Quote Originally Posted by Muddy View Post
California, Oregon, and Washington State just signed a pact of unity in defiance of the federal government over handling the coronavirus. Could very well be the first concrete step towards the US balkanizing.
The US is a fairly diverse place and people have been sorting themselves out since the '80's. Colorado went from a red state to a blue state because a lot of liberals moved there. I don't think this is a good trend for several reasons.

For one thing, a region full of like-minded people is equivalent to a company filled with Yes-men. The company might be prosperous or it might be poor, but one thing is certain: It has a greatly-reduced ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Balkanization of a region reduces its economic influence in the world simply from the reduced market size. Presumably, some of the things that makes the regions different are different laws and different standards, and at some point, it becomes too expensive to manufacture a product that is acceptable to all regions. Costs rise and everyone becomes poorer. Britain is about to find this out with a vengeance.

The German revolution of 1848 was a case where the economic liberalization following Napoleon's destruction of the power of the church was repressed by the country's ruling classes. In the wake of the failed revolution, where the King stated "in public that only God and not the people or any legislative body could decide upon his crown", many of the liberal Germans were harassed by the monarch's secret police. In the following decade, nearly one million of these liberal Germans left the country and moved to the US, with many of them settling in Wisconsin and Minnesota, regions which are still liberal today.

Germany, on the other hand, by 1914 was left with the people who believed in the Aristocracy and a government that was always right.


I happen to believe that the best situation is to listen respectfully to everyone's input. I also believe that it is vital that leadership regularly change from one faction to another. When one group thinks that it can't win in the court of public opinion or through the legal processes, it will take desperate measures to preserve itself. Long before this point is reached, that group's opinions and wishes have to be honored, respected, and included in the society.