# Just split the country **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 24, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108 "2021-10-24T18:04:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/42 "2021-10-25T00:04:03Z")
This quote seems on point. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts." -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/43 "2021-10-25T00:07:36Z")
The situation regarding the border is evidence to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/44 "2021-10-25T00:16:03Z")
Logistics aside, Republicans are the type of spouse that would empty out all the bank accounts before the divorce, then chainsaw the house in half. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/45 "2021-10-25T00:19:09Z")
As I recall, it was primarily about contract negotiation. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/46 "2021-10-25T00:49:44Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Not a chance. I want to live to see the US have a White minority. I want to live to see the years, and the future, that follow. A lot of people of Latin American ancestry already consider themselves white and/or vote for GOP candidates. And more and more Americans consider themselves mixed race, an indication to me that the one-drop-of-African-makes-you-Black idea may fall apart fairly soon. I hope that demographics will push the GOP in a more moderate direction after the Trump era ends. Bout that’s a hope, not a prediction. And the idea of there being some reasonable solution, that kills American conservatism, is mistaken. As already mentioned, India/Pakistan is what needs to be considered when it comes to the OP idea. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/47 "2021-10-25T00:53:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Logistics aside, Republicans are the type of spouse that would empty out all the bank accounts before the divorce, then chainsaw the house in half. You’re assuming that they don’t [run you over with their monster truck first.](https://youtu.be/4Iza5db5Zvk) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/48 "2021-10-25T00:54:36Z")
That’s why we mustn’t make Daddy angry. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/49 "2021-10-25T01:07:57Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > A nation governed solely by what currently qualifies as Republican leadership would implode within a few short years. Even leaving aside the massive geographic and demographic issues being discussed, and even assuming you could end up with two relatively well sorted Red and Blue countries, this doesn’t solve the problem. You make it sound like an “implosion” would be a satisfactory conclusion. When countries go feral, they don’t just vanish or collapse in on themselves quietly. They collapse into civil war with usually massive problems for their neighbours who get dragged in. Or they turn their anger outward, and attack their neighbours. Or at the least you end up with refugee problems. The US is best off moderating its problem areas, because tempting as it would be to cut them loose, that would only cause them to create more problems. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/50 "2021-10-25T01:15:40Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > In my experience critical thinking and analysis, even in people trained in it, people very good at it in their career, is difficult for most people to apply to every aspect of their lives. I know plenty of people who have long and very successful careers in science or technological fields that require lots of high-quality critical thinking in their jobs–or at least at various points in their careers if not all throughout it. > > It’s not unusual for people like that to have crazy and conspiratorial views about political issues that aren’t grounded in reality. It’s one thing to be trained in critical thought and skepticism, it’s another to live and breathe it in every aspect of your life. Plenty of people can do the former, I think the latter is a rare personality trait that simply isn’t present in most of the human population. A lot of people actively would not enjoy having to think critically about everything. I very much doubt that anybody can even pull off thinking critically about everything. Think about everything you ate last week. Does it help provide the proper nutritional balance for your particular system, state of health, and current activity level? Do you know where all of it came from? Was it raised, caught, produced, packed, warehoused, and/or shipped using slave labor? otherwise abused labor? involving effective torture of any species? involving avoidable environmental damage? involving the money from it going to support politics you despise? Every bite of it? How about everything you wore? Same questions (except sub something about fit and appearance for the nutritional questions), every piece of clothing you put on. How about all the tools/tech you use in your work? in your amusements? Does any different store have it cheaper? If so, are there differences in shipping time? are they actually offering the same product, or even if it’s got the same brand name on it is it a smaller container or different ingredients/materials or poorer construction? for the online sources, is it someplace reliable enough to even ship it? Are you actually going to apply your full critical thinking, or even a fraction of it, to deciding in every instance what to buy, what to use, what to eat? The time and energy needed to research which candidates on one’s ballot are lying about what, and what their positions actually are on multiple issues; and to research enough about those issues to decide which positions should weight voting decisions how much and in what direction, is not trivial. People should do as much of it as possible anyway. But I’m not astonished that many don’t. In some ways, the current Republican attitude has simplified my life. That particular simplification isn’t worth the cost, though. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/51 "2021-10-25T01:43:47Z")
withdrawn ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/52 "2021-10-25T01:48:14Z")
