The problem isn’t that we need to start our own little country, the problem is that this country isn’t being run as it was meant to be. Each state was intended to be its own little country; joined (united) with other states for common benefits. This seems to have gone by the wayside with the explosive growth and influence of the federal government. Prior to 1913 there was no Federal income tax because the federal government simply wasn’t that big. As soon as the feds began strongarming the states, we became homoginized. An example of this is how the feds tell the states that if they don’t change the BAC level for DUI to 0.08, they won’t get billions of dollars in highway money (even though the citizens of those states paid that money).
Also, the constitution was meant to restrict the powers and rights of the government, not the people, and the individual states would be allowed to govern themselves. But the trend has been to add amendments to force all states onto the same playing field. E.g., the recent issue of gay marriages - let the states decide.
Instead of seceding, we could accomplish the OP’s intentions and keep the country united. If you didn’t like your particular state’s views on abortion, or marijuana, or obscenity, or morality, you could move to the state that closely matches your views. I believe this country is just too large to for Yankees and Southerners, New Englanders and folks from SoCal, Hawaiians and Floridians, and others to have the same values, mores, and beliefs.
Like Inigo has said, this is not the first time I’ve heard the idea of secession as a response to Bushco. I’m with loopydude, Bush isn’t my president. The troops who torture over in Iraq (not my war) aren’t my compatriots. The electoral system is obviously broken when only 51% of Americans actually voted in 2000 thus forcing the SCOTUS to appoint our leader. I live in MA, nicely ensconced in blue zones all around. I drive a car with a bumper sticker that says “Re-elect Bush because you’ve waited for Armageddon long enough!” I’ve gotten countless compliments. In the mail today, I received my latest purchase: a T-shirt that says “America is scary”.
Let’s establish a country called Freedonia (gotta love the Marx Bros.) where gays can marry, healthcare is socialized and religion never taints the government. A country that actually stays in the Kyoto Treaty and the ABM Treaty. A country that submits to the international criminal court. A country that sees the U.N. as a valuable tool rather than a roadblock to fulfilling personal vendettas/empire. I dream, can’t I? If not, we have our four horsemen so let’s get this “end of days” on!
Low voter turnout didn’t force SCOTUS’s involvement; the razor-thin electoral college margin did. Besides, what fixes to the electoral system did you have in mind? Mandatory voting? Good luck getting that through.
Errm . . . jeez . . . look, can anybody think of a constitutional way we can kick Texas out of the Union? And then come up with an excuse to declare war on it, carry out a thorough genocide with carpet-nukes, then re-annex the territory and resettle it with bipedal grown-ups with three-digit IQs? No rancor intended, you understand, in the long run it’s all for the best.
Here’s the thing: Unless I’m seriously mistaken, there is a region of this country known as the “Bible Belt”, is there not? I get the impression, given the way these folks vote, Ten Commandments in State Supreme Courts and all that, a substantial proportion of a particular regional population would be quite happy with what I, personally, would characterize as a vaguely fascist theocracy. Now they would probably charactarize the kind of governance I would like to see as, well, Satanic. I feel strongly, passionately feel that drugs should be legalized; that government should get out of the marriage business, or, at least, marriage should not be limited to heterosexuals; that women should have a right to choose, and that this right be protected at the constitutional level so that it is never in danger of assault; that “God”, plus any and all reference to God, should be eradicated from government (no “One nation under God”, no “In God We Trust”, NONE of it); that Creationism, Intelligent Design, etc. has no place in school science curricula, period, because these pseudoscientific principles ARE FALSE; that embryonal stem cell research should be allowed to continue unrestricted by the superstitious meddling of conservative Christianss (or members of any other faith); that development in alternative energy supply and aggressive reduction in our dependance on petroleum should be of the highest priority; that global warming is (contrary to the delusory assertions of pseudoscientists in the purse of neoconservatives), real, and hence greenhouse emissions must be reduced aggressively; that environmental protection is important; that clean air and water is important…
Get the picture? See, up around where I’m from, I think a good percentage of folks would go along with the above enthusastically. And the majority would probably jump aboard if a couple of the more radical ideas were dropped or modified.
