TS: Splitting the US into, say, 5 or 6 smaller independent nations?

Cities often run much more efficiently and transparently than, say, the entire US gov't.

(and this is taking into account that most municipal govt's are hopelessly corrupt).

Also: those blocs are fantastic. I love how the South is still the same monolithic South.

NH might cause some problems with the People's Republic, though. I'd say New Hampshire and Maine should team up and do the wooly Live Free or Die thing.

CASCADIA / SHASTA REPUBLIC: Washington, Oregon, northern California, Idaho (for balance), demilitarized zone bordering Nevada. ALASKA: give it to the Canadians; they'd take better care of it anyway. REPUBLICA DEL NORTE: southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, waste contamination zone bordering Nevada; Hollywood versus Mormons FITE. NEVADA: a.k.a. New New Amsterdam; gambling, drugs, prostitution all legal, limit four guns per visitor. FREEMAN'S REPUBLIC: Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska; grain, guns, no speed limits, live free and miles away from anyone else or die. TEXAS / COMMONWEALTH OF OKLAHOMA: you know there's no way to get through this without giving Texas its independence, to which many of us will say good riddance; they can have Oklahoma but obviously they won't want to screw with the state's boundary outline by actually annexing it. WAUKEEGAN (GREAT LAKE NATION): Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, northern Missouri; most desperate bids to develop near-obsolete production economies. ATLANTICA: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Washington, D.C., West Virginia; most desperate legal loopholing to accomodate new-economy service industries -- a nationful of pharmaceutical marketers, consultants and stockbrokers, plus West Virginia to keep things interesting. PEOPLE'S MARITIME REPUBLIC: formerly known as "New England." DIXIE CONFEDERACY: "sorry about that war, it's all yours now; have fun with your laggard economy, embarrassing educational system, and never-ending race politics (NB don't make us invade you again)." FLORICUBA: in the wake of Castro's death, Floridian speculators pour money into Cuba in the hopes of creating a dual ocean resort nation to rival the tourist draw of Nevada; they are backed by other post-U.S. nations in an effort to counter the ambitions of the increasingly militarized Cuervo Republic, and Floricuba soon flourishes into a grand beautiful nation where formerly-Cuban dissidents rage against politicians' constant pandering to the entrenched authoritarian Gray Panther Party. HAWAII: have fun out there!

Nice.

...my parents just got back from a road trip down there. There's some hotel with ducks. DUCKS ON PARADE!

nation A = everyone whose surname begins with a
nation B = etc

(obv they wd have cooler names than this, but who am i to insist what, as i wd be a citizen of nation S = greece)

haha - that's the Peabody in Memphis. Which R0XX0R, btw.

And, actually, I think the South WILL become cool. Because, secretly, it IS cool. It's not all backwards hicks and racial tension. (and, even more secretly, I kind of like backwards hicks, if not racial tension).

They have swimming holes!

Mark, there's a children's book on this, it's called The Twenty-One Balloons. It's about these people who live on Krakatoa, and they create a utopian society there. It was a favorite of mine when I was a kid.

in my plan the cultural powerhouse = the Ws

andy, that's what I said above.

but only up to a point

eg not maRk s

actually, atlanta and chapel hill/raleigh/durham will be to dixie, what west berlin was to east germany -- pockets of (outside-run) sanity in a gigantic shithole.

Some of both. In terms of democratic representation, it would be a huge improvement. Size works heavily against democracy. These six or seven nations would, of course, want to coordinate their defenses and to a large extent their foreign policy - sort of the way the original union of states was supposed to work.

That much said, it'll never happen until present economic and political conditions are a dim and distant memory. Maybe after the industrial economy collapses or something as drastic as that. Fun to talk about as a stimulus to original thining - as long as you don't believe it is The Future.

Thread-killa!

http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/publications/sntexas/images/Republic_of_Texas.gif

haha - that's the Peabody in Memphis. Which R0XX0R, btw.

There are also Peabodies (with ducks!) in Little Rock and Orlando.

DUCKS ON PARADE ON PARADE!

Texas is the only state that has the legal right to secede if we so chose since we were the only independant nation to ever be annexed. However I think the idea of the US splitting up is a pile of crap.

It took a while but that was proved to be wrong by about May of 1865. You weren't annexed btw. You joined the Union. So too did the California Republic.

Hawaii would more than likely take issue with that statement. I'll ask Queen Liliuokalani next time that I see her.

Vermont, too, was a sovereign until 1791.

I sorta presume the US as it stands will be around for many moons yet, though.

Ned, you're a party pooper!