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No. Imagining an independent future for any state (including California and Texas) is pure cope. The states are so interdependent that attempting to secede would be ruinous for the state in question.
The only exceptions I can think of are Alaska and Hawaii, which might be able to survive if they found another country to keep them supplied and economically connected.
Wouldn't Texas be at the top of the list of states most likely to exit?
I like the idea of it, but California is a cash cow and the US would never let that cash cow get away.
What you are proposing would start a North American war deadlier than any that has ever been seen. Everyone thought Texas was dumb for talking about secession, but now that other states donβt want to be part of the union, people act like it is a serious idea. It isnβt. Never has been.
In the words of Ben Franklin, βwe must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.β
Everyone knew Texas talking about it was dumb because they're not self sufficient
California actually is, and if we're hated by the rest of the country anyway, we'll just go ahead and leave. Let the rest states have fun paying for shit without us
Define self sufficient.
California is not self sufficient in my opinion. They may have a lot of money, but they rely heavily on interstate commerce and trade routes for their prosperity. Taxes and cost of living are already high, and those things would explode if cut off from trade. The federal government wonβt hesitate to use their leverage to keep other countries from supporting the newly declared independence of California.
Texas is not self sufficient either, but Iβm not advocating for their secession.
Put simply, we need fewer borders, not more of them. Any state that thinks they can take their money and run will find themselves brutalized by the federal government, taxed to oblivion by neighboring states, and experiencing an exodus of companies who are based there. It is the path to destruction, not liberation.
New England. Maybe with NY, you could have New New.
Sure? Balkanization seems like a good way to speed up the process of the Empire collapsing.
plus there is the bonus of schadenfreunde, since they always want to balkanize countries that happen to stand in their path.
Absolutely
Shit's gonna look like the Holy Roman Empire a decade from now...
Yes
Do states even have a legal way to secede?
To take this in a different direction, legal or not (considering the "higher power" generally gets to define what is and isn't legal and might do so for its own benefit rather than in the best interest of everyone, if there even is such a thing), how can it be determined if a subset of a power structure breaking away from that power structure is a good thing or bad thing? What arguments other than "we'll use force" are there to support a region needing to remain under the thumb of a power they no longer wish to serve?
See: American civil war
Didn't have a way to legally secede from Britain
But this time there would be no ocean between the two sides.
No but there's no law against expelling a state from the union. Kind of a reverse secession if you can piss trump off enough for him to actually do it (no law saying that only Congress can expel them, so it would go to the courts).
Define "legal".
Enshined in law, so that state can unilateraly decide to secede and federal govt must accept it.
Nope. The south already tried that.
If you want to gain independence, you have to fight the federal government's monopoly on violence. At its core, that's how all law is backed up. Two things you need to be a country. First, the ability to backup your independence with force. Second, the acknowledgement of the international community and their willingness to sign treaties with you. Sealand doesn't have any issues defending their "independence", but no one has signed a treaty with them for instance.
No. We'd be overrun by federal troops and decimated within a week. If we could secede peacefully? We (Wisconsin) would probably need an alliance with Minnesota and Michigan to survive.
CA should be split into two.
If the Union completely dissolved and each state had to function as nation, it would be a massive boom for the oligarchs. They already have more money than most states.
If just my state left, and I could leave to another state, that would be pretty good. Two Republican senators gone, roughly 15 net house reps gone, and an influx of dem refugees like me into neighboring states.
Texas could legit try to make a go of it as an independent nation. It would be a disaster for my family though.
I support balkanizing the US
It worked wonderfully for the actual Balkans and the Caucasus region
As a US citizen and Oregon resident, absolutely.
But I don't honestly foresee it being possible or happening.