Nope, they tend to pick on us poor, inbred Arkies! And of course, as any good educated Texan knows, when their founding fathers were running for their lives from the Mexican authorities, they spent the better part of a winter in Washington, Arkansas, mostly in the tavern, drinking heavily, thinking up what would eventually become Texas. So technically, a bunch of "criminals" (no offense meant, but they were wanted for "illegal" activities by the "legal" authorities of that country so technically they were) hanging out in rural, no-where Arkansas in a drunken stopper created the state we all know and love today! Or at least, that's' how dear old Mrs. Smith who has been teaching Arkansas history in Grubbs Arkansas since, well, I think she started there just after the war of 1812, presents it. :mrgreen:
This concept, a group of people (Nation?) breaking away from the larger political unite (State?) is a common theme throughout world history and has a pretty long track record of success and failures. Allow me to bring in the expert on this topic: yes....it's Dr. Natch to the rescue. Loved by students, feared by administrators, adored by the general public, he's the man that knows it all (as the title on the door to his office indicates, Your Most Perfect Temple of Absolute Wisdom)!
In my Political Geography class we study this concept in depth (or as nauseam as my students might argue?). As Americans, we can be seen as one of the early success of sub-dividing, as we broke away from the former, larger British Empire and have been very successful. But I think that it was a rather rare exception in world trends, and adding so much territory following our break certainly put us into a whole new category. Over half of all the independent States in the world today got their independence since WWII and most are small in territory, market, resource base, and economic power. Also, most are not doing very well today.
The opposite example would be the combining of over two dozen small European States into the EU of today, which in combined economies is the largest in the world today. Granted, not a perfect union, but what union is? (And for those of us that hate any government control/taxes/influence in our lives, the EU is a socialist hell on earth, but that's a discussion for another day, another thread). Of course there are always exceptions to the larger trends (exceptions to the rule) but I think it can be accurately defended that in today's world, breaking into smaller and smaller political unites is generally a recipe for economic disaster, while forming economic/trade/whatever? unions with ones neighbors has economic advantages, at least at the macro scale.
Most of the dozen plus remaining colonies in the world today are not pushing for independence from their colonial mother country, but are hanging on their colonial status for dear life. As a student of mine from the British Virgin Islands told me: "we have the opportunity to vote for independence every few years and while the idea of our own State, flag, national anthem, being independent is attractive, we look around at all the other independent islands in the Caribbean and most are economic basket cases. Better to be tied to the UK, which still has one of the stronger economies on earth."
Don't you think that goes through the minds of the Puerto Ricans when they take a similar vote, or the Quebecers when they vote? Aaah, but nationalism is a strong emotion, and everyone wants to be the masters of their own land. (Me, I want to be master of the world, but it hasn't quite worked out yet.) But that's a topic for another, boring lecture. And yes, to answer the question from the gentlemen in the back who raised his hand, this will be on the test.
Dr. Natch
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