>>64387046
It sounds great, but at the end of the day the same evils would still come up, the problems we see today are the result of an encroachment upon civil liberties in the name of safety. It is a knee jerk reaction but once someone gets a taste of that power (NSA motherfuckers) they will very rarely let it go. Having 50 or so states is plenty as it is, all that needs to be done is redraw some of the west coast's borders to reflect modern social changes and development in the west.

Going all the way to what essentially amounts to the Holy Roman Empire is one step forward, two steps back. As a nation, we have been very lucky up to this point concerning our unity and sense of nationalism (ignoring the Civil War) we seem to have the system pretty well figured out.

The biggest problem with such a society comes when others want to kill it. Such a divided nation (even if they all pay the tax man) would be extremely unstable, any national military would be hampered by general uneasiness from a population used to overall independence, and they would likely lobby to not have the government near them. Strength and freedom aren't 1-1, we are much less free than we were say, 100 years ago, but we are also much safer and stronger. We have a military (#1) BTW, and a vast quantity of nations have based both their governments and military on our relatively modern and bold model for "stuff". A nation like yours would have no patriots, men would answer to their village-esque group of people much before they would answer to their government. And such a system would still have way too many holes which would be exploitable, and chances are there would be entire tracts of the nation that turn into 'no-go' zones full of crazy mountain men and shit.

I will give you this, it would be a good setting for a book, but it is unrealistic and incompatible with modern life.