> ...to the extent they don't it will cease to be.

So, it sounds like the answer to my question is "No, I do not disagree.". It's abundantly clear that you're advocating for secession as the answer to perceived flaws in the US's Federal government. It's also abundantly clear there are at least several hundred thousand people who are similarly dissatisfied with the Federal government. If there are no real barriers to emigration via formation of a new Nation-State (however small) within the borders of the old, then the chronically dissatisfied, immensely stupid, and/or foolishly impassioned will be sure to do just that at the slightest provocation.

The thing about a Federation of States is that the group gains a lot of strength and stability if its member states are in it for good.

> It's not something I can answer for you in five minutes right now...

Oh sure. I didn't expect an immediate answer to the question. I do hope you get back to me on this, though. :)

> ...Switzerland tops many charts and it actually employs direct democracy.

There are a couple of things to note here:

* Despite Switzerland's "direct democracy", you don't consider it a shining example of a government that is well run. (I didn't expect that you would, I'm just noting it. :) )

* This "direct democracy" has -presumably elected- intermediaries, and (from what I gather) the vast majority of federal actions don't originate from the citizenry, and the majority of the real discussion that goes into shaping them is not open to the public. [0]

* The Swiss people must not be voting to decide even a tiny portion of what the Swiss government does. From Wikipedia: "Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, on 103 federal questions besides many more cantonal and municipal questions." That's three votes per year, on ten issues per year. I'm fairly certain that there is no state in the US that does so little. [1] I don't believe for a second that the Swiss people truly consider a significant fraction of the acts of their Federal government.

* The percentage of the population required to bring up an issue for reconsideration by the citizenry appears to be just over %1. [0] Coincidence?!? ;)

> That last issue could be addressed by liquid democracy...

How do you prevent the tyranny of the majority when any given government -or even a portion of a governed population- can splinter at a whim? How do you address the manipulation of voters to act against their best interests when everyone, regardless of understanding or expertise on the matter at hand has an equal say in how to address a matter at issue?

If your answer to that last one is "weight votes based on a person's understanding and knowledge on an issue", (as you mentioned in your comment) then my question is "How -exactly- do you plan to do this?".

Any reliable method will take substantially more effort than the vast majority of a given population will be willing to spend, [2] and many people are sure to disagree with an evaluation that means that their voting power on an issue they care about is less than a fellow citizen with whom they disagree. This gets even more complicated when such a person exercises their option to perform zero-effort secession.

Moreover, doing the research required to arrive at a suitable solution for real-world issues is really tough, and often very time consuming. I spent an hour or so digging around for those stats in my opening comment. I've spent probably another hour or two reading your comments and typing up all of my comments. This is all to kinda-vaguely-address one issue at a really high level! Real issues take days, months, or years of dedicated study to understand and come to an informed decision on. Some guy who's working two jobs (or one job, and caring for kids) isn't likely to spend his very limited leisure time actually learning about the issues that he cares about.

[0] http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/

[1] Given Switzerland's size and population, comparing it to many US states is entirely appropriate. :)

[2] To elaborate: Weeding out the nearly-completely-ignorant is easy. However, it takes between days and months to rank the knowledge and understanding of medium-to-high-performing individuals. [3] If you're really serious about weighting based on knowledge and expertise, then you really have to go the extra mile to try to distinguish between those who are merely very knowledgeable, and those who are the equivalent of a Gauss or a Newton when it comes to the topic at hand, no?

[3] HN is full of "Man, hiring is so hard!" and/or "Everyone does hiring wrong! Here's how you should do it!" posts that demonstrate this fact.