@ Putin33

"Your whole point for claiming that the invader of Panama was some great President"

I don't like that insinuation. You wouldn't say anything if your hero Putin engaged in a small shooting war to protect vital interests. Same thing with the United States and Panama.The Panama Canal was ours at the time, and we had every right to defend it and remove Noriega from power.

Holland sounds like a nice place to vacation...Amsterdam and all...

And who doesn't love Rembrandt and Vermeer?

Or heinekin and mary jane

Under the canal treaty, Panama had the right to appoint a canal commissioner. The US wanted to ensure it got 'their man' in as commissioner before the administrative changeover in 1990. So they invaded the country, killed hundreds of people (mostly civilians), abducted Noriega, put him on 'trial' in a kangeroo court, and installed a puppet government sworn in from a US military base. Particularly ironic considering the hue and cry over Kuwait a year later.

It was an outrageous act of aggression and violation of international law. Most of the excuses for ousting Noriega stem from alleged conduct he did when he was on the CIA's payroll in the early 80s, as a loyal ally vs leftism in Central America.

"The level of freedom in the United States depends on where you are. In North Dakota or Idaho, you can do basically whatever the fuck you want as long as you don't directly physically harm/jeopardize others or the property of others. In New York or Califoirnia, you can't even take a piss without Big Brother watching and taxing you."

Is this the reason why so many more people chose to live in California (38 million) and New York (20 million) than in Dakota (North+South = 1.5 million) or Idaho (1.6 million)?

@ oscarjd74

38 million dumb people who are voluntarily living in California as opposed to 3 million smart/free people living in the free states of Idaho and the Dakotas? That's not a ridiculous claim. We can all agree that there are at least 10 times as many dumb people as smart people in the world.

Besides, is population a good test of a state's success? No. Look at the economic health and state government effectiveness of each state. Personally, I would rather freeze my ass off in the mountains of Idaho and be free as opposed to relaxing on the communist beaches of California. My preference is not a common one, hence the large difference in population.

South Dakota is the worst state in the union for women. I guess freedom doesn't apply to them.

People in Cali would rather have the sun and surf than their freedom. New York is all about the business man and the majority of its population is in NYC or one of it's suburbs/boroughs. The reasons for both override the desire for freedom. And, in the end, most people never move more than 100 miles from where they graduated high school, even if they went to college, so those numbers wouldn't change even if both declared themselves police states.

Please explain why CA and NY are among the states which dominate the Fortune 500, and your favored states are no where to be found.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/industry-hot-spots/?iid=smlrr

"explain why CA and NY are among the states which dominate the Fortune 500"

Inertia.

GumBiter - can you explain why all the communists are living in California?
Arnie was governor there, did he make them all Commies because he is from Austria which is in Europe .... and it goes without saying, they're all Commies

CA and NY dominate the Fortune 500 because they're highly populated and have well-established financial centers that have been around longer than the politics that now characterize them. This doesn't mean they're looking to leave, just that their being there isn't proof of anything (just like their being located in ND and ID, assuming they were there for the same reasons, wouldn't be proof of anything for small-government advocates).

North Dakota and Idaho have a lower urbanization rate which makes it more difficult to enact more constricting legislation. I wonder if anyone's done a study that connects the two empirically? I think I want to, but I have no idea how to quantify "conservative" or "liberal" or any such equivalent terms. Alas.

Annnd Eden wins the thread.

This study has been done, informally anyway.

http://davetroy.com/posts/the-real-republican-adversary-population-density

Although density doesn't explain why NV, GA, and TX top the list of F500 locations.

California is actually very unimpressive on a ranking of Fortune 500 companies per capita. (New York is still impressive, but so are Texas, Nebraska, Georgia, Arkansas, and Virginia, along with some of the rust-belt states).

'whoever told you that is your enemy'

If you have no people and have 1 Fortune 500, you're going to look 'impressive'. Arkansas has 6 Fortune 500 companies and Nebraska 5, compared to California's 54.

Right, and I think Nebraska having five is pretty incredible.

California having 54 is certainly impressive on some scale, and nobody doubts (I'm sure) that California's is a ponderous economy. On the other hand, given that Texas and New York each have nearly as many and far fewer people, I'd be more worried than otherwise for California's economic health.

California has 12% of the population and 11% of the Fortune 500s. There are plenty of states with a lower proportion based on population (see: Florida for an example of a big state). Texas is the center of oil & gas and NY is the center of banking in the country. Both hugely profitable industries that produce a lot of Fortune 500 companies.

It all makes sense, really. Nevada has the casino business, Virginia the defense contractors, Nebraska Berkshire Hathaway and Arkansas Walmart. The presence of Fortune 500 companies invariably draws more in.

Good points, Putin.

Ohio has 27 for just 11.5 million people versus Cali's 54 for 38 million. We have 2.3 F500 companies per million people. Cali has less than 2 per million. I'd say our numbers are more impressive.

It's really interesting considering Nebraska and Arkansas in particular. Those are all effectively chance -- down to the circumstances of Warren Buffett's birth and Sam Walton's post-war relocation.

Naturally I take a different conclusion away from Dave Troy's study than he did, but his data is sound and makes a lot of sense. In an ideal world I think this would make a really good argument for decentralizing governmental decision-making -- the reality is that it's simultaneously not right for blue cities' representation to be diminished because they're in red states OR for blue cities to dictate policies to the larger red-state areas. But I'm not sure how feasible decentralizing a 21st century republican state is... let alone the nonexistent political will to do so.

He's dating Beyoncé, isn't he? Isn't he.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/19/beyonce-michelle-obama_n_4628543.html

I am shocked! Shocked to discover that there's gambling going on in this establishment!

Sorry 'mericans, you'll live another day despite my comments :-)

Eden, reverse the red and blue and do you not see it to be just as unfair? How many conservatives live or work in NYC? It's a banka's paradise so I'd venture to say a lot. Is it fair a blue city or state like NYC/NY runs roughshod over them?

i mean if you want the REAL answer i'm an anarchist and believe all forcefully-imposed authority is illegitimate

but in absence of that idyllic fantasy i think my assessment still stands... flipping the colors doesn't change the argument. red cities imposing their will on blue states or blue states imposing their will on red cities is not fair either

OK, that we can agree on. Unfortunately, having a civilized society means *someone* is going to have to force their will on someone else or nothing will ever get done as we will spend all the time bickering and none of the time doing. That is the biggest problem with anarchy and complete freedom. Progress requires cooperation and sometimes that cooperation is at gunpoint (literal or figurative).