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[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]Isn't DC a district because its defined as such in the Constitution?? Not to offer sour grapes but in today's partisan world I don't see this changing. Since DC residents electively choose to live there, if they are unsatisfied there is always the option to electively choose not to.
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This country was founded on the idea of "no taxation without representation." That idea is really central to our independence. Acting like it is not important is like acting that private property is not important to capitalism. The founding fathers didn't expect the capital district to become a metropolis or even a full-time seat of government. Their experience, largely based on the English experience, was that legislators lived at home and only attended periodic legislative sessions. They would find a situation in which a population larger than two states was taxed without representation unfathomable. The fact that people can move away from this injustice does nothing to resolve the injustice. Those colonists who didn't like paying British taxes were not being held prisoner. They also could have moved.

Also, keep in mind that the founding fathers' idea of "representation" was not comparable to ours. They generally limited it to male property owners. The right to vote for a representative government has expanded significantly over the years. There is no reason such expansion shouldn't extend to DC.
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That’s all well and good but it’s beside the point. It was the ‘no taxation without representation’ founding fathers who made DC a district and not a State. It would take a Constitutional amendment to change that, right? I simply offer that is not likely to happen (for a variety of reasons, conservatives may not want to provide liberals two more senate seats and liberals may not want DC to implode in debt which likely would). Anyway I offer per the founding fathers if this is unsatisfactory, federalism offers a way out (figuratively and literally, hmmm, I made a pun), people can vote with their feet and head not too far north or south.[/quote]

Well, that is also beside the point. Running from injustice does nothing to eliminate injustice. That's sort of like conservatives who think sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice and one should simply choose differently to get marriage rights. The fact that something is hard or is unlikely to be immediately achieved doesn't mean that you shouldn't still try to do it. If we try to get statehood, we might get it. If we don't try, we certainly won't.
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I never said not to try.

But its no injustice, no need for such histrionics unless you think you will persuade the electorate with such dramatics, I suppose its worked before…

Look, everyone knew the rules for DC when it was created, people who lived there did so electively. I mean you could say slaves didn't have a choice, but they did upon emancipation. Injustice? Oh the hyperbole...[/quote]

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