A new bid to place a measure on the ballot that would ask California voters to approve the state's secession from the U.S. has been cleared for signature gathering.
If political ideologies were geography bound that would make great sense. Break it up, let the pieces govern themselves. But the problem is not everyone living in a red state is a Republican or maga fetishist and not everyone living in a blue state is a democrat or liberal.
Cities are usually liberal, rural is usually conservative. I’d personally advocate for an expanded, air tight bill of rights with a federal government capable and willing to enforce it and all remaining decisions and rules be set by the local community, either city or county. Abolish state governments and reform them into regional managers that upkeep shared resources like roads, but with no legislative power.
I live in the EU, there are some good things but also ineffeciencies living in a confederation style government. To be fair, while consumer and labour protection in the EU has been amazing, we have to admit that there is almost no innovation in R&D going on in Europe as a whole compared to the US. Aside from strict regulations, this is because there is no single rule on how to promote R&D. Each countries have their own rules and promotions. Some states are innovators like Germany, or has no R&D at all like Ireland.
Another weakness that the EU has is on production and defense. As you rightly pointed out, Russia wants the West to fragment, and Russia wants the EU to remain chaotic when it comes to military production and have a disunited, if not an incoherent, European army. But external influence is not even the main issue, the main issue is that many EU countries are neutral like Ireland and Austria, who are not part of NATO. I don’t know about Austria but it’s very unpopular here in Ireland to join any military alliance and there is a negative image of NATO after the Iraq War. Finland and Sweden used to be anti-NATO until the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And with the legacy of the horrors of the Second World War, military production in Europe has been weak. Even though the EU has outstripped the US in terms of giving aid to Ukraine, much of these are non-military because European arms industries are struggling to produce. The US is still the primary military donor of Ukraine.
With different competing values and priorities, it’s challenging for the EU to remain confederate. A lot of people advocate for the EU to federalise for this reason.
I’m austrian, we literally can’t join any military organisation, because our constitution says so, also it’s very unpopular, the party that won the last election (FPÖ) is even against being in the eu, but most austrians like the eu, they don’t wanna join nato tho
EDIT: also the somewhat libertarian party (NEOS) got over 10% of the votes if I remember correctly, so please don’t take this country serios
Your point on R&D, while true, doesn’t consider the cost of the US R&D success. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about it creating the oligarchs we have now. I’m talking about how all that investment doesn’t go toward healthcare or generally improving the lives of the people. Personally, I think it is a bad trade.
Oh yeah, of course. That’s why I mentioned consumer and labour protection versus R&D. I understand if companies that make essential goods and services like pharma or vehicles might complain of regulations stifling innovations, but social media companies like Facebook or Twitter don’t provide anything essential to our daily lives and thus they don’t really require anymore innovation. Sure they provide communications, but there are many other social media and communications services out there who do not sell private data.
Nothing is perfect. I mean I’ve spent most my life living in the EU too. I just think it would work better than the current US system. But that’s my personal opinion.
Not unless you’re dealing with external threats and unreliable ally. Macron is right about having strategic autonomy and an EU army, as much as it pains me to say it because I dislike another heavily militarised Europe.
As an American, I’m growing more and more scared of my country, so from that perspective I’m all for a more militarized Europe to keep the US in check if only for the next decade or two.
That’s what the Articles of Confederation were, and they were a disaster that only managed to keep the union alive for 8 years because people could hold their nose until the Constitution was ratified.
… odd choice for a term … Nobody in the EU would define themselves by it …
Well, trying to use terms to justify the US confederacy post-Civil War aside, it would actually be better for a lot of states. The rest of the world can no longer trust and increasingly bipolar schizophrenic US, whereas that’s not the case for a certain number of states. You can’t overcome the deeply flawed and corrupt two party federal system, and it’s rapidly becoming even worse. If you can’t fix the problems from within, you will only be able to fix them from outside.
Honestly at this point I feel the US would do great by splitting and becoming a confederation (think EU styles autonomy).
I think the differences are just too big to have a functioning state.
