Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Okay, good.
I'm the idea man, so I did my part.  I got the ball rolling.  Now ya'll go out and  make it happen. 

Thanks for suggesting the impossible

What would we be if we were to have five countries, split up into ones like I proposed with the football conferences?

The American Union, similar to the EU?

A collection of countries using the same currency and military alliance?

I think it misses some of the points that CD made... The rural/urban divide exists in these places too. 

There has been a small contingent of people in the north of California and the south of Oregon who want a "State of Jefferson". These are rural areas where they believe their needs are neither served by Sacramento nor Salem. So they want to secede from both states and have their own. 

Your proposal would do little to solve their needs. OAM's would be better, because devolving power as much as possible to the county level would make them less beholden to people in Sacramento or Salem making policy that serves the large population centers of their states and forgetting about the needs / trampling on the rights of the less populous rural counties. 

There are different views here. This was all about getting the Constitution ratified. A Constitution that gave power to the states. Some states wanted even more power, but at some point, we needed a unified country - not a collection of small states.

Generally the Federalists were for a stronger central government and the anti-federalists were leery of the Constitution because they predicted it would eventually create a government that tramples on the states. 

But it does go farther than just getting the Constitution ratified. Alexander Hamilton was the "man behind the man" for both Washington and Adams. He was a TREMENDOUSLY powerful force in both administrations and was instrumental in expanding central government powers during both. Many consider Madison to be the architect of the Constitution, but Hamilton was the structural engineer. He built the foundation for the modern American state. 

While we now use the term "federalism" to refer to our hybrid state/centralized system justifying the idea of states being given great leeway in what they do, I fall on the same side as @bayareabadger -- the term "Federalist" accurately describes people who were advocating for a strong central government. And that advocacy to continually strengthen the central government persisted far beyond ratification. 

Speaking of counties, my county is about as weird as it gets.  The northern half is mostly white and mostly affluent, the southern half, well, isn't.  The northern half is "suburban" in how it votes, the southern half is much more urban, except for the extreme southern half.  As an independent county, it would be a mess, just as it sort of is anyway.

This map shows poverty in Fulton and Dekalb, which unfortunately correlates with "blackness" of the residents.  Fulton is on the left, the long strung out county that never made any sense.

Generally the Federalists were for a stronger central government and the anti-federalists were leery of the Constitution because they predicted it would eventually create a government that tramples on the states.

But it does go farther than just getting the Constitution ratified. Alexander Hamilton was the "man behind the man" for both Washington and Adams. He was a TREMENDOUSLY powerful force in both administrations and was instrumental in expanding central government powers during both. Many consider Madison to be the architect of the Constitution, but Hamilton was the structural engineer. He built the foundation for the modern American state.

While we now use the term "federalism" to refer to our hybrid state/centralized system justifying the idea of states being given great leeway in what they do, I fall on the same side as @bayareabadger -- the term "Federalist" accurately describes people who were advocating for a strong central government. And that advocacy to continually strengthen the central government persisted far beyond ratification.

It's all about interpretation, isn't it?

The Federal Government has more power now than ever intended. 

Federalists truly believed in State Powers. Those who wanted even less were obviously correct, in hindsight. DC is a hot mess.

We'd be a National that let our loudest snowflakes get the best of us.

Even if we disagree, we're all in this together and we're all capable of working together. Deciding to give up on that would be a disgrace.

It was a "what if" post. I certainly don't believe in giving up on our country, but many do. Too many, IMO.

I definitely did give up on my State, and simply moved to another one.