A return to federalism?

More and more people are realizing that the post-1865 one-size-fits-all approach to governing a nation as vast as the United States is not the best method.

Why can’t we simply agree that we’re not going to all want the same things and that we’re not all going to want to live the same ways? One of the original founding ideas of this nation was that the states were independent about most things. We’ve been taught that the Articles of Confederation weren’t good enough because they allowed states to control their own affairs and made it hard for the union’s government to do anything. But history is written by the winners — and the federalists won. Who’s to say that a strong federal government was ever a good idea — even if it weren’t the monstrosity it’s become in the last hundred years?Since we do have groups of people who want fundamentally different things, why can’t we go our separate ways? You could argue for ages about the correct way to divide the land and who might get what and how many new entities there should end up being, but it’s a conversation worth having. You could even have a unified national defense force to protect the current national territory and establish that the entire thing is still one open market for travel and trade and movement. Why not at least think about it and decide whether there really is such a thing as “United” States anymore. What we have now is one Federal State.

The genius of a federal system is its flexibility.  Fifty contemporary laboratories experimenting with the best methods of governance is far better than one heavy-handed approach to all problems.  The U.S. was meant to be a "republic of republics," in which 50 sovereign States delegated a small portion of their power to an executive agent to "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare (NOT Welfare in general!) and secure the blessings of liberty."  In other words, Uncle Sam was the manage the currency, set the standards of commerce across a free market zone, then defend that zone against foreign threats.  Everything else was up to the States to manage as they saw fit for their situation and priorities.

This still works to a large degree in Switzerland. 

Lacking such elasticity, it's no surprise the U.S. has become a fragile unitary state, each day showing more stress fractures as the internal pressures of conflicting agendas find no outlet for resolution.  As Scotty would have said, "she canna take much moor o' this!"