  Why would anyone join a Northwest regional independence movement? Well, why shouldn't we be independent? Why should we have important decisions made for us thousands of miles away? Why should our region, with its distinctive culture, remain divided between two faceless, culture-leveling, continent-girdling empires?
I can't help but feel that the United States as we know it may have outlived its usefulness. For one thing, I think recent events have shown that the world's current one-superpower system is not tenable in the long term. A system in which one large country thinks it can do whatever it wants without consulting anyone else is dangerous. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. The U.S. is just so big, many people seem to mistake it for the whole world.
This promotes insular thinking, and the time for that is past. It's time we started engaging with the world on a personal level, and I think we in the Northwest can be leaders in that regard. Independence isn't what it used to be. Making decisions for ourselves doesn't have to mean severing ties with the rest of North America. I'd like to see a North America that looks more like the EU, with maybe a dozen independent countries sharing a common currency, defense apparatus, and border patrol, but each free to develop its own culture and its own ties to other countries. 