How do you figure the Bible Belters would feel about the above?
Hell, the South actively wanted out some century-and-a-half ago. I can only guess from all the confederate flags flying, the idea still has some appeal. “The South Will Rise Again” right?
Well, rise! Go ahead! Thing is, can we rise too? Rise, shake hands, and walk out separate entrances? You want your God and your guns and so on, and I say, have them! Please. Here, have a whole chunk of the North American Continent, it’s yours. I’d be happy to part with it if it meant, well, quite frankly, parting with you. Why does anybody have to “leave their country” to be really, truly happy with the social and political climate in their own? Why not just remake the country?
Why is this 200-year-old unhappy marriage forced to continue? Lets get some good lawyers, and talk it over like adults. Don’t just dismiss the idea out of hand, because the “Union” is some how sacrosanct. It isn’t. It’s just a political construct, like any other; it can change with the times, if we let it.
What I don’t think will change with the times is each other. Seems to me we’ll always be in this argument. Irreconcilable differences, as they say. We gave it a good try, but maybe it hasn’t worked out as well as we kid ourselves in social studies class. Maybe we need a little space. Of our own.
At least in Texas we’re smart enough to actually know what idiot we are voting for, which is something I can not say about a certain phallic shaped state
Have you actually been to the South? Ever? Or does everything you know about it come from old episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas. If I wasn’t laughing so much at the absurdly exaggerated stereotypes you painted for all people south of the Mason-Dixon line, I’d probably be insulted.
No one would disagree that the South on average is more conservative than the North, but the South, like the North, is a very diverse place full of many different kinds of people. You make the South sound like the vast majority of Southerners are crazed uneducated white fundamentalists waving big rebel flags from their trailers. It ain’t.
You’ve taken a valid demographic generalization and turned it into a bizarre us vs. them situation. I’d suggest instead of spending your time singing the praises of the enlightened people geographic area A and how they are superior to the saps in area B, you do something to try to change the way the country is being run now. I’m from the south, and I don’t like Bush either. I know plenty of people down here who don’t like him either. This fall we are going to try to vote him out even though we know there isn’t a chance in hell our votes will count.
We do have regional differences. We have some people who poke fun at certain regions of the country. We have others who have some pretty bigoted ideas about people from certain regions of the country. Despite our differences though most of us do share a common culture and actually care about other states. During the civil rights movement the south was visited by white yankees who wanted to help. You don’t do that if you don’t give a shit about other states. After 9/11 I never saw so many vehicles from Texas, Missouri, or Arkansas with “I Love New York” bumper stickers.
It’s a little depressing that anyone would seriously consider sessesion at this stage. If this were the pit I might have a few choice words for those who think we in the south don’t give a shit about Maine. Since it isn’t the pit I’ll just have to leave it at this. KISS MY GRITS!
I don’t think secession will work but you do have a point. Right now about half the country is feeling totally disenfranchised … led into an illegal, immoral war by a man not elected President, but selected by the Supreme Court. This cannot be a good thing for the Republic.
We’re staying together for the kids, but when they’re out of the house…
Except they never seem to leave. Sure, they may bum around Europe for a month but they usually come home. Or they move to Alaska, but that’s the equivalent of a room above the garage—out of the house but not off the property. Plus we need them paying into Social Security so we might someday be able to retire and be a burden on THEM, for a change.
So it’s the children’s fault, but you parents already knew that, ultimately, everything can be blamed on the children and life would be really sweet if it weren’t for the little bastards.
If we cannot live together as brothers in one land, that of our fathers and grandfathers, what hope is there for the world? May my county, my town or my house break away from the nation? At what point does the argument reach its absurd extreme?
What would be the future when Republican breaks from Democrat, Black from White, Gay from Straight?
