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I think an issue against splitting up is just that no subsection of the US has a strong sense of being a nation in its own right. Not even the South really. Texas, Hawaii, and Alaska might come the closest. There is some pretty strong regionalism and loyalty to a region, but rarely does this translate into people identifying more by their region than as Americans.
In European nations that break up the subsections had a sense of being their own nationality. The Croatians considered themselves a different people to the Serbs at least in some respects. The Slovaks and Czechs had some sense of being different from each other. As did the various people in the former Soviet Union.
Granted that would leave the possibility a region of the US will deem itself "more truly American" than other parts of America and secede in a fashion more similar to a religious schism. I'm just skeptical that could happen in our lifetime because the idea of doing it is also very fringe in our society.
The European states that have broken up have been much younger nation-states that were created by the Versailles Conference at the end of WWI and which formerly had been parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There is a possibility also that Belgium may break into its two constituent parts - Flanders and Wallonia - but it too is a rather young country, having only come into being in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Although Italy and Germany are unlikely to disintegrate, one should remember that these countries have only been unified since the late 19th Century (and of course Germany was then split in two following WWII for over 4 decades). The Russian - then Soviet - empire is a more interesting example, since much of its territory predated the formation of the USA (though much of the Russian empire didn't predate the British colonisation of North America). In the case of the dissolution of the Soviet Union into its constituent republics as independent countries, we see how a combination of political crisis and political opportunism operated to cause this. Yet, except for the Baltic republics - which enjoyed an interwar period of comparatively recent independence - these secessions weren't expressions of democratic will and were really produced as the result of a coup d'etat by the leaders of the original four Soviet republics (Russian Federation, Ukraine, Khazakstan, and Belarus), following an attempted but unsuccessful Soviet coup by old guard members of the Communist Party leadership. Thus, it seems questionable that the experience generalises to a country like the USA. Further, the democratic secessions of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were carried out by populations which are not ethnically Russian and which have entirely different languages and cultures (and which had also variously had periods of national independence as well as political union with other European powers). Hence, the historical and social conditions operative in the Baltic states also fail to provide a relevant comparison for a secessionist scenario in the United States.
I doubt we will see the US fall apart but I would not be surprised to see the creation of "autonomous areas" so to speak with a large degree of internal self government. The residents would still be native born US citizens, they would still use SS, Medicare, the US Postal Service, serve in the US military, etc but would be more or less completely free of Washington DC on all but defense, citizenship, currency, and foreign affairs matters meaning they would have their own head of state/government, legislative body independent of the US Congress, and so forth (sort of like an Indian reservation).
I made a comment on why I thought the states breaking up would be a bad idea in another thread like a month back. So here's part of it if anyone cares.
"I think even a state like Cali would find life a lil harder without being part of the union, together we're all alot stronger then we could ever be separately.
Also It kinda scares me when I see people seriously talking about separation, we'd all just fall under foreign spheres of influence, the fighting between states would keep anyone from prospering, the world economy would go down with the U.S.'s until it could reorganize leaving alotta other countries in turmoil, countries the U.S. keeps in check would strike at others and us. Like it or not, the U.S. is really important to the rest of the world (right now) in economy and security. I'm not saying that's good or bad, just, Balkanization in the U.S. wouldn't be good for anyone."
To the person who said that the two "main" views in this country are irreconcilable and made it sound like the inevitable result was war, I think you're a lil off.
Yes, we do have two very different main ideologies basically running the show, but can you name one country where there isn't more than views about how it should be run, or one where everyone all agrees on one way to go? That's the way country's run and exist normally, you'll never achieve homogeneity of thought even if this country literally split into two camps. Each new country would find the same problems as the old sooner rather than later.
In alotta countries people don't just vote one or two parties into power like here but several who more or less all have to share. Whereas here in our democracy, if you can call it that, it's basically a two way shot/system representing two ideologies but basically the same two parties who have the most power and who tend to more or less "ruin" things as much as the other. Nevertheless, if other countries' ruling bodies can and have been sharing power for a very long time, why can't we, why is it impossible for us?
And if you really think half the country thinks one way wholeheartedly, and one the other, you're fooling yourself. You're really really underestimating all the independent and varying views in this country as diverse as it's people who I doubt would be so quick to side with either extreme end you seem to think everyone adheres to. There's a huge range of views in between just the "two". The people who see everything so black and white are the same people who comment on a news story about a dog show and manage to turn it into con vs lib debate because they literally see everything in only that way, and yes I do know lottsa people like that. The fact that our two most powerful parties hold the spotlight isn't a surprise, but they don't represent the will of every American, even between the two of em.
Which brings me to my last point, if there was some mass uprising and new civil war, I doubt it'd be the straight along party lines war people seem to imagine. It would be an absolute mess, every group with any agenda would rise up and strike at every other while they had this rare "chance" to try and break free and do things their way.
Imagine a republican and democrat army forming, then the republican army tries to march through Mississippi and claim it as their territory and the democrat army tries to claim New Hampshire or maybe Michigan. But then what if the residents of Mississippi or New Hampshire or Michigan don't care they were part of your party, they want you off their land because it's their state and fight instead of join you. Maybe a state even "part of" one political army doesn't want a war and opposes both, maybe all the Spanish speaking people in the Southwest decide it's time to take it back, the Native Americans want their own free nation, white supremacists of the Northwest seize what they think is their chance, some states want to split from others, other nations finally have a chance to pin us down under their thumbs. It would be one giant bloody disaster and I don't think we'd ever recover. Well, that's how I see it.
