That said, we surely want the same thing: making states “mean something” again. So, in general, I agree: shrink them, enlarge them, change their borders–whatever will make the available representation more legitimate in the eyes of those supposedly empowered by it. I think you’re almost certainly right, Adam, in thinking that if we want to see American Mormons take more seriously and wield more unapologetically their own particular cultural contribution to the union, then building a state which incorporated all (or at least most) of the extant Mormon homeland would be a good place to start.

That would certainly stir up the political pot. I did a little google search on this and it doesn’t appear this is a big news item. But it certainly is an interesting idea.

It also seems that in some places, like the South, New England, or Pacific North West people have transferred their state identifies to regional identities, and often states from those areas seem to pool their resources on certain issues because of shared interest and ideology, at least in some cases (this is certainly true for the Pac NW and the South). While this is not a perfect counterbalance to the problem you bring up, it has served to temper the whims of the federal government.

Shed a tear while you’re at it for the outright theft of the land settled by the Saints & theft of their Church’s lands & even corporate identity.

Before we get to reparations for slavery…a tax rebate as suggested by Alan Keyes…perhaps a tax rebate for LDS folks? Now there is a great conversion tool…not.

Please don’t confuse college bowl season (all year round these days) with college football bowl season :) There are plenty of relatively unathletic but sane and thoughtful former college bowl players hanging around here (including Adam G.)

Of course, the Nebraska football team could probably do pretty well on the college bowl circuit. After all, the “N” on the helmet does stand for “Knowledge”.

California has such state identity because of its prosperity (the sixth largest economy in the world?) and its own geographical peculiarity.

I also think that Alaska has the type of state pride that Adam longs for. Maybe this is a characteristic of the big states that are well situated economically. There is somewhat of a banana republic mentality tied up in this as well, though, and that could actually be a negative aspect of such pride.

But as to the main issue in this post–the state of Deseret–I agree with Adam completely and think that if states regained their proper role in the federal system that the Framers intended to establish, a state of Deseret would still be a possibility. The Constitution mandates that each of these individual sovereign states at least guarantee a republican form of government. That requirement would in no way inhibit a state of Deseret from providing a place where LDS values play a large role in the political order of society (even while maintaining a separation of church and state, despite the fact that such non-establishment on the state level was arguably not actually the sense of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause).