US Balkanisation - Is it time?

[Point Blob]

If we don’t have police or prisons, and this is a genuine question, how do we stop murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, domestic abusers, kidnappers, politicians, and other violent criminals from doing what they want. Every society has had some form of law enforcement.

Funny you phrase that as stopping people doing what they want.
It isn't like most criminals want to go that way. I'm sure they'd love to live pleasant, law-abiding lives... but generally they're not given any choice to do so. Because the greater context society doesn't provide them with the necessary opportunities to even survive a reasonable life. Putting aside exceptions, since there are always exceptions.

Obviously the ideal solution would be making it so they have no incentive nor need to do such things... but "ideal" in this case sadly means it is completely implausible.

Thing is... punishing them for doing it doesn't work either. Nothing realistic actually works. You get tons of people in one place, violent crime is an inevitability. More people = more problems.

So what are the police and prisons for?
Putting on a show, of course. They exist so the government can pretend nothing is wrong and that the huge clusterfuck is completely under control.... and maybe try to coerce people into behaving lawfully through threat of being permanently exiled to the naughty-box.

[Primitive Communism]

In my ideal world, there would be a violent global revolution which would end the imperial blocs of the world (including China, Russia and the EU).

My apologies. I admit I may have jumped the gun; it seems we're roughly on the same page, although I'm perhaps a bit less patient about it.

the complete destruction of the US without the simultaneous destruction of other empires (as you seem to be suggesting) will not end capitalism/imperialism, but merely strengthen the world's other empires, especially since capitalism has globalized - if you think that the EU, Russia and China wouldn't all immediately annex US overseas possessions and military bases, or the newly-balkanized entities which previously constituted the American state while also making sure to preserve and steal as much of its military hardware and schematics as possible for their own nefarious uses, then you're a fool; the scenario I just described isn't going to do anyone any good in the long run, as it merely kicks the can of capitalism/imperialism down the road.

I think you're overestimating the power of these other states, none of which can fill the void left by the USA. For one thing the economic devastation from the loss of the single largest economy would be monumental and recovery from it is not going to be an easy matter. Even the wealthy states will chafe from this enormous disruption. Secondly you have to remember who the primary contenders to usurp global U.S. influence are: Brazil, the EU, China, Russia, India.

Brazil largely passed up their chance when they chose short-term economic gain through FIFA over the long-term benefits of a space program. The country has not been doing well since and there is a clear lack of vision in Brasilia that is preventing the country from becoming more than simply a regional power.

The EU is heavily dependent on America (no matter how much they might insist they aren't) in terms of economics, politics, and especially military. The last one is increasingly important as without America there really isn't a NATO and the EU will have to fill the void, something it can't realistically do at this stage. America's balance of military with economic power is why it's managed to stay on top for so long and a purely economic power without the force to protect it's investments is not going to have a strong grip on anything.

China's strengths are vastly overstated. In spite of being a major industrial center the Chinese economy has proven remarkably stagnant with no signs of serious growth coming. Domestic challenges to the Chinese state have also begun to increasingly manifest, and it's society is undergoing somewhat of a middle class revolution that it's economy simply isn't set up to cater to. China is attempting to distract from this by once again stoking the fires on Taiwan (which they do every time they face internal unrest) which they are unlikely to actually do anything about but largely seems to be a paper tiger otherwise.

Russia, meanwhile, has demonstrated that it is in fact a paper bear. It hedged it's bets on a quick offensive in Ukraine that blew up in it's face and the Kremlin is going to be reeling from it. Even if they do win, which is astronomically unlikely as it stands, there is a distinct loss of prestige they can't recover from and the rebuilding efforts alone would be far too taxing on their already glass economy. They can't even keep Azerbaijan from invading Armenia right now, and Azerbaijan knows it.

India remains the tinderbox it always has been with long-standing social issues that have largely been ignored by an ultranationalist government, which will only weaken and further divide the country moving forward. Like most of the countries on this list it's suffering from internal turmoil that makes it difficult to project overseas power. There comes a point when foreign ventures no longer work in distracting the population from their own troubles at home, as the U.S. has had to discover rather harshly.

And for as much as it may hurt leftists to admit this: allowing China (because they are going to be the imperial successor if the US is robbed of its state/military power) to become the global hegemon will be even worse for humanity than US dominance; 4,000 years of Chinese history back this notion up.

Not that I disagree, but using "Chinese history" as crux to suggest that modern China would be a terrible global hegemon is more than a little bit racist. The Chinese state of today may romanticize the Chinese state of 4,000 years ago but neither are particularly recognizable to one another; they are equally alien in design and function. The nationalist delusion that China has existed for over 4,000 years is absurd; the only connection between the Han Dynasty (or any subsequent dynasty) and the PRC is a vague continuation of ethnocultural traditions and rough geographic area. As polity the modern country of China is a distinct entity but can't really claim kinship in terms of politics with any preceding "Chinese state" save for maybe the Republic of China - and that's being generous.

So unless you can think of a practical way to end all of the world's empires simultaneously (and which as such, doesn't involve the participation of literally all of humanity), anything which significantly weakens capitalism in the US (or which ends it without abolishing the commodity form) while ending the country's tendency towards fascism, is a step in the right direction, whether you want to admit that or not. The things I outlined as starting points in my previous post's list are merely the ways American capitalism can be weakened (or ended without de-commodification) which are the most practically viable in the immediate;

leftists don't have to make the choice between reform and revolution, as you seem to be doing. Reform can very much be a valuable tool in facilitating revolution where revolution was previously nonviable; even fucking Marx talked about transition states being necessary in facilitating revolution, and supported people like Lincoln, a liberal, winning out over forces like the CSA, because he recognized that even if it didn't immediately end capitalism, the expansion of rights within civil society and the end of chattel slavery would not only improve the lives of millions, but help to facilitate revolution in the long run (because if people can vote for a civil government and openly criticize its policies while also not worrying about starving, then they'll start thinking about how authoritarian/undemocratic capitalism is, and start calling for democratic worker control over the means of production). I don't understand how those who practice an ideology supposedly focused on improving material conditions and strategically planning for a revolution can be against actions which will exponentially improve the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people while also making people more likely to question capitalism.

Even Fred fucking Hampton recognized that the revolution he so desired wasn't viable in the immediate. That's why his focus while he was alive was on improving his community, and not trying to violently destroy the American state (a goal which, in the immediate, he called a "suicide mission" with "no glory") and why he called his party's programs instruments of "survival pending the revolution".

But immediate concern with reform is twofold:

One, it breeds complacency. We implement reform after reform and eventually life improves to the point where people start asking "Why go any further? Here is good enough." Then comes the reality that further change will upset the status quo, risking all they've gained, allowing cowardice to take hold. Conservatism rears it's ugly head and ingratiates itself into the populace. Change becomes dangerous and must be opposed. Even Leftism is not immune to this. The revolutionary spirit of 1917 ultimately died by the 1970s, and the USSR didn't make it to the end of the century. Similar incidences happened in other Marxist-Leninist states.

Two, the system itself will only allow so much reform. We live under a bourgeois democracy; the people have no real power outside of obstructing the system, a concept which Americans in general seem to totally abhor. The very thought of mere labor unions or striking sends some into a frothing rage or various forms of disgust. The elite will only give way to so much before they stamp their foot down and in America they don't need to take extralegal action to do so - we can see this in the status quo they've invented wherein two parties, roughly fighting for the same thing, are the only real option while the only candidates available are handpicked from among the elite by the elite and further bribed by corporate sponsorship to ensure their loyalty to capital. There isn't much option for improvement here. Whatever gets done via the system is permitted by those who control the system, and they aren't going to relinquish control peacefully. Reform might be possible in European states but in the U.S. it's far less realistic as an option than outright revolution. The American state is too entrenched to be uprooted through peaceful protests and electoralism.

this thread is specifically about political polarization, and these things will definitely reduce, if not completely eliminate polarization within the US without balkanizing it.

Polarization in America is largely a good thing, however. The resurgence of fascism in the US is not a random or spontaneous happenstance; this is the collective subconscious desire of the American public - as a consequence of American culture - making itself public. It is important expose the fascist nature of American culture so that it may be fought openly and publicly. American nationalism has long been held as a noble good in defense of peace, justice, equality, and liberty as "American values"; a lie which doesn't hold to history but which has ingrained itself into American self-conceptualization. We see these as American values when they are in fact counter to America's real values of imperialism, colonialism, prejudice, and genocide which fuel American nationalism and thus American fascism. The exposure of the fascist undercurrents of America's identity is necessary to foster anti-American sentiment, which is needed to dissolve the American Empire at a later point in time. If there is no hostility to Americanism then the stage is set for a faux patriotism built on historical negationism, which we've already seen fostered among Democratic voters, where the crimes of America's past are brushed over because "we're don't do that anymore / things are better now / they were a product of their time" or some-such.

Balkanization of the US is a terrible idea, as it will lead to the establishment of a great deal of fascist dictatorships who will no longer be constrained in their desire to violently spread their ideology;

I do generally agree, as my first post indicated. I am skeptical at best of balkanization as an approach to destabilizing America because it necessarily empowers the American fascist movement.

the first goal of any leftist should be the prevention of the spread of ideologies with no concept of the rule of law and/or free speech which seek to actively and violently end our own (i.e., monarchism, fascism, vanguardism, various forms of theocracy, etc.),

I understand what you're saying, and agree, but I would argue differently regarding the Rule of Law. The Rule of Law is an innately fascistic concept and inevitably gives way to the ideologies you're speaking of. The Rule of Law is not the actual rule of the law itself but rather the rule of the lawmakers. We see this today in America: the Supreme Court is indisputably the most powerful arm of the government, capable of distorting the Constitution's wording in whatever manner they so please so as to advance their own political agenda. The Republicans have realized this and are capitalizing on it. The only hindrance they are facing on this front is the deeply-seated legalism and constitutionalism of the Judicial Branch, but even that is slowly giving way to dogmatic fascist loyalty to the party which creates further precedent. The Rule of Law is simply the first stepping stone on the path to unquestionable centralized authority wherein the lawmakers have moved beyond constitutional justification and instead use tradition, theology, theory, or simply naked force to justify their laws. It's one of the many ways our contemporary system obscures it's barbarity with a veneer of civility.

especially since these groups, thanks to their preference for power consolidated within states/strict hierarchies regardless of fair representation, as well as their much greater willingness to mercilessly utilize force to dispatch those who threaten said hierarchies, have a much greater record of historical success than we do when given the opportunities to seize power;

I can't help but notice that your region's ideology proclaims to be in line with the Spartacist League and Kronstadt uprising, as well as Luxembourgism, libertarian socialism, and leftist anarchism (the ideology practiced by revolutionary Catalonia). While it is true that all of these movements were able to assert themselves through power vacuums created via the violent/spontaneous destruction of previous hierarchical states like you're advocating for with the US,

look at the common denominator between them: they were all brutally massacred because the chaos incurred in the spontaneous destruction of previous hierarchies failed to allow for the measured destruction of opposing ideologies with much greater propensities for violence, and which do not have any concepts of fairness or rights. And in the specific case of revolutionary Catalonia, they were brutally suppressed because their movement didn't take control of the entirety of Europe at once, which meant that the more organized and stable state forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were able to dispatch with them from the outside and hand over control of their territory to Franco.

You of all people should be aware, then, of how unlikely it is for any left-communist, anarcho-leftist, or libertarian socialist movement to succeed in the event of the unmeasured, spontaneous destruction of an imperialist entity without ensuring that all other imperialist entities are simultaneously destroyed.

If we want our ideology to succeed (because you and I, as it turns out, are not too ideologically different), we cannot continue to try what has already failed.

I do not disagree with this assessment at all, actually, and in fact rebuke the validity of spontaneous revolution as a viable means of implementing success. A revolution must be patient and strike when the time is right, not at the first protest-turned-riot.

However I must object to the suggestion that foreign nations would intervene in the event of a US break-up simply on the grounds that they lack the means. Not only do most of them lack the manpower to occupy former U.S. territory but all of them lack the means to transport said manpower + material and there is no guarantee they would find much if any collaboration in States, China least of all. Not to a significant degree at least. At best they may be able to secure port cities, and this is assuming they get involved at all. They will very likely be grappling with their own problems as the loss of the single largest economy threatens their own domestic security and creates conditions that spawn unrest at home. I think you overestimate how much the world would be able to "bounce back" without America.

[Stellar Colonies]

Balkanization would be immensely harmful to California, and it's probably one of the most self-sufficient states. The only reason we can boast about being one of the world's top economies is precisely because we're an integrated part of the United States, and ending that would end what we have.

It's a stupid idea which should be given no serious consideration.

[Point Blob]

Balkanization would be immensely harmful to California, and it's probably one of the most self-sufficient states. The only reason we can boast about being one of the world's top economies is precisely because we're an integrated part of the United States, and ending that would end what we have.

It's a stupid idea which should be given no serious consideration.

Pretty sure California, as an arbitrarily defined lump of rock and associated topology, lacks any sort of opinion on the subject... or any capacity for opinion, for that matter.
And "California" in terms of the collective of people that live there might be hurt. Wouldn't know. But that doesn't mean the individuals that make it up necessarily would be. Collective interests aren't necessarily the sum of individual interests. And most of the harm would probably be done to the collective identity rather than the constituent parts... which is probably a good thing.

Anyhow... humans in general would be better off if all the huge countries were dismantled. Too much authority consolidated in one place just leads to ever-increasing levels of tyranny and collectivist ideas like referring to a country as "we".

[Floofybit]

Too much authority consolidated in one place just leads to ever-increasing levels of tyranny and collectivist ideas like referring to a country as "we".

That's not necessarily a problem

[Picairn]

I think you're overestimating the power of these other states, none of which can fill the void left by the USA.

Empires have risen and fell throughout history, proclaiming in 476 AD that no one would be capable of repeating the Romans' imperial conquests in the future would get you proven wrong several times over. The destruction of the USA would cause a great depression in the world economy, that's true, but it would not be a permanent blocker to future human progress and expansion.

Assuming China eventually recovers from its economic depression and preserves its government, its naval power and economic influence will remain unchallenged in all of the Asia-Pacific, and potentially expands to Europe, Africa, and the Americas. With Europe losing its chief patron and hegemon, and its armies too weak to resist, the West would be powerless to stop China's encroachment.

At worst, if none of the great powers is able to replicate the US's success in the short term, then the world will gradually settle into something of a pre-WW1 "balance of power" global order, where imperialist states constantly compete for economic, military, and colonial power overseas. The logical endpoint of that order would be a World War to settle the disputes, and a new hegemon arises to replace the old Great Powers.

[Point Blob]

Too much authority consolidated in one place just leads to ever-increasing levels of tyranny and collectivist ideas like referring to a country as "we".

That's not necessarily a problem

Oh, it is absolutely a problem. Only a question of whose problem it is. Context is quite important.

[Stellar Colonies]

Balkanization would be immensely harmful to California, and it's probably one of the most self-sufficient states. The only reason we can boast about being one of the world's top economies is precisely because we're an integrated part of the United States, and ending that would end what we have.

It's a stupid idea which should be given no serious consideration.

Pretty sure California, as an arbitrarily defined lump of rock and associated topology, lacks any sort of opinion on the subject... or any capacity for opinion, for that matter.
And "California" in terms of the collective of people that live there might be hurt. Wouldn't know. But that doesn't mean the individuals that make it up necessarily would be. Collective interests aren't necessarily the sum of individual interests. And most of the harm would probably be done to the collective identity rather than the constituent parts... which is probably a good thing.

Anyhow... humans in general would be better off if all the huge countries were dismantled. Too much authority consolidated in one place just leads to ever-increasing levels of tyranny and collectivist ideas like referring to a country as "we".

The disruption would be very harmful to the people living here.

[Benuty]

I honestly wouldn’t mind a two way split in America between Republicans and Democrats. You’ve seen it in the big cities like Portland in Seattle. The riots, the fires, the disrespect for police. There will be two regions. The Conservative states will respect our police, the right to own a weapon, and faithfulness towards our Lord. The Liberal states will bring socialism and decay. Make your pick!

People don't respect the police because the police don't respect the community they're supposed to serve and protect. The police are free to stop abusing their power whenever they're ready, which will probably not be until someone finally does the right thing and hands them a pink slip, or better yet actual criminal charges.

It's partly intentional when you don't actually have to live in the area where you serve as an officer. It makes it easier to look the way and ignore stuff when its "hey I just work here I don't live here".

[Kaskalma]

If we don’t have police or prisons, and this is a genuine question, how do we stop murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, domestic abusers, kidnappers, politicians, and other violent criminals from doing what they want. Every society has had some form of law enforcement.

Funny you phrase that as stopping people doing what they want.
It isn't like most criminals want to go that way. I'm sure they'd love to live pleasant, law-abiding lives... but generally they're not given any choice to do so. Because the greater context society doesn't provide them with the necessary opportunities to even survive a reasonable life. Putting aside exceptions, since there are always exceptions.

Obviously the ideal solution would be making it so they have no incentive nor need to do such things... but "ideal" in this case sadly means it is completely implausible.

Thing is... punishing them for doing it doesn't work either. Nothing realistic actually works. You get tons of people in one place, violent crime is an inevitability. More people = more problems.

So what are the police and prisons for?
Putting on a show, of course. They exist so the government can pretend nothing is wrong and that the huge clusterfuck is completely under control.... and maybe try to coerce people into behaving lawfully through threat of being permanently exiled to the naughty-box.

I pretty sure that pedophiles being left to their devices is a negative thing. Same with rapists and psychopaths. So let me rephrase it: how do we stop them from harming others and running amok.

[Kaskalma]

no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again

I like the rest of what you said but I disagree about this. In the suburb that I live in, all emergency responders rotate jobs due to a lack of funds for police. That means that all police officers are also firefighters and EMTs and vice versa. I also believe doing that would get rid of a lot of experienced people and a lot of the people who are willing to do that kind of work.

Also, if you live in a wealthy or very poor area, your police won’t be from that area because they either can’t afford to live there because they aren’t paid enough (which should change) or they don’t want to. If you live in a rural area, your police are likely employed by the state or county and as such may not be from your municipality.

[Primitive Communism]

I think you're overestimating the power of these other states, none of which can fill the void left by the USA.

Empires have risen and fell throughout history, proclaiming in 476 AD that no one would be capable of repeating the Romans' imperial conquests in the future would get you proven wrong several times over. The destruction of the USA would cause a great depression in the world economy, that's true, but it would not be a permanent blocker to future human progress and expansion.

Assuming China eventually recovers from its economic depression and preserves its government, its naval power and economic influence will remain unchallenged in all of the Asia-Pacific, and potentially expands to Europe, Africa, and the Americas. With Europe losing its chief patron and hegemon, and its armies too weak to resist, the West would be powerless to stop China's encroachment.

At worst, if none of the great powers is able to replicate the US's success in the short term, then the world will gradually settle into something of a pre-WW1 "balance of power" global order, where imperialist states constantly compete for economic, military, and colonial power overseas. The logical endpoint of that order would be a World War to settle the disputes, and a new hegemon arises to replace the old Great Powers.

