what would it look like if the country split into two?

MB doesn't seem to believe in minority rights, Not surprised. I'm happy there is only one of him.

They have the right to work. They have a right to take advantage of a free mandatory education. They are offered many opportunities during their life to make themselves useful and successful. Most do not take advantage of these benefits.

Now what are the "rights" to which you are referring?

jmc wrote: MB doesn't seem to believe in minority rights, Not surprised. I'm happy there is only one of him.

Who is the minority today?

hey PS, thanks for your post and thought about how/if it could work. I don't how the populations could be relocated east/west. It would seem, on the surface anyway, that where most of the populations already in place would stay put. If each state could do whatever it wanted without regard to the others, then wouldn't it be more like 50 countries without a central government? how would that work?

I find it interesting the comments about the liberal east....when it comes to rural areas, of which I have lived from coast to coast....I find that what in Park County one would call a Conservative, feels more liberal than a NH Liberal.

Perhaps the Cities are the same everywhere, many paid by the public dime...but I have to say, the walk is not walked around here, Park County is the most regulated and liberal rural area I have ever lived, where conservatives constantly argue why I need building inspections in my home and they need my money to send their kids to school, no thanks even implied. Most cannot even imagine a world without zoning, yet the zoning allows the govt to decide your values and your local economy...and force you into employment vs. business.

Get real people, imagine all you want, you are stuck in a ratchet and it only advances in one direction. You ain't forcing Liberals out of Park County any faster than we emulate everything they stand for. Didn't they report a ground breaking on a 30 mil school (that will cost 60 mil to pay back) for just a few dozen kids (and as a MARKETING TOOL for the community) and take away horse ownership rights in the last issue of the flume alone. When people come up here generally don't have kids and come for a place to raise their animals. And even the paper reports the truth, like the BOCC will tell you, someone complained...now your previous rights can no longer apply, we need more rules...all by "Conservatives".

Perhaps the Conservative or Liberal talk is really the problem. "Conservatives" that don't want me to have the right to vote for who I want, or be able to get an abortion, or think that I should be Christian. "Liberals" that want to redistribute income, property and effort till the end of time. Just about everyone finding every reason they can so that we can lock up more of our fellow citizens than any other country...Perhaps it is time to talk about the two parts of the country...the one part that believes in freedom and the other part that doesn't....the problems is that there are only 8 of us over here so I guess, freedom is just a past concept, the country is already yours....enjoy the rules.

jmc wrote: The one thing I learned in business is that you don't cling to the past, you adjust to the changes. Dustbin of history is still true.

And that was precisely the point of the post. A return to the single entity style of governance, which has routinely placed the nations which practiced it in the dustbin of history, is a failure to adjust and clinging to one that has continually failed in the past throughout the entire written history of our species. Allowing a single entity to control all power of governance is precisely what you are warning against - a clinging to a past form of governance that has systemically failed over and over and over again and will eventually fail here as well. Its ultimate failure is not in question - the past is prelude - the only unanswered question is when, and how, it will ultimately fail.

Wily Fox aka Angela wrote: hey PS, thanks for your post and thought about how/if it could work. I don't how the populations could be relocated east/west. It would seem, on the surface anyway, that where most of the populations already in place would stay put. If each state could do whatever it wanted without regard to the others, then wouldn't it be more like 50 countries without a central government? how would that work?

The way it was intended to work. The sovereign states can't do what they want in total disregard for their fellow states Wily. It isn't all or nothing.

The central government does have a role in keeping the rivers that flow from Colorado and into other states clean when it leaves Colorado. It does have a role in protecting the value of the shared currency that all the member states use. It does have a role in providing a shared means by which the member states have their freedom and liberty protected from outside forces - both international and domestic. It does have a role in ensuring that one state does not protect its own commerce at the expense of the commerce of another state. It does have a role in making sure one state does not embroil all of the others in a military or commercial conflict with other nations of the world.

That said, you and I are first and foremost citizens of the separate, independent and sovereign state of Colorado. Perhaps by birth, perhaps by choice, but we are citizens of Colorado. I am not a citizen of New York, or California, anymore than I am a citizen of Great Britain or Libya. I may become a citizen of NY or CA simply by choosing to migrate there since they are also member states within the union, but I am not a citizen of those states. The individual welfare of the people in NY or CA is no more my concern than the individual welfare of the people of Great Britain or Libya is. I am, and should be, much more concerned about the welfare of my family, my immediate neighbors and my fellow citizens of Colorado than I am about the welfare of a Floridian, or a Texan. My only obligation to the citizens of another state is to help protect their liberty. I am not obligated to help them educate their children. I am not obligated to seeing that they are fed, sheltered and clothed. That responsibility lies with them and with the government of that state. I can choose to help them, just as I can choose to help shelter, feed, clothe and educate the people of Zimbabwe, but I am not obligated to do so in either case.

