Not sure, but it’s beside the point. I’m asking should secession be an option, not how it should be implemented.
The problem with a slippery slope argument is that it assumes people will willfully go down the slide. Just because the people in Texas, for example, might choose to secede and form a new country doesn’t mean the people in Nada (pop 165) are going to do the same. I think the majority of people are sensible enough to realize what would work as a country and what wouldn’t.
I don’t think you actually live in the country you think you do.
That’s how we got the state of West Virginia. Read Secession in the United States - Wikipedia. There are many such minor movements that currently exist. Of course they are considered cranks by most because after US Civil War I the issue was settled with finality.
Please do elaborate.
The EU isn’t a political entity. It’s an economic entity.
West Virginia seems to function as a state.
Wikipedia defines the EU as a politico-economic union. But it hardly seems worth derailing the thread to argue the nature of the EU.
It does function as a state but not as a nation state. But the mention of West Virginia was a rebuttal to the idea that people will be content to secede as pre-existing large political entities like US states.
Maybe I missed something, but I think Little Nemo’s point was it wouldn’t be in people’s best interest to split into ineffectively small units, so they would tend not to.
What would stop something like London or NYC from wanting to emulate Singapore?
Those countries did not split from the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a unity and left them dangling. There was never a secession. Yugoslavia was not a nation with a history – it was a group of states thrown together as a political expediency. Which, like the USSR, failed… Czechoslovakia, similar. Eritrea and South Sudan are still in a state of virtual war with their former landlords. East Timor seems to be working. I said there were very few examples, and you have borne me out by naming those very few.
Singapore functions as an effective nation. If NYC or London can do the same, I see no objection to their seceding.
Nitpick: Singapore didn’t so much secede from Malaysia, as it was kicked out. Voted ‘off the island’ Survivor style.
And West Virginia “seceded” from Virginia in 1861 and hasn’t split any further in all the decades since. This is evidence that refutes the idea that once splitting begins it proceeds ad infinitum.
The US military settled this question. How many carriers does NYC have?
The US military and courts have decided this question. You cannot split ad infinitum or at all really if a vastly superior military prevents it.
You seem to feel there is a binary split in this country. On one side are all the rural people, all the religious people, and all the conservatives. On the other side are all the urban people, all the secular people, and all the liberals.
I disagree with the idea that such a split exists. There are rural secular people and urban religious people; there are rural liberals and urban conservatives; and there are religious liberals and secular conservatives. And all these groups are mixed together geographically.
Even if you were able to find the split line on any of these issues, you wouldn’t necessarily be improving things by dividing the country along it. Ironically, often times the further out on a spectrum people are, the less likely they are to get along with other people at the same end of the same spectrum. Look at religion - the more devout somebody is in the belief that their own faith is the right one, the less likely they are to be tolerant of devout believers in another faith. The same is true about politics. Often times they only thing that keeps people united is their shared opposition to the people on the other end of the spectrum. Remove that end of the spectrum, and the people on the remaining end will turn on each other.
Yeah, the Union won the Civil War. But that’s not the topic of discussion. I’m not asking if states can succeed. The answer to that is clear and indisputable. I’m asking should they or any other political entity be able to.
How many does Singapore have?
That’s a different topic. In fact, I think there’s a current thread on the issue of whether secession is a legal possibility (short answer: no, in this country). This thread is debating the topic of whether secession should be a legal possibility.
The US military was involved in establishing Singapore as an independent state? Did I miss something? 