Wouldn’t control of the Mississippi give them a massive economic boost from tarrifs and the like?
Are you trying to imply that the free market creates economic equality?
And of course those images are very powerful. But it has been 49 years since the fire hoses and dogs were unleashed on peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham.
So, if I’m understanding you, compared to the rest of the country, the South faces a unique image problem stemming from it’s ugly racial past. Therefore, to be viewed in a more positive light, the South needs to actively fight for the freedoms of gays, and other minorities? And a path of resistance to social change, be it rooted in bigotry or just traditionalism, reflects worse upon the South than it would, say, Wyoming, even if Wyoming pursues the same policies?
Probably, though I doubt it would be enough to achieve economic parity with the rest of the US. The South has a serious poverty problem, frankly, though some indicators are positive, such as the second-lowest regional unemployment rate, per the BLS for September (the Midwest had the lowest). This map, using 2009 data, illustrates the scope of the South’s issues with poverty.
If you define equality as “equality of opportunity”, and not “equality of outcome”, then yes. The conditions that Buck Godot mentioned…
Are typically to be found in non-free markets, such as mid-century Colombia under the Conservative Party. Do you disagree?
Bomb shelters?
Point. A CNN reporter claimed 200-300 demonstrators…at an open air rally…smack in the middle of a metropolitan area with umpteen million people. But you’re right, there is a baseline element of hotheads everywhere in the country.
As someone who lived and loved the South, if you think my prognostication is worth anything more than anyone else’s, we would mostly crib the US style of government (like we did the first time around). There’d be constitutional amendments against flag burning, gay marriage, abortion, and probably affirmative action. No outright return to Jim Crow but you’d see a lot of poll taxes and voter ID requirements which happen to disproportionately affect certain groups.
States would openly fund churches and religious schools; in many areas public schools would atrophy from the loss of US funds. We’d enact severe immigration restrictions, and while our economy is definitely closer to the rest-of-the-US than Mexico, it’d take a huge hit due to the new international hassle and loss of transfer payments from the rest of the country. Our best and brightest legislators would ram through silly protectionist measures. We would generate disputes over newly international watersheds and rivers.
Outside of reproductive rights I don’t think women would lose that much standing. We’re too far gone to ever get women back out of the workplace. I wouldn’t be surprised if Southern natalists enacted mandatory maternity leave laws.
I’m mostly pessimistic about the social side but I don’t think the USofSEC would have enough military projection capability to really risk screwing anything up on that front. The USofA wouldn’t let any secession movement ever happen without handing over all the nukes that happen to be within our borders. We’d probably proliferate our own nuclear weapons program in a few years. Honestly I would expect the economy to tank due to lack of investor confidence, but if anything helped it out, it would be the peace dividend we’d get from relying on the old USofA for most of our defense.
Is that too caricatured for you?
edit: tl,dr: Military, foreign affairs, and air and space infrastructure would see tight coordination. The separate parts would be weaker than the whole. The biggest change about an independent South is a lot of social laws which make it an unattractive place to live. The economy could probably self-sustain but prospects for growth are dim.
An independent South would last all of 48 hours. The US would drone out any leaders and then roll the National Guard of the border states in to retake the territory. We’d line up every Southern governor against the wall and shoot them as an example to others. After eradicating every peckerwood stupid enough to think his Confederate flag and a hunting rifle mean shit, we’d bring civilization and reason to the benighted backwater that is the southern US.
Or we could just pave the whole thing and pretend they never were there.
I’m not too sure about that. “Confederate” states receive more in federal spending than they contribute in federal taxes, with few exceptions (like Texas). I know that’s a small part of the big picture, but it indicates that the rest of the country would be just fine without the freeloader states like Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, at least economically speaking.
Meanwhile, the Confederate Republic would end up being “Texas economically dominates and supports the freeloaders,” which wouldn’t be stable for too long. It wouldn’t be long before the Confederates would be forced to raise taxes just to keep their government from collapsing, while the USA would continue happily chugging along with extra surpluses now that most of the freeloader states are gone.
The Confederate states are just flat out less productive than average. Losing them would be a social catastrophe, certainly, but not an economic one.
Fair enough, half the turnout with, at minimum (using the Nashville metro area), five times the population. So middle Tennessee’s baseline element of hotheads may be on the high side, but still a minority.
May I ask what state(s)? Just for comparison.
I agree with your above predictions of amendments. With the poll tax / voter ID point, it could happen, though the number of African-American residents in many Southern states would make the idea challenging. Mississippi is 37% African-American, Alabama 26%, Georgia 31%, and so on. Unless the white citizens were united on the issue, I don’t know that the legislators touting openly discriminatory laws could get elected. I think that’s the sort of law you can only enact while you’re preventing minorities from voting, and not once they’ve gained the vote.
Religious schools, perhaps; churches, I don’t think so.
