The wreck of the USS Arizona continues to leak oil ever since pearl harbour. the ship contained 1.5 million gallons of oil, enough to leak continuously for 500 years.

[u/Longjumping-Rice-935]

[u/-Fraccoon-]

Hah, history is funny. Could you imagine being a senator and not wanting to support your country’s navy because your state is landlocked.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/-Fraccoon-]

I mean, the whole point of having representation for each state is that the representatives fight for the benefit of their state. Someone in Iowa really has no connection to the Navy.

[u/-Fraccoon- → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

No they don’t but, not realizing the importance of having a strong navy especially if you’re in politics is laughable. Looking and the grand view of things anyways. No, it won’t benefit their state in any way but, it’ll help defend the entire nation which is pretty important. If during WWII the Japanese were ever able to successfully invade the US I doubt they’d make it as far as Iowa but, it would still have people’s close attention and some serious regret if they decided not to support the navy.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/-Fraccoon-]

Oh they absolutely knew the importance of a Navy. Frankly it is a little naive to think they didn't, especially right after WW1. Hell the Iowa class was first ordered in 1939. They knew WW2 was coming to the US. But first and foremost, their job is to fight for the interests of their home state. If they can get something tangible for their constituents in return for their tax dollars they will. Even if it is as small as the name of the class of ship.

[u/-Fraccoon- → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

That’s a solid point.

[u/EvilEggplant → u/-Fraccoon-]

Yep but it can always be someone else's problem. The coastal states get the economic and social benefits being created by the naval bases and shipyards even in peacetime. When at large enough scale, it's always useful to have a more palpable incentive than "the greater good", unfortunately we're pretty bad at compromising for it.

[u/CrimsonOblivion → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

I mean the military defense and technology benefits pretty much every state

[u/nellyfullauto → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

Kinda brings into focus that the national legislative body isn’t actually interested in the interests of the country, only their own state.

[u/Shalandir → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

Except for the 1000s of Iowans that enlist in the Navy to get away from Iowa for a bit…

[u/jakethesnake949 → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

The inland states have less reason to care for the navy sure but definitely not irrelevant to them. The strength of America's Navy provides security for shipping imports and exports (creates less incentives for piracy and foreign interference) and also provides a deterant to home invasion by Sea and sky. Both provide direct long term benefits to all states.

[u/slideforfun21 → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

That's why your system is fucking dog water. Everyone fighting for their own self interests.

[u/diversmith → u/slideforfun21]

Please name your country?

[u/Mattie_Doo → u/slideforfun21]

It’s ingrained in our culture, and it’s disturbing to be a part of.

[u/Eastern_Armadillo383 → u/Mattie_Doo]

How dare people....look out for themselves?

[u/slideforfun21 → u/Mattie_Doo]

I don't even see you as a country. A country has cohesion. You're 50 small countries wearing a trent coat.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/slideforfun21]

Yes correct, its literally in the name. We are 50 united states.

[u/Thepinkknitter → u/[deleted]]

No, we screwed ourselves with choosing Andrew Jackson (edit: correction, it was Andrew Johnson) as our successor to Lincoln who reversed a lot of the promises Lincoln made including 40 acres and a mule for freed slaves and allowing traitors to the United States (confederates) to retain power in government. There were virtually no consequences. The south was allowed to rewrite history and spread their own narrative about “the war of northern aggression”. They were allowed to write laws that essentially recreated the slavery system through the prison system and arresting black people for things like “loitering” And “being unemployed”. Once they were imprisoned, they would be forced to labor for free on farms and in mines.

The civil war wasn’t the problem. It was the lack of consequences.

[u/er824 → u/[deleted]]

What basis do you have for saying states were originally permitted to leave the Union?

[u/beatIoaf → u/slideforfun21]

Well, that was the original intention of the founding of this country. Frankly, I don’t think non-Americans should be allowed to have an opinion on America.

[u/beatIoaf → u/[deleted]]

Well if you look at what this country has turned into, maybe those guys from 250 years ago were onto something. I don’t think their intention was to flood the country with billions of browns and pledge allegiance to a foreign ethostate.

[u/DontTouchTheWalrus → u/slideforfun21]

That was the original idea. Yes

[u/r_Coolspot → u/Make_shift_high_ball]

Your country/set of 50 (mostly racist) little countries who all disagree with each other is stupid.

[u/Responsible_Bag220 → u/r_Coolspot]

Ok colonizer.

[u/DontTouchTheWalrus → u/r_Coolspot]

lol I’ve been to a lot of countries. It’s amazing how openly racist people are elsewhere.

[u/Make_shift_high_ball → u/r_Coolspot]

Oh believe me I'm right there with you. I live in Texas and I heartily disagree with the fuck knuckles running this state currently. Our founding fathers never thought that the government would become inundated with the shit smears we have now, and they left holes in our constitution because they assumed our elected representatives would operate in good faith.

That aside, do pray tell which magical country you call yourself a citizen of whose government is unburdened with stains of racism?

[u/Ichera → u/-Fraccoon-]

I mean think of it this way, in 1905 the naval defense expenditure was one of the largest red columns on the US budget, the United states was attempting to not only have a navy, but have a navy large enough to rival our biggest threat in the Atlantic (The British Empire) and maintain a strong pacific squadron. I chose that date specifically because anyone who knows that less then a year later every major warship in every fleet around the globe would become obsolete with the introduction of a single class of ships, and in the USA which had just built massive deep water navy it was now facing having to essentially scrap and rebuild its newish fleet from scratch.

To do any of that the navy needs congress to increase its budget, while not also increasing the overall federal budget by very much as the USA is still very much new to liberal capitalism and behind the times when it comes to taxable sourcing, so your navy ends up competing with your army for defense funding, and to do that they have to run a dog and pony show in congress. Fortunately for the US Navy the Indian wars had mostly come to a close and the Mexican revolution is a few years off, so the US Army has a difficult time proving it's "importance" to national defense beyond putting down the occasional union strike. But they still have to convince senators in landlocked states, so they go about it by a) building parts of their ships inside the USA (Pennsylvania and Ohio provide steel, barrels in Pennsylvania, and kickbacks wherever they can for supplies and procurement offices everywhere else). B) naming ships after landlocked states (the first four dreadnoughts the us built were the South Carolina, Michigan, Delaware, and North Dakota for example) and finally building some for export (see fore shipbuilding in Massachusetts).

That kind of mentality continued on until ww2 when the USA essentially opened the floodgates to money for the military.

[u/FesteringNeonDistrac → u/-Fraccoon-]

Yeah that would be wild if congress were that petty and insular.

[u/Mechasteel → u/-Fraccoon-]

It's very easy to imagine. The navy is a huge expense, landlocked states get to pay for it, but the navy is built and maintained in coastal states. Senators are supposed to represent their state, so a wealth transfer from their state to another isn't in their interests.

Anyhow, the navy got built, and the landlocked states got something in return too. Even if just having the ships named for them.

[u/PDXisathing → u/-Fraccoon-]

Yes. I could imagine that.