If so, hope comes from Catalonia, the region of Spain that just voted 80 percent for independence. Although it was only an “advisory” vote, the centralized autocracy in Madrid insists it never will give Catalonia its freedom.

Like Draper’s Silicon Valley, Catalonia is an economic powerhouse pulling the rest of its territory — Spain or California — behind it. It pays way more taxes than other regions that essentially parasite off it.

There are other similarities. Both California and Spain have a lot of Spanish speakers, a beautiful Mediterranean climate and creative people. For California, as well as for Spain, a centralized autocracy — the California state government in Sacramento or Spain’s in Madrid — sucks the life’s blood out of productive citizens.

California even wants to build a high-speed rail boondoggle like the one that already bankrupted Spain. Thomas Sowell wrote of it:

“Someone once said that government is the illusion that we can all live off somebody else. Spain’s high-speed rail system is not even covering its operating costs, never mind the enormous costs of setting up the system in the first place. One reason is that half the seats are empty in the high-speed trains in Spain.

“That is what happens when you don’t have the population density required for passengers to cover the operating costs. You would need the hordes of Genghis Khan riding the high-speed rail system to cover the additional costs of the rails and the trains.

“An economics professor at the University of Barcelona says that Spain ‘has not recovered one single euro from the infrastructure investment’.”

The Madrid bureaucrats aren’t easily going to give up their cash cow in Barcelona, just as California’s politicians won’t easily give up their cushy jobs and mammoth pensions paid for by the state’s wealthier regions.

But independence is in the air. Even the Scottish vote for independence, which got only 45 percent, shows that freedom from centralized bureaucratic monstrosities are gaining support.

As a famous document once began:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation….”

“Steven Maviglio, a Democratic consultant, and Joe Rodota, a fixture in GOP politics, have formed OneCalifornia, a committee that will oppose Draper’s “Six Californias” plan if and when the constitutional amendment gets on the ballot.”

And you thought there was a two-party system?

It’s easy to understand why this opposition is swarming.. The power of political operatives, as well as such special interests as the California Teachers Association, depends on knowledge of the political makeup and personalities of the current state. Draper’s initiative would multiply the difficulty of their jobs by six.

It would be like, in the current arrangement, trying to influence the state legislatures of California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State and Idaho. Nobody does that. OneCalifornia? One political milch cow is more like it.

Secession fever

No question passing Draper’s initiative will be difficult. Yet secession is in the air:

• In Venice, 89 percent just voted to split from Italy. A united Italy always was a mistake. The people of Dante and Boccaccio, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas, Leonardo and Michelangelo, are too anarchistic to join in the large state jammed together at the opera buffa 1861 Risorgimento.
• Crimea just voted to leave Ukraine. Although admittedly that is complicated by its vote to join Russia amid international tensions.
• In Quebec, which in 1995 voted 49 percent for secession from Canada, separatist fever is back. The people again are echoing the words of de Gaulle from his 1967 visit: “Vive le Québec libre!“
• The Scotts have scheduled a Sept. vote to regain their independence from the United Kingdom. Braveheart lives.
• Catalonia also has set a Sept. vote, in their case to leave Spain. 
• If that happens, the Basques, who long have wanted to leave Spain, wouldn’t be far behind.

Of course, small countries can be repressive. Witness Cuba and North Korea. But at least in those cases, the repression is contained. But in general, small countries — or small states, in case of splitting California — generally engender competition, with freedom bringing immigrants seeking prosperity, while tyranny expels people. We’re already seeing that as so many people and businesses flee California’s highly taxed and regulated economy for Texas, Arizona, Washington State and other states with much lower state taxes and regulations. Six Californias would spark competition among the parts of OneCalifornia that currently are stuck in a dysfunctional relationship. If not this year, then soon California’s parts will be ready for Divorce Court.