I never claimed that no one would rise to take America's place, just that it wouldn't happen immediately. There is no power on Earth at this moment that can manifest the same economic, military, and political power that the U.S. has spent two centuries building. It would take decades for any of the current regional powers to be able to match what the USA has right now. Which, coincidentally, is plenty of time to rebuild the shattered remnants of the global labor movement to restore it to the level of influence it held at the beginning of the Cold War. Which is precisely my point: getting rid of the American Empire gives us time to rebuild without the direct interference of the foremost champion of capitalism. It also serves as a perfect means of shaking the delirium from those Leftists who mindlessly oppose the West by supporting every crooked cryptofascist dictator on Earth - without a powerful West to direct their vindictive spite to they will be forced to reassess the global order, as well as the role of reactionary regimes in Moscow and Beijing in that order.

[Aguaria Major]

I gata say this is one of the Few times someone that says Defound of the Police or change it. Has made a very good argument about it. I find myself nodding my head yes to a good amount of this.

Although Voting for our Police would and will have Major corruption in it. Also, a large amount of time just to have a new police officer working in the field, let's face it Police work is really dangerous and they could be killed out of nowhere. This could work for small population places but for very large ones that are going take some time, and lots of Funding for it to keep working, and that will rise the taxes even more making more people go to crime to get money to live.

The Local Milita Idea would maybe work well in the Low Population or small towns and cities. With the larger PLaces that could have a Large amount of people that idea would become Likely become more of a Pvt Army for the cities to use as they see fit. That could lead to a heavy amount of problems for everyone.

I don't think police unions should be outlawed, they do a job just like everyone else let them have Unions to fight injustice for their jobs and their rights in it.

"that no individual employed in any police organization in the US prior to overhauling the system should be allowed to work in law enforcement or emergency response ever again." (Now I think that's not even fair to the men and women of the Police force to be forced to leave and never get a job that they are trained on. Now if you do like checking systems of history and What they have been doing on duty then if they are a Bad apple then I say yes to this but for everyone to be taken out and not allowed back in is just plain wrong.

Ended the private control of the US penal system, I like that, we should give it to the local Government or Federal Government.

Granted everything will Rise Taxes to an all-time high. We have already seen if that happens to nations that have done it. The only time I can see that working is that the government is so Rich and everyone has the money to pay the high taxes other than that I have to say no to that.

The Norway system I see myself nodding my head yes to that. Those problems that you pointed out are a major plague in the US Penal System.. making those that have broking the law by making them do jobs for the community is a good idea, although let's not have them doing military jobs or law keeping I can see that going bad in so many ways. Some people can never truly be safe, that's just life. We can't keep holding them in mental hospitals that's a waste of Recorsers and manpower. What would we do with them If they are just that bad?

Exile from the community would just become another problem for a different part of the nation. Maybe I can see this working if there is a tracking system in place, other than it is a bad idea in the long run.

As of 2018, less than 10% of prisoners in the US were in private prisons. In January of 2021, President Biden ordered the DOJ to stop renewing contracts with private prisons.

Yes, and then he let the companies who owned them convert them into private ICE detention facilities.

Biden and Democrats have absolutely no desire to end what direct control private industry has over the US penal system, which brings me to my next point:

One the whole, private prisons house very few people and certainly are not in control of the US penal system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_p ... ted_States

Notice how I keep using the phrase "private control over the US penal system", and didn't specifically mention for-profit prisons in the post of mine that you're quoting?

This is because even if it doesn't directly oversee prisons per se, the only reason the US imprisons so many people is to utilize them as cheap labor for the benefit of private industry;

like most things which disproportionately fuck over black people, US prisons exist in their current forms because of attempts by capitalists (particularly those in the South who were pissed off about the results of the Civil War) to continue being able to utilize 15% of the population as a perpetual source of free labor: following the departure of US troops from the South in 1877, US prisons, in combination with black codes and sundown laws, were used quite openly to exploit the loophole in the 13th amendment and continue actual, bona fide chattel slavery for the benefit of private industry all across the nation. This officially ended in 1942 when FDR signed an executive order ending debt peonage and convict leasing while also requiring prisoners be compensated, but as you have already seen, prisoners are still barely compensated at all, meaning that it's still in the best interests of private firms (or even US governement services) to utilize prison labor whenever possible, and thus, for there to me more people in prison;

the system's legacy still largely persists.

