[tialaramex]

> This may be the case for every US state, for all I know

Nope. What the jurisdictions choose to write on plates varies, often for a fee you can have something different, either of your choice (within limits) or from some limited selection.

Famously DC has plates quipping about the "Taxation Without Representation" which was notionally the reason the United States wanted independence. The District of Columbia of course does pay federal taxes but does not receive proper democratic representation in exchange, exactly the situation the colonists complained of and with exactly the same retort offered in response†.

[This is a very small hypocrisy compared to say declaring that "All men shall be free" and continuing to literally enslave some of them for example]

† The Congress insists, just like the Westminster Parliament, that these tax payers are represented, but virtually, with the entire institution actually somehow representing their interests. If this strikes you as poppycock for Westminster, it should feel no different closer to home.

[eadmund]

It seems to me that it makes a great deal of sense for the seat of the federal government to be located in a federal district independent of any state’s control. It also would not make sense for that federal district to be represented as a state — that would end up being a circular dependency, since the federal government is created by the states, and it doesn’t make sense for the federal district to participate in creating and sustaining itself.

Those who choose to live within the federal district have a privilege others in the United States do not have: direct physical interaction with and influence over the individuals composing the federal government. It makes sense to me that the privilege is balanced with a lack of representation in the Senate and House. Note that they do have representation in the Electoral College.

It also makes sense to me to retrocede the majority of the current federal district back to the state of Maryland.