Why not divide the country?

In John L. Brooks letter to the editor [“Too much power for one county,” Northwest Voices, Nov. 11], he suggests that we divide the state in two sections of liberals and conservatives.

Recently I heard of someone who suggested we do that with the whole country.

Each would have its own supreme court and tax system, and its own infrastructure and school system. But the nice part would be that you would be free to move from one "country" to the other so no one would ever have to be unhappy.

The Washington conservative Eastern farmer could change places with the liberal South Dakota farmer. It could just work!!

– Jean Lichti, Bainbridge Island

Voting by self-interest

I would summarize the results of the 2012 ballot initiatives in this way:

A majority of voters in Washington want to be able to send kids to school wherever they want, to marry whomever they want, and to smoke pot however much they want. And we want to do all of this and more without having to pay for it unless two-thirds of lawmakers agree, which they never want to do.

The lesson from this election? Maybe voting by pure self-interest won’t turn out to be all we’d hoped for. Time will tell.

— Dan Magill, Seattle