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The United States should be 50 independent countries. (lemmy.zip)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world
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The more I think about things, and how well stuff works in other countries, i believe it’s due to the sheer size and demographic makeup of the country. I often times wonder if it would be better managed with more of an EU style system where certain standards are core across all states and then leave each country to truly govern themselves.

I’m fairly certain this was the original goal when the country was founded and the idea of states rights, but at some it feels like things got flipped on their heads.

(Note, this is probably more of a rant and I know there are definitely things that would not work as well in that situation, but part of me wonders if it’d be a better solution than what we’re stuck with right now)

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[–] 23 points 11 months ago (8 children)

People in the U.S.A. forget that "state" means a sovereign nation. Why are the "United States" not actually states? Taxes. Actually thats basically it. After what would be known as U.S.A. was founded, taxes where opt in. but the burgeoning central government was on the hook for all its international debts. and of course no state wanted to pay taxes...or did pay taxes. So they restructured and the "federal" goverment became superior to all states and its power has grown while states rights diminished. So yeah, in some ways wed be alot better if states where thier own sovereignty, and the founding fathers even put a stipulation that any state unhappy with the union can leave, but the last states to do that got the **** beat out of them and it was made illegal (CSA / Civil war).

TLDR; Founding states didn't want to pay taxes, federal government was formed to collect taxes.

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  • [–] 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    the founding fathers even put a stipulation that any state unhappy with the union can leave, but the last states to do that got the **** beat out of them and it was made illegal (CSA / Civil war).

    The CSA didn't get their asses kicked for leaving the Union. The CSA got their asses kicked for starting the hot war by attacking Fort Sumter 2 months after seceded. The CSA also doubled-down on keeping slavery legal in their Constitution which burned any bridges for support from Europe which had already abolished slavery long before.

    FYI, I didn't downvote you.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    yeah. It wasn't clear in my comment but I wasn't trying to say they where put down just for seceding (Though to Lincoln it was a way more important thing than slavery) but that they are the most notable case of states leaving the union and they got beat the shit out of, two separate things.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    and the founding fathers even put a stipulation that any state unhappy with the union can leave

    What are you referring to?

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    while no explicit mention of secession, the very act of the revolution and statements such as "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…" and "...When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..."have been used to show the idea the founding fathers supported secession.

    Only a handful of times has anyone in the U.S.A. seceded, though most of the times it was just to create a new states in the U.S.A. It was officially outlawed after the C.S.A. seceded and not much of any serious attempt has been made since.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    while no explicit mention of secession, the very act of the revolution and statements such as “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…” and "…When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…"have been used to show the idea the founding fathers supported secession.

    Neither of those are in the US Constitution. Those are from the Declaration of Independence.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    That's a far cry from a stipulation that any state unhappy with the union could leave. While the Declaration of Independence is an important founding document of our country, it does not have the force of law.

    I would argue secession as it was imagined by the rebel states was implicitly unconstitutional already. That was certainly the position of the Union during the Civil War. You can't guarantee individual rights of U.S. citizens in the Constitution and allow states to free themselves from the obligation to respect those rights by just choosing to secede.

    We do have the ability to dissolve the union as envisioned by the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence, but it can't be done unilaterally by any one state. We could do it with a constitutional amendment.

    The only other way is through blood and death. As you point out, that hasn't worked so far.

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