Modern America's Most Successful Secessionist Movement

If one subscribes to the right of self-determination of peoples, it does raise a problem: at which level is this right manifest? In federal countries like Canada where the provinces, also sovereign like US states, have the right (in principle) of negotiated secession, it naturally falls along provincial lines. But even that isn't clean, at all.

Along the border with Ontario there are significant English-majority communities that would want to separate from Quebec, themselves, should Quebec separate. Some indigenous communities would very much prefer to leave as well in that case. Quebec separatists usually fall back on legal arguments about why Canada is separable but Quebec is not.

But that just evades the real question, just as pointing out that US states cannot secede dodges the question about whether they should be able to. Should communities be able to separate at a sub-provincial/sub-state level? Is this at the level of large regions, of counties, of neighbourhoods? In the extreme, I'm reminded of parts of the Dutch-Belgian border which runs through the middle of household kitchens and pharmacies; there's even an enclave within an enclave.

Articles about these map-redrawing efforts among the western states suffer from a lack of historical awareness. The geography of WA, OR, CA, and ID (at the least) were determined in disregard of the wishes of local communities. The east and southwest of OR have long complained that they suffer economically from policies pushed from Portland. Similar case with the northern third of CA wanting to separate. This is not just a recent Red v. Blue or rural v. urban conflict. It goes at least back to the beginnings of statehood.