I also understand that the push towards these movements is often done by Russian propaganda, who want to do anything to split up the US and NATO.
If political ideologies were geography bound that would make great sense. Break it up, let the pieces govern themselves. But the problem is not everyone living in a red state is a Republican or maga fetishist and not everyone living in a blue state is a democrat or liberal.
Cities are usually liberal, rural is usually conservative. I’d personally advocate for an expanded, air tight bill of rights with a federal government capable and willing to enforce it and all remaining decisions and rules be set by the local community, either city or county. Abolish state governments and reform them into regional managers that upkeep shared resources like roads, but with no legislative power.
I live in the EU, there are some good things but also ineffeciencies living in a confederation style government. To be fair, while consumer and labour protection in the EU has been amazing, we have to admit that there is almost no innovation in R&D going on in Europe as a whole compared to the US. Aside from strict regulations, this is because there is no single rule on how to promote R&D. Each countries have their own rules and promotions. Some states are innovators like Germany, or has no R&D at all like Ireland.
Another weakness that the EU has is on production and defense. As you rightly pointed out, Russia wants the West to fragment, and Russia wants the EU to remain chaotic when it comes to military production and have a disunited, if not an incoherent, European army. But external influence is not even the main issue, the main issue is that many EU countries are neutral like Ireland and Austria, who are not part of NATO. I don’t know about Austria but it’s very unpopular here in Ireland to join any military alliance and there is a negative image of NATO after the Iraq War. Finland and Sweden used to be anti-NATO until the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And with the legacy of the horrors of the Second World War, military production in Europe has been weak. Even though the EU has outstripped the US in terms of giving aid to Ukraine, much of these are non-military because European arms industries are struggling to produce. The US is still the primary military donor of Ukraine.
With different competing values and priorities, it’s challenging for the EU to remain confederate. A lot of people advocate for the EU to federalise for this reason.
I’m austrian, we literally can’t join any military organisation, because our constitution says so, also it’s very unpopular, the party that won the last election (FPÖ) is even against being in the eu, but most austrians like the eu, they don’t wanna join nato tho
EDIT: also the somewhat libertarian party (NEOS) got over 10% of the votes if I remember correctly, so please don’t take this country serios
Your point on R&D, while true, doesn’t consider the cost of the US R&D success. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about it creating the oligarchs we have now. I’m talking about how all that investment doesn’t go toward healthcare or generally improving the lives of the people. Personally, I think it is a bad trade.
Oh yeah, of course. That’s why I mentioned consumer and labour protection versus R&D. I understand if companies that make essential goods and services like pharma or vehicles might complain of regulations stifling innovations, but social media companies like Facebook or Twitter don’t provide anything essential to our daily lives and thus they don’t really require anymore innovation. Sure they provide communications, but there are many other social media and communications services out there who do not sell private data.
Nothing is perfect. I mean I’ve spent most my life living in the EU too. I just think it would work better than the current US system. But that’s my personal opinion.
Not unless you’re dealing with external threats and unreliable ally. Macron is right about having strategic autonomy and an EU army, as much as it pains me to say it because I dislike another heavily militarised Europe.
As an American, I’m growing more and more scared of my country, so from that perspective I’m all for a more militarized Europe to keep the US in check if only for the next decade or two.
That’s what the Articles of Confederation were, and they were a disaster that only managed to keep the union alive for 8 years because people could hold their nose until the Constitution was ratified.
… odd choice for a term … Nobody in the EU would define themselves by it …
Well, trying to use terms to justify the US confederacy post-Civil War aside, it would actually be better for a lot of states. The rest of the world can no longer trust and increasingly bipolar schizophrenic US, whereas that’s not the case for a certain number of states. You can’t overcome the deeply flawed and corrupt two party federal system, and it’s rapidly becoming even worse. If you can’t fix the problems from within, you will only be able to fix them from outside.
But… it is a confederation. Is it not? Why wouldn’t they? Even Wikipedia mentions confederation in the first paragraph of the EU entry:
I know they’re not in the EU, but that’s exactly what the Helvetic Confederation (Switzerland) do.