Colorado is a separate, independent and sovereign state. The Constitution of Colorado is quite clear on that point. It has only ceded some of that sovereignty, not all of it, to the general government by joining the compact outlined in the Constitution. Colorado is not to the United States what Park County is to Colorado. That isn't the situation created by the Constitution. The sovereignty of Colorado lies mostly outside the sovereignty of the United States, not wholly within it. If it were wholly within the United States then Colorado would, for all intents and purposes, be to the United States what the colonies were to Great Britain before we separated ourselves from the crown and declared that the states were, and ought to be, free and independent states.

Had Colorado not joined the union of states, it would have the ability to issue its own currency, declare its own wars, levy its own tariffs on imports and exports, negotiate its own treaties. Jefferson had it right. Which of the states would have ratified the Constitution and joined the union if it had entailed ceding all of its sovereignty to a new central government and become simply the possessions of a new government instead of possessions of the British government? None of them would have done that, there would be no United States if that had been the intention and the purpose of the Constitution. If that was not the intent and purpose, then how can it be constitutional for the federated government to assume that role short of a direct amendment to that document that allows it to do so?

PrintSmith wrote: East and West of the Mississippi River. If you want a central government, you migrate east of the Mississippi. If you want a republic with sovereign states, migrate West. The republican union of independent states keep Minnesota and Iowa and the single state folks retain Indiana and Florida. Both would then have access to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico for commerce.

However, I don't think such drastic measures will become necessary in the wake of the collapse of the union. The utter failure of the march towards a single central and all powerful government will result in a resurgence of the original intent of the Constitution to provide for a central authority with regards to foreign relations and strong sovereign governments among the states. It is too bad that we will have to learn the lessons of Rome for ourselves, but since, unlike those that wrote the Constitution, we seem to want to disregard the lessons of history and try yet again what has always resulted in the fall of what were once great nations, I guess we will have the opportunity to experience that fall ourselves. When the nation crumbles, as Rome did, because a single government proves utterly incapable of governing such a vast and diverse area, we will naturally return to the republican tack that Jefferson charted - hopefully never to return to the current one.

Jefferson warned of what consolidation of governance would bring to the republic. It is there for anyone who wishes to do so to read and reflect upon. To compare his warnings with where we are today and become familiar with just how intelligent and wise the author of our Declaration of Independence was and how well he understood why this people needed a different form, a path that would not lead to that same destructive destination.

In a letter to Associate Justice Johnson dated June 12, 1823, Jefferson had this to say:

I have stated above, that the original objects of federalists were, 1st, to warp our government more to the form and principles of monarchy, and, 2d, to weaken the barriers of the State governments as coordinate powers. In the first they have been so completely foiled by the universal spirit of the nation, that they have abandoned the enterprise, shrunk from the odium of their old appellation, taken to themselves a participation in ours, and under the pseudo-republican mask, are now aiming at their second object, and strengthened by unsuspecting or apostate recruits from our ranks, are advancing fast towards an ascendancy. I have been blamed for saying, that a prevalence of the doctrines of consolidation would one day call for a reformation or revolution. I have answered by asking if a single State of the Union would have agreed to the constitution, had it given all powers to the General Government? If the whole opposition to it did not proceed from the jealousy and fear of every State, of being subjected to the other States in matters merely its own? And if there is any reason to believe the States more disposed now than then, to acquiesce in this general surrender of all their rights and powers to a consolidated government, one and undivided?

In the same letter, a bit further on:

I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market.

Or the December 26, 1825 letter to William Giles:

I see, as do you, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved to them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic..........Under the authority to establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the construction of roads, of digging canals and aided by a little sophistry on the words "general welfare", a right to do, not only the acts to effect that, which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think, or pretend will be for the general welfare. And what is our resource for the preservation of the constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views of the government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient voting together to out-number the sound parts; and with majorities only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance. Are we then to stand to arms with the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until much longer and greater sufferings. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of the Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation. But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to note every material usurpation of their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.

The reason we have arrived at our current place is that we have ignored the wisdom of Jefferson and continued to consolidate power within the federated government. One government can't govern this vast and diverse people. It couldn't do it when the nation contained 3 million people, and it certainly can't do it with over 300 million. We need to return to the States the sovereignty that has been usurped from them in domestic affairs and limit the role of the general government to only that which involves only the general welfare of the union established by the compact that they entered into. The welfare of the union is not served in the accumulation of massive debt to address the individual welfare of each and every citizen in each and every state. That much should be obvious to all, regardless of political persuasion.

Our only hope of avoiding the fate of Rome resides in treating the federated government as a subset of all of the individual sovereign States rather than continuing to treat the separate, individual and sovereign states as merely subsets residing entirely with the larger whole general government.

Very well said.