now as DC.
It wasn't just a series of events, but a structural flaw in the Confederacy that
doomed itself. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 43, "We have seen the
inconvenience of
this omission, and the assumption of power into which Congress
have been led by it. With great propriety, therefore, has the new
system supplied the defect. The general precaution, that no new
States shall be formed, without the concurrence of the federal
authority, and that of the States concerned, is consonant to the
principles which ought to govern such transactions."
As population grew and the country was further
colonized by the European settlers, the creation of new states turned into a disuniting
disaster. Different coalitions of states banded together to promote their collective
interest at the expense of others. Those states excluded formed their own alliances and
there were many cries of treason thrown around back and forth. Each cluster thought of
themselves as the "us" and the others as the "them" until the
"them" became the "us" and the "us" was "them".
And so on.
So while New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland - all wanted the new federal seat of
power in their states, a deal was struck to create a district that didn't belong to
any particular state. They all wanted to have the center of the nation's power in
their territories. And this is how we got in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution,
the provision saying:
"To exercise exclusive legislation, in
all cases whatsoever, over such district
(not exceeding ten miles
square) as may, by cession of particular States and the
acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the
United States; and to exercise like authority over all places
purchased by the consent of the legislatures of the States in
which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines,
arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings."
I'm not sure we need forts and magazines and
arsenals and such, but I still think we need a neutral center so that no particular
cluster confuses themselves as being what constitutes Sudo Room. Only when the country
adopted a political structure that transformed the "us" and "them"
into we - did the agreement amongst them create stability and mutual respect that made
them united states.
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