most 'enlightened' us state?

[anvi]

enlightened
Adjective
1. rational and having beneficial effects: an enlightened approach to social welfare
2. (of a person) tolerant and unprejudiced


Tolerant and unprejudiced?  And you filled the list with NorthEastern states and the Pacific coast states?  With "tolerant and unprejudiced" in mind it has to be an upper midwestern state.  My first thought was Minn, but our emo friend lives there so that's out.  Maybe Iowa?  Wyoming?  Probably Wyoming, there isn't enough people there to be intolerant and prejudicial.

It's definitely not Wyoming.  I love Wyoming and it's one of our nation's most naturally beautiful states, but I wouldn't call the predominantly very conservative citizens there that tolerant.  Minnesota would have been a good choice until about eight or nine years ago.  I think Mass. with its educational instututions and Oregon with its social policies are good choices.  Unfortunately, we are not living in the Enlightenment period anymore; we are  living in post-Enlightenment, post-industrial, post-modern America, and so I don't know if I'd call any state exactly "enlightened" these days.

[anvi]

There are of course such creatures as intolerant liberals and tolerant conservatives, they are all over the place.  If we are talking about fiscal conservatives who have more or less libertarian attitudes on social issues, then sure conservatives can be exceptionally tolerant.  I'm orgininally from North Dakota and Wyoming is a neigbor state that I visited often, and conservatives there are both fiscally and socially conservative, as far as I could tell.  But, like I said, I'm not sure any state can be described as uniquely or particularly enlightened these days, no matter what its predominating political affiliation.

[anvi]

There are of course such creatures as intolerant liberals and tolerant conservatives, they are all over the place.  If we are talking about fiscal conservatives who have more or less libertarian attitudes on social issues, then sure conservatives can be exceptionally tolerant.  I'm orgininally from North Dakota and Wyoming is a neigbor state that I visited often, and conservatives there are both fiscally and socially conservative, as far as I could tell.  But, like I said, I'm not sure any state can be described as uniquely or particularly enlightened these days, no matter what its predominating political affiliation.

When I said conservatives... I meant social conservatives. How are they any less enlightened? Some of them get it way better than liberals.

How so?

[anvi]

Or the approximately 1,100 federal laws President George W. Bush challenged with the signing statements he appended to congressional bills, in many of which he invoked executive authority to ingnore or construe as the executive saw fit the legislation being enacted?  Not exactly a model of checks and balances.  And I don't recall the Republican majorites in congress during the George W. Bush presidency as being exactly reserved about passing legislation with little or no negotiation or compromise involved. 

The earliest founders, if I'm not mistaken, were hostile to partisan politics because they thought it undermind statesmanship.  They did design a government with checks and balances because they knew that parties in the majority would misbehave and overreach.  They were geniuses.  Today, in my estimation, both Democrats and Republicans are far less than geniuses in the ways both handle power and in the ways we distort democratic processes.