Comments: Is it possible for the United States to break up, either de facto or formally?
Fred left out Texas, for some reason. I will ask him.
Posted by DonRodrigo at March 30, 2015 11:59 AM
The breakdown won't be state by state. Instead it will come when people stop caring about their government.
They won't care because they will feel government has just become a big ripoff, arrogant and indifferent to anything but its own powers. Anything government says will be regarded both as a self-serving lie and crafted propaganda; probably correctly.
Gradually nothing will work, commerce will be unable to function, infrastructure will not be maintained. Because no one will think his own works benefits himself or family.
Each will see it as forced labor which only rewards the government and an aristocracy of cronies (and government employees).
Posted by Ken at March 30, 2015 12:55 PM
What Ken said is happening right now in little pockets all over the place. People refusing to settle for gov't cast-offs and instead are taking matters into their own hands. The harsh winter has opened 2 large potholes in our road not far from our house and I'm not going to wait for the expensive, fraudulent lazy asses to deal with it. Next month I'm going to Earth Auger the holes to a reasonable depth, shop vac the debris, then back fill with #4000 Sakrete. Our tribe has a whole list of issues we are working on.
"Freedom - It starts with you."
--gs, 2099
Posted by ghostsniper at March 30, 2015 2:10 PM
gs: All I am certain about is that I will be at least partly wrong about the future. But for the US I do expect a feudalization of concerns on a much finer scale that a US state or even a county.
i.e. What people can't see confirmed from their front porch won't be believed despite any efforts of government or media to proclaim it.
The law and government will be regarded as merely an organization with weapons that hurts various people at various times for no particular reason. And also seizes whatever it wants by a process called taxation.
At a given spot the government will descent like bandits, behave like bandits, and then depart until some event again draws its attention.
Posted by Ken at March 30, 2015 3:01 PM
Remember this:
“The people in power will not disappear voluntarily.” Burroughs
Even the good ones will be bad.
Posted by chasmatic at March 30, 2015 7:05 PM
If you patch a pothole in a public road, you violate several laws. If you in a severe snowstorm, when the towns are unable to cope, drop your plow blade on a public road, you're in violation of the V&T laws.
As the Government falls apart, they will become more protective of their fiefdom. Like a mental defective losing control of their surroundings, they grasp at just about anything in an attempt to hold that appearance of normality.
The terminus of a corrupted system arrives in this fashion.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at March 31, 2015 9:30 AM
....you violate several laws.
=============
LOL
As if.....
In 2002 I repaved 800' of "city owned" street in front of our Florida house out of my own pocket. That was after I cleaned up tons of decades old debris. (This was in an area where people hadn't lived since the 1100's when the calusa indians lived there, and the place had been basically relegated by the state to the whims of the masses - until I bought it and built our McMansion there.)
See, I just don't care about laws, I care about lives, starting with mine.
Posted by ghostsniper at March 31, 2015 12:47 PM