At some point we need to have a tough conversation about collective civic engagement and societal dysfunction and not just individually running from it or routing around it. All these institutional problems have been stacking up for the past twenty years, they're only continuing to get worse and worse, and the most common reaction I see from it is some variation on "try to just stay out of its way".

There's a tendency for people to react to institutional problems like this by saying they'll just move over here to a blue state, or they'll monitor their accounts closer on reporting bureaus, or they'll just have a lawyer on retainer, etc, etc. If a legal system in a red state is this dysfunctional, you can't simply hide away in a blue state with better-run systems. The underlying problem - the social decay of much of the US and the broader world - needs to be directly engaged with and confronted.

I agree, but the "tough conversation about collective civic engagement and societal dysfunction" is actually a "tough conversation about taxing the sh*t out of everyone who makes more than $150k a year". Most of our problems are downstream of our extreme inequality and the way it incentivizes dysfunctional and antisocial behavior across the board. So it's going to be an even harder conversation to have than you think.

And if you don't believe me, consider what, "I'll just move, I'll just retain a lawyer, I'll just spend my precious time monitoring my data or hiring someone else to do it for me," as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards says about the means of the people holding those views. (It's that they can, and intend to, buy their way out of a system stood up by people like them ostensibly to promote accountability and social order.)

"If a legal system in a red state is this dysfunctional, you can't simply hide away in a blue state with better-run systems."

These sorts of abuses or dysfunction are rampant in all states. I can't think of a single state that actually has a good system (properly staffed, no overreach, etc).

>All these institutional problems have been stacking up for the past twenty years, they're only continuing to get worse

You're right about "continuing to get worse", but our institutions have been failing for more than 20 years. I think it's more like that Hemingway quote about bankruptcy, “Gradually and then suddenly.” in turn, that always makes me think of an exponential growth curve... and I think America, if not the entire world, is headed towards the vertical. Ib other words, when it comes to how dysfunctional our institutions can get, I think we've just begun.

IL here.

Blue state systems are not better run.

We are all ears if you'd like to start that conversation. Make a page/blog post and submit it here, and accept ahead of time whatever fallout may arise from doing so. If the benefits outweigh the risks, or if you simply are at a point where the risks do not matter.