# Banana Republic coming soon? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 2, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160 "2013-10-02T03:13:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/61 "2013-10-03T06:13:24Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > If George W had said this about the Congress when he was in, knee jerks would start saying he was doing just what I suggested, and demanded impeachment, and you know it. No they wouldn’t have. Perhaps more importantly, Congressional Democrats under Bush wouldn’t have done what House Republicans are doing right now. > [@](#): > > I, OTOH, don’t hate/love him Right, you’re just objectively accusing him of stirring up the military, saying he might murder some people, and maybe could overthrow the government. You know, rationality. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/62 "2013-10-06T06:16:36Z")
[I actually found someone who agrees with the OP](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16730574&postcount=78) in the broadest of strokes. You might be surprised who it is. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/63 "2013-10-06T23:28:15Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Right, you’re just objectively accusing him of stirring up the military, saying he might murder some people, and maybe could overthrow the government. You know, rationality. I suspect the OP’s thinking runs along the lines of “I don’t think Obama’s a Kenyan-born secret Muslim, like the crazy people do. Therefore, my theory of Obama plotting a military coup is perfectly rational.” ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/64 "2013-12-25T10:56:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > No they wouldn’t have. Perhaps more importantly, Congressional Democrats under Bush wouldn’t have done what House Republicans are doing right now. > > Right, you’re just objectively accusing him of stirring up the military, saying he might murder some people, and maybe could overthrow the government. You know, rationality. Well, one doesn’t have the lucidity of thought that you do. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/65 "2013-12-25T10:57:38Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > I suspect the OP’s thinking runs along the lines of “I don’t think Obama’s a Kenyan-born secret Muslim, like the crazy people do. Therefore, my theory of Obama plotting a military coup is perfectly rational.” I think you suspect a lot of bizarre things. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/66 "2013-12-25T11:02:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Nonsense. This is standard-issue political posturing. Your OP was ludicrous hyperbole. Everybody sensible is simply discounting the rhetoric on both sides. If you are not, then you’re not being sensible. If you are focusing on one side, then you are anti-that side. > > You made an OP that can’t be taken seriously for a second and now you’re trying to backpedal by saying that it didn’t really mean what it actually said. Problem is, even your reduced statements don’t rise above the ludicrous. Nothing is going to happen out of this, any more than it did in 1995. > > I know this. You know this. The Dems and Reps know this. That this has no larger meaning is the one thing that is common and total bipartisan knowledge. Anything else is either partisan lunacy or tinfoil hat lunacy. Rant all you want, but more ranting on lunacy is proof of lunacy. That’s counterproductive, but it’s a far more likely future than the one you proposed. Where in twenty worlds are you getting that I’m trying to backpedal? I meant exactly what I said. Your interpretation is what I cannot control/abide, and I wonder where you get these strange thoughts. Now, you accuse me of ranting, and you come up with some psychological treatise that ‘ranting on lunacy is proof of lunacy.’ Of course, this diagnosis is proof of REAL lunacy! You are going all over the place, and trying to act like I’m the one that’s losing it, and back it up with some made up, lightweight formula for what constitutes lunacy. You need to snap out of it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/67 "2013-12-25T11:17:24Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > No they wouldn’t have. Perhaps more importantly, Congressional Democrats under Bush wouldn’t have done what House Republicans are doing right now. > > Right, you’re just objectively accusing him of stirring up the military, saying he might murder some people, and maybe could overthrow the government. You know, rationality. I see, also, that you think I’m picking on your beloved because I don’t like him. You are, as usual, incorrect. Banana republics don’t worry me. Let any President create one-what is that to me? I comment on something that you think you don’t like, and you attack me. You are trying to interpret truth through your own narrow, confused viewpoint. ---
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/68 "2013-12-25T11:42:39Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Of course, this diagnosis is proof of REAL lunacy! Your statement was lunacy 3 months ago when you first made it and it hasn’t aged well in the meantime. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/69 "2013-12-25T12:47:12Z")
Wait, there’s _two_ of these stupid “The US is becoming a banana republic” threads? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/70 "2013-12-25T17:41:53Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Wait, there’s _two_ of these stupid “The US is becoming a banana republic” threads? [Yup](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=710048). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/71 "2013-12-25T17:53:49Z")
I came from one Banana Republic and I have spent most of my life here in the USA, and I have to report that no, A banana republic is not coming soon, even half-heartened vigilance is doing a good job of preventing that. What is important is to never forget that there is a good number of Americans that would love to see that happen, like [Jim DeMint](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27862.html) who even in the 21st century can not see what is bad about a coup d’état. And at the Heritage Foundation to consider Hispanics as just worthy of being peons. Now, if you had asked that about Arizona… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/72 "2013-12-26T08:38:47Z")
> [@Randvek](#): > > Your statement was lunacy 3 months ago when you first made it and it hasn’t aged well in the meantime. Wow. I’ve been put down! Whodathunkit? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/73 "2013-12-26T11:18:03Z")
It’s ridiculous to suggest the US is turning into a Banana Republic and no amount of hyperbole will change that. I’m not aware of any country (not a colony or Soviet satellite-type situation, but an actual, independent country) which has gone from “having its shit together” to “becoming a banana republic” without something drastic happening in between like a civil war, getting invaded by someone else, or a crippling natural disaster. The US might, at some point in the distant future, split into several squabbling Commonwealths/Confederacies/Republics, and some of them might approach what we’d consider a Banana Republic, but between now and then I’d surmise you’d need an event on the scale of an actual, honest-to-deity-of-your-choice Zombie Apocalypse, Alien Invasion or _Fallout_-style Nuclear War to bring it about. Look at it this way: if having a black president, legal gay marriage and/or marijuana in several states and the implementation of something approaching universal healthcare hasn’t caused the country to descend into something resembling a cross between _Mad Max_ and _The Walking Dead_, then I honestly doubt it’s going to happen this side of World War III - or something crazy like the World Bank adopting Canadian Maple Syrup as a global reserve standard for all the world’s major currencies. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/74 "2013-12-26T14:22:54Z")
In the other thread I linked to a [UN report](http://www.ihdp.unu.edu/article/iwr) that showed the value of the net asset base for each country. The US was #1 at $118 trillion, Japan was #2 at $55 trillion, etc. What I found interesting was that from 1991-2008, US net worth increased $32 trillion, and that the size of this increase was greater than the size of many countries 2008 net worth. For example, the growth of the US in this time period was as if the US added the 2008 equivalent of: … 5 Australia’s, or … 4 Brazil’s, or … 3 Canada’s, or … 1.5 China’s, or … 2.5 France’s, or … 1.5 Germany’s, or … 5 India’s, or … .6 Japan’s, or … 21 Norway’s, or … 3 Russia’s (the only country (that I’ve noticed) that has lost wealth since 1990), or … 2.5 United Kingdom’s To its balance sheet. Banana Republics don’t do this. They don’t take everything owned by United Kingdom, multiply it by 2.5, and add it to their balance sheet in a 17 year period. They just don’t. Hope this clears up any misunderstanding you may have, **handsomeharry**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160/75 "2013-12-26T21:49:26Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Banana republics don’t worry me. Let any President create one-what is that to me? Don’t you **live** here? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banana-republic-coming-soon/670160.md?page=3)