Sounds about right, though most agitation I hear for protectionism these days seems to come from the Rust Belt states.
Agreed.
I’m not familiar with this idea, is it an organized movement?
No, you made no reference to theocracy or sundown towns, nor compared the hypothetical nation to Egypt. I think there’s been pretty solid agreement so far in this thread that the Southern nation would be poor, ban same-sex marriage, ban abortion, backslide a tad on some religious matters, but otherwise be very close to the existing United States. I am heartened to see that scorn for the South isn’t as bad as I feared, since I think there are many aspect of Southern culture worth preserving, and that the region in general suffers from a reputation born of events long past, which I hope can be forgiven.
Yeah; I figure that there would be a pretty massive economic collapse for them. Since they are already generally poor, they’d no longer have the rest of the US economically propping them up, they’d have to pay for all sorts of things that the Federal government presently handles; they’d probably have a worse reputation for stability/prosperity than the US (affecting foreign trade/investment); and their social policies will hurt them severely economically. And most of those factors would get worse over time, not better; for example, turning schools into machines for Christian indoctrination won’t produce people good at running a modern society. And an ever increasing concentration of wealth at the top will progressively cripple their economy.
Which in turn means that the social regression would probably be much worse than most people here are predicting. Nations with really bad economies tend to go more extreme, and to blame the outsiders and the unpopular. Especially when a society built to keep white Christan males on top realizes as said that the demographics are against them. I expect there’s good odds of it turning into something on the order of old South Africa; an openly racist society structured to keep a white minority on top at gunpoint. Not right away; but as everything collapses around their ears I’d expect them to go that direction.
Of course, which is why I meant to discuss only what the hypothetical nation would be like. There is a 0% chance of the South trying to secede in the foreseeable future, after all, for reasons both legal, political, and practical.
If your post isn’t merely in jest, can you elaborate on what makes the Southern U.S. a “benighted backwater”, and what aspects of “civilization and reason” need to be brought to it?
Most of my relatives live in either Texas or Arkansas. They give me every reason to believe that we would, as a culture, be better off genociding everybody south of the Mason-Dixon line and starting over. The level of sheer voluntary ignorance is astounding.
Of course, that would mean sacrificing great BBQ and some decent music, but I’m willing to pay that price. 
Believe it or not, there are some parts of the country where it is considered rude to assume everyone in the audience holds the same religious views.
This is true, though per this map, Virginia is also a net payer, and Louisiana is very close. Then again, California is a net taker ($1.09 received for every dollar paid, and you wouldn’t argue that the U.S. economy would be stronger without California, would you? These taxes in/out rates aren’t the whole story, economically.
Fair point, Texas (and also Florida) would dominate the Southern nation, with 44.6 million people between them, and the other states having 59.5 million between the 11 of them.
This is sadly true, though I hope to see this change in my lifetime.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Pretty much the ones associated with African Americans: jazz, blues, gospel, and BBQ.
Agreed, already poor states would likely get poorer, for lack of Social Security and Medicare, among other spending, plus the other factors you cite (lack of perceived or actual stability for investment is a good point).
I can’t see that happening, the South has many fine religious schools, but I just can’t see the public schools switching to teaching the Bible nationwide.
What is it that makes you believe this would occur? A return of a landed aristocracy, or is this a result of a lower-tax, lower-regulation business climate?
I can think of interwar Germany here, are there other examples?
Is it your position that the society of the Southern U.S. is built to keep white Christian males on top? If so, does this differ from the rest of the U.S., and to what degree?
I have to disagree strongly with this, if anything, I think a class-based breakdown more likely than a racial one, especially with an economic crunch resulting from being separated from the rest of the U.S.
I can believe it, I just didn’t know from personal experience. Thanks for the insight.
Isn’t this just part of politics? It’s easy to believe negative things about someone you disagree with, because they justify your dislike. Which is why claims like this appear with regularity.
So the respondents represent 21-29% of a subsection of the adult population, “likely Republican voters.” Might that not represent an old guard that opposes interracial marriage, and is dying off?
I see what you are saying, but going point by point:
- Poor - the states in question are (largely) already poor.
- Ban same-sex marriage - illegal in 41 states, not just the South.
- Ban abortion - no defense here, though if the other states were suddenly not bound by Roe vs. Wade, some would also opt to ban abortion.
- Backslide on religious freedom - just a bit, I’d say.
That makes them no less Southern. There’s also a tradition of rhetoric and literature, rock & roll, bluegrass and other roots music, folk art, and a level of hospitality and friendliness that I haven’t experienced elsewhere.
People forget that many Southerners are also African-Americans. Oh, but they would never have fought for Civil Rights if not for the ideas imported by Yankee Liberals! (Wrong.) There are also many Latino/Hispanic Southerners; beyond the Cuban-American minority, most of them vote Democratic.
But people automatically assume that a magically formed Independent South would be All White…
Check out the big map here. Where would you draw the borders?