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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That's only if you assume balkanization is necessarily a violent and brutal process. It doesn't even need to be messy, if it's done with care and deliberation.
The only reason they afford themselves to "hate each other" is because they know there's a federal government to hold them back. It's like being at a public place, shouting "Let me at 'im!", secure in the knowledge that your friends will hold you back, when you both know that you wouldn't ever fight if you were just by yourselves. Otherwise, in the shifting world of Real Politik, hating a State makes about as much sense as loving them, i.e. zero.
edited 5th May '13 10:28:05 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.The Handle: I don't think you understand the level of disconnect between rural America and the city. People from both regions hate the others and that's not even getting into what the individual states think of each other. I highly doubt the south would play nice with New England or California if the federal government wasn't forcing them to.
Trade happens but without the federal government you can't guarantee it will continue to happen. If Texas decides it hates California they can just refuse to sell or buy from them. Also what about states that take more money out of the federal government than they put in? They're pretty much out of luck. That's ignoring things on the international level because countries now need to negotiate with fifty little nations instead of one huge nation. It will just be a colossal headache and will cause widespread confusion. That tends to damage economies, especially ones that are fragile like right now.
edit: Even assuming the states won't get into wars or trade disputes with each other I still think it's a crap idea. They are not designed to be fully functioning autonomous economies. They get tons of money from the federal government and that would be gone. What do we do about schools? Social security? Highway funding? If one state decides not to fund these things then all the states suffer.
edited 5th May '13 10:30:30 AM by Kostya
Yes, and I don't think they would prioritize satisfying their vendettas over feeding themselves; they will play nice with each other, for their own sakes, if they have half a brain. And economies are always fragile, and they are also always quite resilient. The Earth keeps turning.
edited 5th May '13 10:30:45 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.I'm sorry but I don't trust the southern states and the northern states to play nice with each other. Even if they did we'd be removing any chance of preventing some of the more red ones from enacting theocracies or abolishing the minimum or removing public education entirely. They're on that path right now and I sincerely believe they'd do this if there wasn't something holding them back. I think it's morally wrong to allow them to do that and the federal government is the best tool to prevent them from doing these things.
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Remember what happen to the Arizona Immigration law where the police can check for your papers if they think you're an illegal immigrant. California oppose it and it was getting electricity from Arizona. Arizona shut down the power to a few of their cities to shut them up. States really do hate each other and would fight to be top power.
It's not only South vs North, but States that have higher standards or lower ones wanting to be the standard.
edited 5th May '13 10:36:37 AM by theweirdKiddokun
The Reaper Games starts anew.
Whatever happened to This Country which everyone constantly claims to love so much, and on whose military so much is spent? If every American loves America, doesn't that mean they have to love each other? I'm not giving you sass, and I'm not saying it can't happen, but I'm always genuinely puzzled by this sort of inconsistency.
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So it's about forcing one's will on others, huh? You know, I still don't get what's the reason for all these Religious Awakenings and Revivals the US had had over the eras. Their very existence implies that it takes constant effort and energy and resources to keep religion from dying out by itself. Why not let it? I'm also genuinely puzzled here.
Honestly to what happen was 1970-80. The idea of American loving America and each other that sounds like 1950s pull crap or as Historian like to call it Cold War Propaganda. After Vietnam War and the assassination of JFK, the anti-government movement went up and with anti-federalism which started to sound more reasonable. Nixon only help prove that and Reagan gave to the idea that state knew what they were doing and that the government should mind its own business (like war with USSR) and leave states to themselves.
The Reaper Games starts anew.![]()
Are you really surprised that Americans are irrational?
Anyways, it's a function of multiple levels of "Us and Them". Each American state is its distinct political (and cultural) mini-country with its own history, culture, and political and economic interests. So we have a state by state divide which translates to a regional divide, and that also means a red state versus blue state divide. Also, there are tremendous differences between rural and urban America (see Fox News' "Real America" bullshit).
But at the same time, nothing can unite this mass of bickering children like an outside threat.
edited 5th May '13 11:02:06 AM by Maka4
The rural-urban divide is a major one in U.S. politics, but let's not also overlook the politics of racism, which still split us to this day and are the major reason why we don't have universal healthcare.
Reagan's generation of Republican politicians learned to pander to those divides, with the result evident today.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
It seems frighteningly easy to shift that into
Except we know for a fact that this is false. I mean, if the EU can pull it off without anyone threatening them, why can't the US?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.That because the countries that make up the EU know each other for Centuries (plus they already had their divide war twice) and can have their own economy plus leave the EU if they want. States can't really do that fully.
edited 5th May '13 11:30:59 AM by theweirdKiddokun
The Reaper Games starts anew.Well, of course there's conflict and struggle and strife. The only way to avoid that would be if everyone died. As long as humans live, they're going to disagree over some stuff, help each other sometime, screw each other over other times. But they don't go to war, and they don't shut down electricity on each other (plus, with renewable energies, this particular tactic would be impossible by 2050 at the latest).
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Representative Issa: 'Everybody' in Libya thought Benghazi attack was terrorism
Any member could leave the EU if they wanted, though there would of course be political consequences for it (their people would lose the right to move freely amongst EU nations, for example).
Any member of the Euro could leave if they wanted, though of course there would be economic consequences (their current debt being held in Euros would cause problems, for example).
Much as I like to go 'haha, Americans can't even spell colour or harbour properly, and your democracy is a hilarious sham', the notion that they are so stupid that they'd turn into a bunch of squabbling 19th-century tits without the central government to keep them under control is idiotic hyperventilating nonsense.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

edited 5th May '13 10:24:47 AM by theweirdKiddokun
The Reaper Games starts anew.