And if you want more proof of the fact that the US penal system is set up for the benefit of private industry:

we still have debtors' prisons in some states here, as well as private probation/parole enforcement services.

Just being homeless can get you sent to prison here. If governments actually wanted homelessness not to be a thing, they'd just build as many houses as possible, and put people who are unable to pay for housing themselves in them, without taking away their rights as if they have taken someone else's. But no. We throw them in prison because capitalists want as large of a supply of cheap labor as possible, so if a person is unable to supply payment to land developers or directly generate profit for an employer anymore, we can't just let them continue to be that way. If they can't (or won't) help themselves back to generating profit as soon as possible, they must be forced into laboring for capitalists.

[American Legionaries]

Pretty sure California, as an arbitrarily defined lump of rock and associated topology, lacks any sort of opinion on the subject... or any capacity for opinion, for that matter.
And "California" in terms of the collective of people that live there might be hurt. Wouldn't know. But that doesn't mean the individuals that make it up necessarily would be. Collective interests aren't necessarily the sum of individual interests. And most of the harm would probably be done to the collective identity rather than the constituent parts... which is probably a good thing.

Anyhow... humans in general would be better off if all the huge countries were dismantled. Too much authority consolidated in one place just leads to ever-increasing levels of tyranny and collectivist ideas like referring to a country as "we".

The disruption would be very harmful to the people living here.

A rather good reason to implement this idea, tbh.

[Zeleniya]

No. America is simply built different.

[Stellar Colonies]

The disruption would be very harmful to the people living here.

A rather good reason to implement this idea, tbh.

Noted...

[Narland]

So why have a federal government?
We have a federal government so it can do the 17 specific things delegated to it by the States and the People for common defense, regular trade and commerce, and promotion of arts, sciences, and uniform standards et. al. This allows the States to do the (in my state 124) things delegated to it by the People and their Counties (some States are not federated and the legislature rules de jure directly). The counties (or equivalent -- mine is delegated by the People through its charter and special districts to do over 5000 things (I tried to count but lost count after about 2000. The county isn't quite sure how many special districts as many of them are truly public (not a part of the state (European sense) apparati of the county). The people are free to affiliate into public associations and civic organization as they see fit, all freely and voluntarily.

We no longer have a federal government but a centralized national government masquerading as a federal government. The political polarization is from abuse of power at the Federal and States level with them doing 1000s if not 10,000s of things they are not lawfully permitted to do. States following the lead of lawlessness (under color of authority) impugn the Constitution and the rights of the People towards a totalitarian state by enacting their own encroachments against the State Constitution and Bill of Rights. Some counties and most municipalities / civic corporations (cities) are dictatorial in their abuse of power from decades of one party rule, creating hell-holes of their own making.

The greater the authoritarian encroachments into people's everyday lives the greater the politicization and polarization. The government that governs the most starves, disappears and murders its people into conformity with impunity. The government that governs the least governs the best.

Would it not be better for each individual state to have complete self determination, NS?
No. Returning back to Constitutional governance where the Feds do 17 things gives the individual State an amazing amount of self-determination. If the government goes back to only doing governmental things (punish criminals, defend invasion and insurrection, stop coercion and fraud, adjudicate justly, legislate liberally (real liberality not illiberality), in its least imposing / most efficient at all levels and branches, so the People can enjoy maximal liberty, there would be no need. It would be better to try the bad actors and faithless servants who have violated the principles of liberal (classical sense not illiberal sense) constitutional limited-government for their abuse of power, misfeasance, malfeasance, deprivation of rights under color of law/authority, misprisions of felony. Returning back to being a free country would leave the people free to freely socialize as they see fit with due respect to others' opinions and without authoritarian or totalitarian bullying from government agencies. The people are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow those who pervert it.