How to hold the nation together in the future

The always excellent William Lind has been telling us for awhile that the power dynamic now is less state versus state as it is whether the state or nation system can survive the growing power of the non-state forces rising. Although Lind is speaking mainly of Islamic terrorist groups within states, I think this may also apply to future American clashes between different cultural and ethnic groups.

The persistence of group-selection or tribalism, even racialism, continues because it is written in the ancient code of human nature. As has been said before, human history and the sociobiological sciences have affirmed that the main creator of human ethics has been group-selection, where altruism within the group helped the group survive and reproduce more successfully than the groups with less altruism within the group. Unsuccessful attempts to wipe out group-selection have often led to loss of freedom and even to coercive force being used.

A light American federalism protecting separate and independent regions and states---which could even be thought of as ethnostates---is possible in America, while still legally affirming the original Constitution and the Republic. This is the structure that can hold the nation together at a time when non-state, tribal, or ethnic forces rise, that is, when whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, even Islamic forces increasingly clash in America. Democracy is difficult under these forces. If states and regions within the United States are allowed their freedom, and then protected by federalism, they will naturally develop their own cultures depending on the groups living within them, which should be championed.

This conservative solution may become more apparent when orthodox theories and models cannot explain or solve the future problems that develop.