A few questions for split supporters: 1. Would you agree that, except maybe for red state trans people, African Americans in the old south would have the least freedom to remain where they are now living if they expected to have a decent life? And that most whites would find moving unnecessary or, at least, something that they could do at leisure? 2. I’m thinking that the Texas abortion law is one step towards what you want to see in all the red states, with the blue states keeping abortion laws as is. I can’t see how you can deny this, but am I misperceiving? 3. Red America will, if Blue America continues with affirmative action, say that the majority up there is oppressing a minority. Unfair? And even if unfair, do you seriously think that the Blue country can be indifferent to the resulting white flight? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/53 "2021-10-25T01:49:30Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > You make it sound like an “implosion” would be a satisfactory conclusion. When countries go feral, they don’t just vanish or collapse in on themselves quietly. They collapse into civil war with usually massive problems for their neighbours who get dragged in. Or they turn their anger outward, and attack their neighbours. Or at the least you end up with refugee problems. Indeed; one can look at the decade-long series of wars in what was Yugoslavia to see just how horrific such a conflict could be. > **[Yugoslav Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars)** > > The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001.\[A 2\] The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia (now called North M During ... ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/54 "2021-10-25T02:05:57Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > You make it sound like an “implosion” would be a satisfactory conclusion. When countries go feral, they don’t just vanish or collapse in on themselves quietly. They collapse into civil war with usually massive problems for their neighbours who get dragged in. Or they turn their anger outward, and attack their neighbours. Or at the least you end up with refugee problems. I sometimes hear rhetoric from my friends on the left, the more extreme ones anyway, about revolution and I always like to ask them if they really understand what that means. It means dragging your neighbors out of their homes in the dead of night and shooting them in the face. Or worst yet, your neighbors dragging you out in the dead of night and shooting _you_ in the face. That said, I’m not really word about my friends on the left starting that kind of trouble. I’m more worried about my friends on the right, most of whom deny anything untoward happened this past January 6th or blame Antifa. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/55 "2021-10-25T02:32:23Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I sometimes hear rhetoric from my friends on the left, the more extreme ones anyway, about revolution and I always like to ask them if they really understand what that means. It means dragging your neighbors out of their homes in the dead of night and shooting them in the face. Or worst yet, your neighbors dragging you out in the dead of night and shooting _you_ in the face. In fact, it is vanishingly rare to find in history a violent revolution that does not result in more repression, chaos, destruction, and often exactly the people who you don’t want in power taking charge. From the French Revolution and the English Civil War to the Philippine Revolution and the Taiping Rebellion, these things often go wildly off the rails. Most Americans seem to think in concept of the American Revolution—even though that was less a “revolution” than the accedence of the Crown to releasing a colony that was rapidly becoming a liability anyway, and was much more valuable as a self-governing trading partner—and forget the horrors of the American Civil War which has been nicely papered over as a casual familial disagreement suitable for reenactment and nostalgia. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/56 "2021-10-25T02:44:15Z")
So when the Right implements it’s agenda, will looking away be appropriate, or will participation be required? We has already determined that resistance is unacceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/57 "2021-10-25T02:50:17Z")
Who determined that? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/58 "2021-10-25T02:51:17Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Because all states are shades of purple. - We should put all the states in a massive continental centrifuge and sort them out. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/59 "2021-10-25T03:03:55Z")
The problem isn’t so much “red” and “blue” but the point that both are essentially dependent on an economy driven by consumer spending and onerous foreign policies, with one of the effects being soaring debt: > **[U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time](https://www.usdebtclock.org/)** > > US National Debt Clock : Real Time U.S. National Debt Clock That’s almost $30 trillion in public debt, or over $80,000 per person. For total debt, it’s more than $80 trillion, including $20 trillion in personal debt, or $60,000 per person. There’s also almost $2 trillion in student debt, or around $40,000 per student. Federal debt has increased to 120 pct of GDP, and total debt to GDP 140 pct. On top of all that is more than $150 trillion in unfunded liabilities, or almost $500,000 per person. For savings, it’s an ave. of $20,000 per family. And all that in a country which is incredibly spendthrift not only in terms of money but also in terms of resource and energy use. ---
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/60 "2021-10-25T03:08:05Z")
Read the thread. The inevitable outcome of resistance to the regime’s agenda is either political violence, peaceful separation, or civil war. All of these things have been ruled unacceptable in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2021, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108/61 "2021-10-25T03:19:17Z")
I think you mean individuals here have articulated negatives about each of these things. Nothing has been ruled or determined. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-split-the-country/953108.md?page=4)