Secessionists In The Wall Street Journal

From the Wall Street Journal, Jack Molloy

There’s a good round up by Paul Starobin in the WSJ of the various secession movements around the U.S. Some of these movements–like those in Alaska, Texas and Vermont–focus on state lines, but it’s interesting to see that the idea of the city-state also enters the into mix, as well as the idea of the “mega-region.”  The nut: 

Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition—a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future. Consider this proposition: America of the 21st century, propelled by currents of modernity that tend to favor the little over the big, may trace a long circle back to the original small-government ideas of the American experiment. The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale—too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America’s early days. The society may find blessed new life, as paradoxical as this may sound, in a return to a smaller form.

I wish I could be as optimistic as Starobin. Things do fall apart, but the center often holds. The article doesn’t acknowledge the centripetal forces pushing untold millions of people into the patronage of the USG. Tea-parties today, I say, but more Labor Day celebrations tomorrow. That’s my bet. As the government increases the pie that is the federal budget, more and more coalitions will form to claim their piece of it. They will be small in number, relative to those who will carry the burden, but they will be well-organized and highly motivated. The budget will become a veritable scrum over who can plunder whom.  And so with time these distributional coalitions shall accumulate. The race will not go to swiftest, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to ability. Nay, I say unto you, it will go to the followers of the One-Party. One-party state sclerosis shall set in.  Stagnation will ensue. And Starobin’s hoped for devolution will grow less and less likely, as the best and the brightest increasingly stake their careers on the chance to suck on one of the 350 million teats that is the USG. 

Still, it’s nice to see the topic of secession broached in the WSJ.