Q: Why doesn’t the US have autonomous regions? Russia’s got them. Even Canada has some areas that have some freedom. Why not us?
A: You could argue that Native American reservations are autonomous regions, but yes, we don’t have anything like the post-Soviet Russian system. I’m not even sure what the difference between a province, oblast and republic are, but they seem to have worked it out.
I’m not sure the American psyche allows for fully autonomous regions within its borders. We are a culture of dominance. Whatever we don’t kick butt at, we throw a bunch of money and people at it till we do (notable exception: soccer). The whole point of Manifest Destiny was to subjugate a continent, and in a lot of ways westerns are wistful love letters to a time when the west was still wild. Wistful, but not enough to demand any sort of change.
Americans demand our freedoms, but also our unity. E pluribus unum. Those two seem the to be the only non-negotiables within our borders. ‘Round here, we’re free and united, dammit.
