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When you are the United States and your ties with one of the world’s most ready-to-explode nations are tenuous at best, the last thing you want is for one of your congressmen to suggest hacking the country to pieces is a good idea. Yet that’s exactly what happened Friday when California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher suggested Baluchistan be set free from the wringing grasp of Pakistan’s government to exist independently.

Rohrabacher introduced a nonbinding resolution that romantically stated Baluchistan should “have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country,” according to the New York Times. You might think, Hey, how thoughtful. This man wants to free a province and allow it to exist on its own two feet, with no federal assistance whatesoever. How very Republican of him.

But the problem is this proposed bill, which has caused quite the brouhaha in Pakistan, has nothing to do with whether Baluchistan deserves to be an independent, or even whether it should be. Instead, it speaks to the ignorance with which American politicians approach the variety of regional and cultural issues that plague Pakistan–true–but that also make it what it is. What if we treated our states this way, cutting them off when they experienced major problems that were bringing the country down?

California’s pretty but 23 percent of its population is illiterate, so let’s give it the axe. And Texas keeps letting those pesky Mexicans in. It’s got to go too. Florida and Nevada have some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Why do people buy homes if they’re not going to pay for them? Those two are definitely out.

In Pakistan as in other countries around the world, there are some regions that are healthier than others. Certainly, many of Pakistan’s problems place it lower on the functionality scale that any region in the U.S., but that does not mean the solution is to dismember it into smaller nation-states. Yes, Baluchistan is a huge province and, yes, the roots of separatist insurgency lay deep there. But Pakistan already hates its relationship with the U.S.; do not give it more reasons to avoid a diplomatic rekindling.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, for suggesting that the best way to deal with a problem is to excise it, and for failing to understand what a suggestion might imply to Pakistan about America’s view of its sovereignty, you are:

Brownlisted.

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Amina Elahi is Divanee.com’s Managing Editor. Check out her blog, where she posts words and images that make her think.

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