There’s a commentator called “tobias” at the Salon.com post entitled “just secede already”, which is just brilliant. He makes the argument that the only reason secession seems reasonable is because we have killed federalism, cut its head off, pounded a stake through its heart, and buried it at the crossroads:
Tobias
10 days ago
Hang on. Maybe there’s a solution to this problem that would avoid succession.
We’re talking about such a big country with wildly diverse interests, needs, history, traditions, environments and populations. So what if we divided the country into smaller, more manageable units that would be largely self-governing in terms of the day-to-day lives of their citizens. Then people would feel like they had greater control over how they are governed and they wouldn’t feel like they are being dictated to by people who don’t share their values or whose needs and interests are very different. We could call these units something like “States.” We could even allow these States to further subdivide themselves if they find it necessary.
But then, we could also take advantage of the economies of scale that flow from such a large population by pooling some resources to create a unified system of trade and common defense amongst and between the states. We could have one military to defend us and free inter-state commerce. Also, we could allow citizens of different states to live and move freely within these states if they chose.
It seems to me that such a system of united states would produce far less friction and animosity that a large, overarching government that sought increasing control over the daily lives of such a diverse population. Just a thought.