"I think you might be downplaying the facility with which people can vote with their feet. Moving to a neighboring state which is mostly industrial from a predominantly agricultural state could be daunting enough to preclude such a move. Family and ethnic ties to a region also have to be considered."
If you think I am in any way failing to understand something then your credit given to me, by you, is negative, and I can only guess, assume, or gamble on possible reasons.
The Federal idea (based upon republican ideas, and based upon common laws of free, defensive, people) worked between 1776 and 1787. The example of "the facility with which people can vote with their feet" was exemplified by refugees running away, like runaway slaves, from the tyranny (criminals perpetrating crimes under the color of law) in England and other places in Europe.
Do I get the message? People had the freedom to vote with their feet from England, on sailing ships, to America before 1776, much before 1776. And they brought with them the concept of rule of law, because they were running from NO rule of law i.e. despotism/tyranny/slavery/crime under the color of law.
I found a slave being set free in a trial by jury case in 1656, so rule of law was here in the form of trial by jury, borrowed from England, and before that is was borrowed from the Saxons, and the American version still has all the necessary ingredients to flourish, adapt, and improve, if we the people want to return to a federal principle based upon republican principles (a.k.a. democracy of old, such as Athens, not new, such as so called majority rule, which is a lie), since we still have on the books the Bill of Rights.
So free people freely choose to vote with their feet from England to America, with rule of law, exemplified at least in 1656.
Fast forward to Shays's Rebellion, for another case of voting with feet, and if you think I am in any way missing something, then the next link exemplified what I did not miss, and if you see anything wrong in this next link, then I can certainly use corrective information.
After trial by jury was usurped in Massachussets, after the last battle of the Revolutionary War in Massachussets (a free and independent people in a free State that was usurped by criminals), the targeted slaves (rebels) fled out of that state and into a free country where the criminals have not yet taken over: voting with their feet.
Point 2 on voting with their feet involves the efforts of free people in free states to formally, publicly, acknowledge, by way of declaration, that people are independent beings, including black people, as in Rhode Island those people in that independent state outlawed the slave trade. Pennsylvania was soon to follow. So there again was the potential for people, including black slaves, to leave a despotic area, or tyrannical state, voting with their feet, but not having to get back on a ship to cross 3000 miles of ocean, to find sanctuary, Liberty, defense, in a free, independent, country, or state, which was, at least on the books, Rhode Island, which was, at least on the books, a voluntary member of the working federation which already had at least 6 Presidents of The United States in Congress Assembled, including Richard Henry Lee.
With a President like Richard Henry Lee in charge of a working federation (not a counterfeit, monopoly, "nation state") would any runaway slaves, white, brown, red, or black, be ordered by the "leader of the free world" to be strung up by a tree as an example of what happens to people daring to run from one criminal state to an independent, rule of law, state?
Back to your welcome words:
"Moving to a neighboring state which is mostly industrial from a predominantly agricultural state could be daunting enough to preclude such a move. Family and ethnic ties to a region also have to be considered."
Rule of law includes the idea of peaceful remedy tried in trials by jury, which are trials by the country, due to the employment of sortition, which was borrowed from ancient Athens Greece; which is "election" by lot, or random selection. When the criminals take-over government, on the other hand, torture and mass murder is "legal" at their pleasure. So federation, as an idea, works as exemplified in the Shays's Rebellion (so called) example. Push comes to shove, and the ones doing the shoving are intent upon enslaving or worse, and therefore it is either independence, freedom, in another place, or hanging from a rope, or worse, in this place. People cross oceans to be free from the rope, or worse, which is the torture of slavery.
Hanging from a rope, or worse, is less daunting than a costly move?
"Also, there are states where personal views are better reflected than in the state where one currently resides, and if voting with one's feet were the way to go then there would be states where the Bible was the only educational text, and this argument would be moot."
As it happened the tyrannical state of Massachussets exemplifies (perhaps) this idea contained in the words quoted above. The working federation was (and is, and will always be) only as good as there are at least a few good people still living.
" The fact is, we DON'T vote with our feet these days."
I did. My father did. Retirees these days are voting with their feet in numbers that defy your all inclusive word "we" followed by the capitals DON'T. The point is that this is no longer a working federation, it is a Nation State, or limited liability legal fiction owned by foreign interests/investors. It can be a working federation, again, since rule of law is still an idea shared by plenty of "we" and there are still, today, those Bill of Rights on the books.
"We vote with our ballots and through considerable contributions to sympathetic politicians who promote our views."
I voted for Ross Perot once, for Ron Paul twice. By the time I was on the ballot for my 40th Congressional District in California, I knew, and understood, first hand, how "voting" is rigged.
The concept of rule by majority was long ago (ancient Athens) understood to be against rule of law. Today few people understand, and many people are fooled by the ruse.
"At some point doesn't the state of North Carolina become the Country of North Carolina?"
If you understand trial by the country, as in rule of law, due process, the law of the land, or legem terrae, or common laws of free people, then the answer is yes, in cases involving someone outside of the country accused of perpetrating a crime inside the country.