Long story short, splitting up is in no-ones best interest.
I think the USA is falling apart in front of our eyes with each passing year. If it doesn't get its act together in the next few years I dread the inevitable. I think people are in complete denial of what a mess this country is really in. It does not get along from region to region. The divide between rich and poor is huge from region to region. These differences greatly effect our elections and our ways of life. Many of our politicians do not get along with each other, and basically are not capable of running this country and many of its states. We have a country so overun by people that are not even legally in it, and many US citizens and politicians are ok with that. I'm no longer sure about the health of our military many problems there. We are in a constant state of war it never ends. We can't continue using the same service members on tours over and over. We have run our economy into the toilet, and in all honesty we saw it coming and did little or to late. We are in huge debt and much of it is owned to China. We have an oil spill in the gulf now for several months, and it is still leaking out oil by the thousands each day. I can just imagine the devastation we will see from this spill for decades. Was there even a plan in place in all these years for such a horrible accident. A plan as what to do and that it had to be done quickly. Evidently not. Maybe the gulf coast states should have prepared for such a disaster on their own.
I think it would be better if the USA broke up into regions that are more likeminded and civil to one another. If the regions became financially independent of the USA then why not. It would make things a whole lot easier and a much more stable and humane society. I personally think the Southern USA would be better off on its own and alot happier. I also think California as well as Texas and Arizona especially show signs they have had it. I know Oregon should have been told to hook up with another country decades ago. The country is not working in its current state, if it continues in this self destructive manner it will falter. It will be overtaken by China in the decades to come. That is if we survive a few more decades. When so many in this country would even think of picking a character like Sarah Palin. Then that speaks volumes and we all know whats on her mind for the next election. We need to fix the country or it will fix us or go its separate ways just like a bad marriage. So fix it and start pulling together and be one nation as it was designed for or break apart. I think our forefathers would be disgusted with the current state and conditions of the USA, and would probably say they had no intention of the USA being the size it became.
I can't give the USA a timelimit as to how long it will last but is it really together now.
One thing to consider is that if a state truly wants to exercise more autonomy from the feds, the first thing it will have to do is to raise tax rates within its own borders -- either that or sink into increasing obsolescence and poverty. For example, if you don't want to take various federal monies for highways and education so that you can be free to more completely control your own policies in regard to those spheres, then you will have to raise taxes within the state (regardless whether at state or more local level, and regardless of whether you call it a tax, a toll, or a fee) if you want to maintain quality infrastructure and services. States and localities can, of course, also issue bonds, but those have to be sufficiently attractive in order to sell the debt involved and the state or locality has to be able to keep up on payments of both principal and interest to its debt-/bond-holders. It just isn't practical; you will either end up with very high and uncompetitive tax rates within such states, driving people away and thus drying up revenue further, or you will have such bad services and infrastructure that most people don't want to live there and businesses don't want to be located there, leading to a downward spiral into poverty and impotence. Further, if a state were really to become independent or quasi-independent, it would have to raise its own military or enhanced policing forces (states like Texas and California would surely have to have bona fide military forces), representing a very big expense. The fact is: you can't run a government without taxes and without incurring the burdens of bond issues and international sovereign debt. Most people wouldn't like being citizens of independent or quasi-independent individual states than they would being citizens of the United States, and in most instances would find it far more frustrating.
In reference to another poster's contention that the "forefathers" would be disgusted by the size that the US has attained, it should be noted that the US has been expansionist since its inception. One of the causes of the Revolution was the British prohibtion against colonial settlement west of the Appalachian mountain ranges, since the British were trying to keep the peace with their Indian allies who had been instrumental in British victory in the North American theatre of the Seven Years War (what Americans typically call the French and Indian War -- both France and Britain had alliances with different tribes). The Treaty of Paris which formally ended the hostilities between Britain and the newly independent former-colonies granted to the United States all the lands that then made up the "Northwest Territory" (now viewed as the eastern part of the Midwest, starting with Ohio) as well as southern lands on the other side of the Appalachians, as far as the Mississippi River. As soon as Jefferson got the opportunity to buy the vast Louisiana Territory from Napoleon, he did so (arguably unconstitutionally), making the USA in 1803 already a continental nation stretching from Atlantic to Pacific. During the early years of the Republic there was a completely open immigration policy. Racialist immigration restrictions were instituted in the late 19th Century, but crumbled within a few decades. The USA has in general always wanted more territory and more population, encouraging immigration. The trend against this expansionism has never managed to take definitive control of policy and while perhaps winning a few tactical battles, has never changed the strategic direction of America as a land of constantly evolving demographics based on immigration, gradual assimilation and growing equal opportunity for all ethnicities. This isn't something new; it's been an intrinsic aspect of America since pre-Revolutionary War times, pre-dates the Constitution of 1786, and was advanced by the earliest political figures in the country, including Thomas Jefferson.
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