Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[Taelas]

A bad decision is better than no decision, and all that.

But... But... This is why I want things to be local. Sure, our rights as given by the Federal constitution need to be protected as a broad consensus, but how we choose to implement some policy, or whether we want to allow people to smoke pot surely can be handled as local concerns. So, let New Yorkers choose what works best for New York, but if they go bankrupt --- keep their fingers out of the Federal cookie jar! They chose badly, and now they need to suffer their own crappy choices. Individuals and corporations from other around the world should be free to choose to help out with things like Katrina, or an oil spill cleanup. In our great system, even that is restricted by things like the Jones Act.

Remember the whole insurance thing Pete mentioned not too long ago? This is the same thing. You pay insurance (whatever part of your taxes that go towards that "Federal cookie jar"), so that when something bad happens, you're not left out in the cold with no way out.

The only difference is that this is mandated, whereas most (if not all) insurance isn't.

I get that you don't like it, but there really aren't any other option. If you did not have said insurance, the country would end up in shambles. As soon as something major goes wrong, the state goes bankrupt, and people leave. If you can't see where that would lead to a downwards spiral going from bad to worse to worst, I don't know what to tell you.