There’s no constitutional mechanism by which Congress can dissolve the United States on its own, so they’d have to amend the Constitution first.
southern California would use its massive population to provide an occupying force for all the mountains and valleys needed for its water supply.
It would be an abrogation of the constitution, of course it has no mechanism for that. If the government resolves to close up shop, and everybody in it packs up and goes home, the constitutionality of such a move is kind of irrelevant.
I can’t see how this question can have any real answer. A “rather-bad-thing” is followed by “another thing”, then some “unfortunate (or malicious) events”. Then the U.S. dissolves. Then what happens?
The answer could be anything from “the zombies eat us all” to “the division of the country into a patchwork of local sovereignties facilitates the harsh but necessary quarantine policies which finally halt the spread of the Hyper-Measles–the country does revert to pre-industrial Dark Ages feudalism, but almost 10% of the population survives, which is more than you can say for Eurasia” to “the Galactic Federation assigns each newly-sovereign American state as the ‘sphere of influence’ of a different Galactic Power–not too bad for the people who wind up under the benevolent protection of the Pleiadeans (unless you really don’t like yodeling), kinda unpleasant for the residents of whichever state is assigned to the Greys (report for your weekly anal probing, citizen!); and horrifyingly bad for the people in the Reptiloid sphere of influence (although I suppose a few people might find the Fattening Pens to be a dream come true)”.
Your sig line goes especially well with that closing remark about the Fattening Pens. Well played Sir
The initial problems – very major problems – would be financial. What happens to U.S. Treasury debt? Even if an agreement could be worked out to share the debt-load, some states would default. Funding obligations like SocSec benefits would become a hot-potato. Would the separate states agree to a single central bank as the Euro Zone has done, or would different states print their own money? Even with a single currency, world confidence in the dollar would plummet; interest rates, unemployment and, probably inflation, would all rise.
What do recent precedents show? Because Russia retained the lion’s share of U.S.S.R. assets and debts, that breakup was very managable. The Czech-Slovakia split was an amicable split between two more-or-less-equal debt-free nations, so posed little problem. The Yugoslavia breakup may be the best recent example; I don’t think it went well. The best chance would be if a coalition of responsible and prosperous (mostly “blue”) states took a dominant role, assuming the national debt and control of the central bank, etc. and subsidizing the weaker states – (not unlike the status quo, in other words).
Essentially the entire worlds economic system collapses and we all go back to the joys of hunting and gathering. Consider Greece. It’s a pretty small time nation. Yet it’s potential collapse and possible exit from the EZ/EU has had much of the EU on the verge of, at a minimum a major disruption. Now, think about if it had been France or Germany…how much worse would that be? Now consider if the US went down in a manner you describe. It would be almost incomprehensibly bad across the globe.
I’m sure there are already folks firing up their browsers to slam back with some version of ‘No way! The US just isn’t that important!’, but, like I said, consider the ripple effect of just a few relatively minor nations in Europe having issues then consider how intertwined the US and our economy and debt is with that of the rest of the world. I figure that if Germany went down the world MIGHT survive (same with France)…but the US? I don’t see how.
So, welcome to the apocalypse! What WE do in the collapse is probably something akin to a total meltdown, since something massive enough to take us out is going to probably going to have a major negative effect across the globe, even leaving aside the effect of a complete US economic collapse such that we’d dissolve the union and all go our separate ways, especially in the time frame the OP is giving. So long and thanks for all the fish and keep your booties on, campers…it’s COLD outside…
Anyone who brings a gallon of gasoline gets to butt fuck the sad boy.
States with arable land and water will succeed. I would not want to be be within 250 miles of almost any metropolitan area east of the 100th Meridian.
True. The problem the Confederate states had was that there was a still functioning United States in existence to enforce the Constitution. But if all fifty states abandoned the United States, the Constitution would become a moot document.
You wouldn’t necessarily even need all fifty to leave. If the forty smallest states (in population…or in economic productivity) left – or if the ten biggest – left in a huff, the remnant would have a hell of a time trying to maintain the fiction of a national government.
They might go through the motions – the Roman Senate was holding sessions as late as 600 A.D. But it wouldn’t be very convincing.