I wasn't seriously suggesting that DC be made a state. Honestly, I hadn't thought about it much, and I'm open to all suggestions. It's only this SC ruling about guns that made me realzie in what a limbo DC residents live.. Elsewhere, there is an inermediary (the state) between the Fed. gov. and citizens. Not so in DC. The mayor does not have the standing or the power of a governor. with his complete set of state civic institutions.

What made this case so striking was the abject fear of the consequences expressed by the residents of the worst crime areas, while the SC deliberated in an ivory tower oblivious to cosnequnces for these peoplle.

I miss Sandra O'Connor who did not rule from an ivory tower but strove to connect law to consequences.

What you say about data and hearts may be true, but consider also that not all data are what they appear to be. Having worked with numbers and statistics, I can attest that perfectly true raw date can be grouped differently, so as to give the appearnace of totally diferent conclusions. To really gauge the trustworworthiness of numbers, you have to examins the methodology all the way from collection to final summaries, not to mention the framing of the project in the first palce. In other words, something can be true in one sense but false in another.

Advocates for certain outcomes are quite adept at picking and choosing which data to rely on.

Run, the first couple of paragraphs in your comment brings memories of my early days on the net, when an old timer told me that arguing facts and such were kind of pointless since any data was interpreted through their viewpoint; real attempts to change minds had to be done by going for the heart.

Back to the main topic though. I just I don't see specific instances where the citizens of DC are being denied the benefits of the federal government because of their lack of representation. They do have a civic governement, and while Congress could change some of their laws, I can;t think of an instance where they have.

While DC does have a population comparable to Wyoming's (which does get a representative and two senators. Some would probably consider this unfair, I kinda do, but it's the rules at the federal level, so I defer), including DC would affect the rest of our voice in the federal government in an unfair way as well. I'd be more of the opinion to give them a representative proportional to their population via one of the surrounding states than to go ahead and make them a new state.

What you say is the starus quo. It's a reading of the Constitution and law as an abstraction, not something that affects real, live people.
For the residents of DC, it;s not an abstraction, however, It affects them personally on a very basic living conditions level. They have no say in making some vital decisions for their own commmunity.

There are two separate themes running through commentary on recent events. One is an increasing dislike for government's power (the small government proponents), and the other is the use of government's power to crush local or divergent views. Oddly, the same people seem to embrace both.
The same people who use states' rights in one argument to oppose federal law, are ready to rush into SF to impose federal law over state law.

As a result, I'm sceptical about the 'principles involved. It just looks like a power play by one group wanting to impose their will on every other group.

I would say the same for other recent SC rulings. On affirmative action, for example, I can accept the case against mandated plans to achieve diversity in school enrollment. But when a plan to do that on a strictly voluntray basis was struck down, the federal government stepped in to remove control from a local school district. and local communities.

The bottom line question is: whose rights are to be protected and whose rights are to be ignored ? In followint the argumetns, I'm sorry to note a seismic decrease in people's consideration for anyones rights but their own. That kind of dog-eat-dog world is the antithesis of the civil society I had hoped the US would become..

There are some common sense solutions to all these ideological, lawyerly arguments.
To keep the Fed. gov. independent of a state, all government builidngs could be made exempt from local law; that's just one off-hand solution that comes to mind..

i would much prefer considering the effects of law and stribing for balance among the rights to be preserved over this constant war among various groups and ideological extremists.

DC is basically a free city, to give it representatives removes it's special status as the seat of federal government. Also, federalist 43 points out how the gov't shouldn't have to depend on a particular state for what it needs. I think that's a pretty good argument.

That's what struck me about the SC decision. The mayor and other D.C.officials had no say. Neither did the citizen residents.