Split the Union!

The Federal government shits on states and local regions a LOT. See New Hampshire trying to lower the drinking age to 18.

The Civil War still resonantes with the American people strongly, not disregarding this fact. But what exactly has stopped the U.S. from having another Civil War?

I'm not talking about seceding, I'm talking all out war. Sure it's been a good 150 years, but people eventually forget the weight of history.

People are lazy as hell & secessionism took a backburner due to the failed confederate insurrections, making it less popular to try. Also, the Federal Government managed to "paint" secessionists as far-right racists - due to the Dixiecrats using southern regionalism to suppress black people. They suppressed other autonomist movements by, uh guns and propaganda - see the Black nationalists.

Is it because there isn't an issue that threatens the very way of life for our countrymen?

this. standard of lving is too high and the citizens as a majority dont care enough....yet.

How in the world have we avoided war for 150 years?

By shitting on other countries, that helps

Of course, stuff like WWI is immensely unpopular and the more that dragged on the more fractured the US would have been politically/culturally.

It would be impractical at the very best. Take the region where I live. Riverside County is almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats - which "country" should it go in? How would you partition it? Then there's the fact that despite our political differences, we're still very very dependent on each other - Orange County needs Los Angeles to provide employment opportunities, and LA needs Orange County to keep population densities at a reasonable level, for example. And how about places like Raleigh and Salt Lake City, which would be enclaved, more or less? Or even the fact that a simple trip from, say, Chino to Los Angeles would in this scenario have to cross an international border at least twice - you know how much trouble that would cause people going to work? Realize the traffic jams you just created? Let's face it, as a conservative, I can't live with liberals, but I can't live without them, and vice versa.

Not to mention that even among people supposedly of the same political persuasion, there are stark differences - my interests as a California conservative would be entirely different from a conservative from Louisiana, for example.

edited 3rd Mar '11 11:15:39 PM by Cojuanco

Nice idea, Savage Heathen. Unfortunately, it's already been tried. And it killed more Americans than any other war we've fought.

I hope for everyone's sakes you aren't going to try this.

And it's simply implausible - liberals and conservatives need each other too much economically for it to be even possible. And as I said, liberals and conservatives aren't homogenous blocs - oftentimes the only thing keeping them together is distaste for the other side.

So hooray for capitalism and internal trade, the ties that maintain the Union!

I doubt even conservatives want to split the Union, regardless of what they say.

Oh sure, the electorate — both left and right — would support something, anything different. And the majority of us have had The federal government is your enemy hammered into our heads nonstop since the mid-eighties. Repetition is powerful.

But the demagogues themselves are statists. They always were statists. The rest is pretense.

What we'd conceivably get instead is a fascist takeover, with everybody agreeing to it, which would be branded as dissolving the government. But really putting in place a more streamlined authoritarian government which would tamper down on corruption, at the cost of personal freedom.

The problem is, we'd never be able to agree on even who should lord it over us.

Not really in favor of splitting the country, alhtough it would have amusement value going for it but some states should be split. For instance Kalifornia should be dived North South with the line about halfway between LA and Frisco. Massachusetts west of Worchester should be it's own state and NYC and Long Island should seperate from the rest of New York. probably others but those come instantly to mind.

Not only is there the whole thing about massive loss of life and exacerbating the very social issues you're trying to solve, but consider...

The conservatives you want to kick out are mostly concentrated in rural areas that grow your food. Have fun.

I have a solution to help everybody. Invade Canada.

@ OP:

(*BANG BANG BANG*)

Leaving aside the obvious that the traditional "red" and "blue" states are highly interdependent upon each other for a number of reasons, the Union isn't nearly as clear-cut politically as most presume it to be.◊ In addition, can you imagine all of the problems that this would cause with geopolitics? We'd have to rewrite NAFTA (a major reason why Quebec hasn't gone independent already), there'd be the issue of what splinter American state would be responsible for what portion of the US' prior military commitments (both in maintaining troops stationed abroad and in dealing with trivial things like defense treaties). Also, we've managed to live for 150 years with people holding wildly divergent political views in relative peace (or if you're only counting the current political landscape, about 60 years), why on earth should we throw that all away?

Because a majority of Americans seem to think their states' entry into the union is about as binding as a gym membership.

edited 4th Mar '11 4:08:35 PM by johnnyfog