(07-06-2020 03:38 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(07-06-2020 12:47 PM)mrbig Wrote:  There are plenty of state capitals whose economies are similarly reliant on the fact that they are the capital city (including my childhood home of Juneau, Alaska).

For Pete's sake, a state is a unitary entity; its subdivisions have no more sovereignty than administrative departments. Moreover, no state vests representational rights in its political subdivisions as entities (in fact, the Supreme Court has made it illegal to do so).

The United States is entirely different. It is not at all just a great big state; it is a union of distinct sovereigns. And, because those constituent members of the union are sovereigns, they expressly have representational rights as members, not merely as lumps of residents. An entity that is not and cannot be substantively sovereign, that is in fact virtually owned by the national sovereign, is not in any political sense like the others.

Didn't we all learn these things in middle school?