A-waitwaitwait. I don't mean to go off topic from the US politics, but we did not accept annexation from another power. That is incorrect. We accidentally bankrupted ourselves, which forced us to seek Union with England and create a new country. England and Scotland were both absorbed into the United Kingdom, neither annexed the other.
Eh, close enough. It isn't exactly a secret that England got the better deal there.
It's just intriguing that the idea of autonomy is met with the reaction I've seen here, considering that the world over local autonomy is sought and seen as a good thing. Think about the wars we've seen in Africa, mainland Europe, Russia, China, all sorts.
It depends upon the situation.
In general, higher local autonomy is better in a nation with multiple sharply distinctive cultural and ethnic groups. The UK fits this, of course.
The US doesn't. An American in Florida is as an American in California is as an American in Alaska is as an American in Maine. The biggest cultural deviancy in the US is that of the South, but even that is not far from mainstream American culture.
Europe is an interesting situation with the rise of the EU. We'll have to see how well that goes, but I don't think it has much of a prayer unless it takes more federal power for itself.
Africa has a different problem. It isn't about autonomy so much as it is that a lot of the modern borders were drawn by Europeans and it leaves African cultures divided or stuck in countries with other cultures that they hate. It's a clusterfuck, but its been getting better as time passes and people learn to live with one another and settle into new identities or redraw borders.