The above link breaks down counties by polarization. The bulk of extreme left counties are on the coast or near major urban centers. The bulk of extreme right counties are in the rural middle of the nation.
Let the nation split where the cracks already exist. Those who are out of place where they are can relocate.
It seems things would run much more smoothly when the extreme polarization that has paralyzed Congress is eliminated.
Depends on the legal frameworks they are bound to and how much force various parties are willing to use. In some cases it’s legal and somewhat pragmatic why not? In other cases, like the USA, we have a large military for a reason. There’s no sense in purposely allowing a few malcontets to permanently weaken the nation. It’s better to whip that ass, while letting them keep their stylish flag, and stay strong as a nation.
See above.
My quote says NYC. Whoever owned Singapore obviously didn’t want it enough to fight for it.
It’s a nice dream, but the different parts of the U.S. rely on each other for different things. What we need is for people, especially politicians, to stop exaggerating how much the system is “broken” and stop pouring fuel on the fire of polarization. We have more in common than things that divide us as Americans.
International law, and the international community, generally recognised the existence of a right of self-determination. The right is generally regarded as inherent in a “nation” or a “people”, which of course leaves unanswered the important question of what kind of community amounts to nation or people with an inherent right of self-determination. In most of the real-world cases where the right of self-determination has been referred to or invoked, a “people” has been (a) a previously independent country under foreign military occupation, or (b) an ethnically distinct people occupying an identifiable territory, subject to colonial occupation.
But there have been a few cases of self-determination being exercised to create a state by secession which don’t fall clearly into either of these categories. Ireland wasn’t formally a colony but part of metropolitan UK when the Irish Free State seceded in 1922. Singapore wasn’t a colony of Malaysia, even if it was the only Malaysian state with a majority Chinese population. And of course there have been multinational states (Austrian empire, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia) which simply disintegrated, peacefully or otherwise, when there was no longer any force, internal or external, to keep the various nations together in one state. In those cases ethnic or national differences seem enough to support the exercise of a right of self-determination without the additional factors of either colonial or foreign military occupation. If Scotland secedes from the UK, that will be another example.
Whereas attempts at secession by people who are not ethnically or nationally distinct generally meed with less success, and less international support. So, does e.g. Texas have a right of self-determination such as would found secession from the US? We won’t know until they try, but I’d say their prospects of attracting much international support or sympathy are not good. They’re not a colony of the US; nor are they under foreign military occupation. And their American cultural and national identity is, if anything, quite strongly articulated; they certainly can’t claim to be a distinct from Americans as, say, the Scots are from the English.
Is the United States the only country where secession should be prohibited (and opposed by force if necessary) or are there others? Where is the dividing line between countries where secession should be allowed and where it should be prohibited?
I would strongly dispute that. If you think the divide between conservatives and liberals is bad now, imagine what it would be like when they were facing each other across a tangled international border, each side with its own military and a sense that the “other side” is occupying territory they should have.
There is, in international law, and nations which fail to respect the right of self-determination can find themselves the subject of international sanctions. The problem is that the precise parameters of that right are unclear, and the willingness of the international community to enforce the right where it is not respected is patchy. But that the legal right exists is not in any doubt.
It might or might not. It would depend on the detail. A mechanism by which national or ethnic minorities occupying a distinct territory could secede might be a better idea that an a mechanism by which any group of two or more landowners with contiguous landholdings of any size could secede.
You’re focusing on what the article says are the extremes and ignoring the center. The article plainly says that some counties are predominantly Republican or Democratic but points out how many counties are not.
The article says that the “contested” part the country is bigger than either the Republican or Democratic areas.
None of that detracts from my point. Hard left tends to be urban/costal, hard right tends to be rural. It doesn’t follow from that that all rural is hard right or all urban/costal is hard left.