Ask HN: American Divorce | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: American Divorce

Should the US consider a divorce between the states?

We have an inefficient costly system because people are pulling in two different directions and the power oscillation wastes years of productivity when power changes hands.

A phased separation with a scheduled timely vote for the union to continue on a per state basis. If the state doesn't have a simple majority vote to continue the relationship it is dissolved. Second if a simple majority of states in the union votes to remove a state they can.

View on HN

The real question here is if most states would even want that. Despite the downsides of the national government, there's a lot of benefits as well. As a newly formed country, a state would have to fund a military, pay for infrastructure currently paid for by the US government, devise their own type of social security (or not, but that money would be lost to the union that is left), ensure that the citizen's money is held in banks in the given state, create new passports, grow their own food or otherwise negotiate trade agreements, etc.

Yeah, there's a reason Texas threatens to secede every now and then but never actually does. Most American states have nothing to offer the world as independent nations and nothing to gain versus being part of the world's last superpower, assuming they could even operate as such after so many years of deeply integrated Federalism.

What is the goal / what do you imagine that will accomplish?

From outside looking in: There's the perspective of Red States and Blue States, the conservative South and Liberal New England, the massive pull and difference between geographies; the popular HN participant who indicates "Every idea from California is bad because it's from California".

But when I zoom in to actual states, holly mackarel - most of them are something like 53 to 47 or 42 to 53. I don't think a single state broke into 70's. Freakin' Texas was 52/46. And from what I can tell (I'm not an election geek), a high difference is as likely to be a factor of small population as true segregation.

So splitting states doesn't seem like it'd accomplish anything except tyranny of small majority - the 50-something-percent imposing dominant will onto 40-something-percent of population; and/or the same issues that we now think of national will become, or be exposed, as state and local based.

That national politics - heck, politics at large - moves things to a somewhat centrist, mollassy, laggard middle, I'm starting to realize is a feature not a defect.

Edit: Now, if you were to separate rural vs urban, you might obtain more of a result that you want; that seems to be a far more consistent predictor of average values. Whether Blue or Red state (and same for Provinces here in Great White North), it's almost universally, strongly, obviously a rural vs urban difference, and than a matter of how much population lives in urban vs rural. Sure Texas is red, but Houston, Dalas, Austin etc are blue. But I don't think that's either feasible or would accomplish any positive goal whatsoever :)

This has been argued before, with the added emotional issue of slavery.

The defensive advantages of a North American Empire make unity attractive in an easy to see manner. We have a lot more in common than we have to argue about; the only way we can think otherwise is by taking so much of our commonwealth for granted that we do not consider it when asking about modern Secession.

The states that are so quick to secede are likely shooting themselves in their feet when it comes to support from the federal government(1). Having driven through most of the country, when you get to areas like South Dakota, they don't have much industry besides cattle, tourism, mining or storing ICBMs. Leaving the US potentially neuters their own tourism industries and introduces all types of logistical issues.

As much noise as red states like to make, many would probably still be hunter gatherers traversing the plains on their rutted dirt roads if not for the technologies and/or subsidies provided by their despised city dwelling "coastal elites."

(1)https://apnews.com/article/north-america-business-local-taxe...

When you think of the most complex operational challenge you'll see solved in your lifetime, is that the one that makes you excited about the future? If not, spend the trillions of dollars and years of widespread disruption to literally everything on something you value.

Most people still have common interests. Polarization is very strong in the legislature, but that means it's time to reform the legislature to look like the country, not vice-versa.

Political tension is a feature, not a bug. We don’t want runaway bureaucracy and we don’t want anarchy. The best way we’ve found to achieve that is through natural conflict both between branches of the government and between states and the federal government. We’re coming off of 80ish years of strong federal centralized power, so things may seem uncomfortable for a while as we transition. My best advice is not to watch or read the news, don’t get wrapped up in it.

The problem frankly is with your assumption (presumption?) that government is meant to be efficient. I'm not being facetious. A democracy is not supposed to be 'efficient'. If all parties cannot agree, then something does not pass as law. That is the point of democracy. Democracy is not a business. Look at Switzerland, what a mess of inefficiency that is as a government, yet what a democracy.

There is no way that the Balkanization of the United States would do anything other than reduce the prosperity of all Americans. It would create beaurucracy and conflict where there currently is none.

No, because the problem is within essentially every state. There is a conservative exurbs/rural vs liberal cities divide. Studies have observed the effect in other countries as well. It appears cities select for a set of personality traits.

That's why conservatives often believe pushing governance down to the lowest (most local) level possible. (Except when we want to use a higher level to make others do what we think best, but that's not an exclusively conservative behavior).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com