#[0] I was disappointed by Angela McArdle’s defense of “national divorce.” Like many in the Mises caucus, she has a tendency to view issues through a culture war lens (and progressives are always the bad guys). Nonetheless, I think it’s an open question whether larger or smaller polities best protect liberty. In the case of the United States, I wouldn’t say the Constitution does *nothing*, but clearly it isn’t enforcing itself and Americans are tolerating ever more egregious rationalizations for violating it. I don’t expect the Supreme Court to resist for much longer. Perhaps we would be freer with smaller (even overlapping) governments competing for Americans.
Discussion
Agreed that it’s an open question. But like I say in my argument, I don’t know that national divorce is the only way to get closer to what you’re proposing and has greater likely downsides than upsides at this moment. Calculus could alter if something dramatically changes, ie, Dems packing SCOTUS.
I take it “national divorce” means something more specific than breaking up the United States into smaller, independent governments. Something like splitting the United States into just two countries, progressive and non-progressive?