Surely you can see the flaw in your line of reasoning.

If a group of people doesn't want to be governed by a certain body they should have the right to secede.

A government derives it's right to rule by the people accepting this rule.

Obviously this is a really hard problem and it opens up the door for all kind of abuses, but ultimately democracy demands that. Democracy first needs a demos. A group of people who feel connected by whatever reason they like and agree to form a community. If the borders of the community are not drawn by the community itself, it's not democratic. Just look at all the wars being fought about borders which were drawn by colonial forces and didn't respect the locals.

In this I also see the power of parliament's and federal states - even if your vote don't win the election, you are still represented in parliament and you have the local gov. Without that, it would be hard to keep regions where a majority voted different than the whole nations majority.

Globalism, neo-liberalism, individualism - all that severely reduced the solidarity people have which each other. The internet then connected us with people that we share much more with than just area. All nations, democracy as a whole will have to face this tremendous challenge. And I have no idea how.

If you follow this principle to the extreme then laws become essentially voluntary, which contradicts the whole meaning of law.

I think democratic principles can never be applicable to decisions about the existence of the entity as a whole in the same way they apply to governing an existing entity.

Surely you can see the flaw in this new line of reasoning as well?

There is two simple truths. 1. If a group decides that it doesn't want to be ruled by a certain body, it's hard to legitimize the continuation of that rule. 2. If any group, especially very small ones can refuse the ruling body, all big groups will ultimately split down to individuals with no rules at all.

Democracy only works when balancing these truths. Trough opposition in parliament, minority rights, local and regional governments, regional independence and so on.

I.e. the whole situation in Catalan is blowing up because the reginal independence wasn't granted (or not enough in the opinion of the Catalans). Look at South-Tyrol in Italy for an example where things are working better. Even the American states are a good example - liberal, rich California wouldn't accept Republican rule without the independence the states have.

Surely you can see the point I'm trying to make?

It's weird that everyone wants a large monopoly not a lot of smaller competing governments.

I dont think a "town", regardless of their richness, would be able to handle that.

Now, I could see the eastern seabed, with the bounds of the Appalachian mountains as a "country". I could also see the northern and southern areas between the 2 mountain ranges being their own countries as well. But not a "town".

I'm trying to soften the blow, what do you think I should tell them?

You say this like it's a bad thing.

> Different provinces and regions are united into a country because this way they have more military power to defend themselves.

Exactly. So there are many benefits for people to form larger groups, but please let them decide that for themselves. This kind of negates your first point, if there are obvious benefits then there won't be thousands of states, because people would recognise they are better off together.

I don't believe for a second that people will. There are groups of people who don't give a crap about "being better off" - they care about showing those damn Spanish/British/French/German/Polish/<insert group name here> what they think and being able to "finally decide for themselves" which is complete nonsense. If people could so easily see the benefits of staying together then Brexit wouldn't happen and we wouldn't be seeing nationalist movements all over Europe nowadays. The problem is that the benefits are not obvious and you have to actually educate yourself a bit about them - but if someone is unwilling to put the energy into it, then it's not going to happen.

Already after Brexit I've heard quite a few reports of 1) young Brits elsewhere in Europe becoming much more engaged with politics because 'now it matters', and 2) Brexit voters who now regret their decision because it affects them negatively (or is likely to).

Again, I agree with you and I don't think it's ideal, but part of me feels letting people make decisions like this, even if I personally think they're (often) stupid decisions prompted by populism, might be better than jamming 'the educated choice' down their throats.

But I'm not expert on the matter. Are there any historical analogues that might provide some insight here?

It sounds mean, but as you are saying - we have to allow that at least sometimes, so people are ok with listening to more educated people next time. Because when even such fragmented group as economists agreed universally that Brexit is bad, it just is bad, and people should accept it.

That line of thinking is very unpopular, at least in the US since that time.

That said, if any state or group of states did overwhelmingly want to breakaway from the US, it seems unlikely that there would be meaningful support for the federal government to go to war to stop them.

Given that states rights are far less than they were in the 19th century, I expect the US government to be even more likely to prevent succession in the infinitesimal chance it would happen.

[1] http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_secession_movements

Your point about the erosion of states rights is certainly fair. In any case, it's hard to say what "prevent secession" means without the context of the circumstances.

That's not enough though. There are people who have tried to declare an independent country of their land, or their house, or their bedroom[1]. Clearly one person declaring their bedroom to be independent is silly and not allowable, but a large reason is. So somewhere there's a line, right?

[1] - http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kingdom-of-talossa

Clearly states are silly and not allowable, but here we are.