In other words, a vast majority of the South is going to vote this fall for a crazed, uneducated, white fundamentalist. Guilt by association. Sorry.
This past Sunday, The LA Times reported on Bush’s warm reception in Iowa while touring there, with various towns eagerly anticipating the possibility that he might pass through.
I could only be happy about Bush heading my way if he were going to pass over a bear trap I had laid out for him.
I can not fathom how so many of the people in Iowa can regard him as a remotely good leader. Their apparent values could not possibly be more different than mine, and the thought of them having a strong say in the running of the country I live in disturbs me deeply.
Yes there are “battleground” states, where the votes have been close, but they are in the minority. Most states, as we see constantly, are “Red” or “Blue”, and comfortably so.
Certainly if this nation does not please me I am free to leave it, but if the majority of my whole state were to feel the same way, then we ought to be able to take our real estate with us when we depart.
If a large enough group of people are so blind that they can’t see Bush for what he is enough to deny him an Electoral majority this fall, then the problems of this Union will last well beyond this presidency. I want nothing to do with them.
I’ve lived in Alabama for the last ten years, and what Loopydude said seems pretty accurate to me.
Go on, ask me about Judge Roy Moore and his supporters sometime. And then ask me about the campaign ads other judges who are running for office in this state.
The problem of course, as has been pointed out, is where do you draw your new national lines? The New England states? What about all the people there who DON’T want to break the union? Shoot them? Force them to leave? The arguement also seems to be breaking down along political lines (gee, there’s a shocker). How do you divide the union along those who Hate Bush™ and those who don’t? I hate to break this too you, but New England isn’t a Bush free zone. Nor is the deep south full of gun rack toting, knuckle dragging Bush supporters, nor the ‘bible belt’ populated with bible thumping cretins mindlessly toeing the Republican party line (as the OP seems to think). So, if you REALLY wanted to break the union along political lines and crawl back to your small seaboard mini-republic of New England, what are you going to do with the the half of your population that DOESN’T want what you are advocating?
Lets get real here people. Ok, Bush might not be the best president we could have. Ok, maybe he has done things you (and I) don’t like. Fair enough. But put it into some fricking perspective! He’s only in office a maximum of 8 years guys (hopefully only 4)! Hell, the Republican types had to grit and bear it for 8 years under Clinton (who they found equally odious)…I think we can put up with Bush for a few more months or 4 more years if we have too. The alternative (not that its very likely in any case) would be the destruction of the nation (at best) and civil war at worst…and it would be a civil war with no lines drawn, no boundaries.
/fantasy mode
Personally, I would love it if we could herd all the fuzzy headed left wing <insert appropriate explative> types up into New England and turn them free to prance about with the OP. Besides New York I have no use for the area at all and would be more than happy to turn them loose then kick back as they self destruct in an orgy of socialist spending and the discovery that they basically have nothing to sell or trade that anyone wants (besides a few lobsters), have no real natural resources (besides the afore mentioned lobsters), and that the majority of the folks that actually do the work moved out (because they didn’t want to pay for the nightmare). It would be a hoot.
/end fantasy mode
The great divide in American politics is not north versus south, it’s Urban vs. Suburban/Rural. Look at this map of returns by county in the 2000 election. Gore does exceptionally well in urban counties. When these urban counties dominate a state, the state falls democratic. Only because of the winner-takes-all rule of the electoral college do the red and blue states manifest themselves.
Thus if secession were possible, the result would be a string of city-states dotting the landscape living an uneasy truce with their suburban and rural neighbors.
That is of course (despite the rant), the main problem with New England secession.
NE is an energy island. The only currently viable fuel source is wood, and it wouldn’t take long to outstrip its renewability. You’d have to have treaties with the regions of the country you so recently pissed off by seceding while you developed oceanic heat cycle Carnot engines, wave harnessing, and hydrogen. Although you could ally yourselves with Quebec and draw more than you currently do from their abundant hydroelectric power while the folks at MIT came up with something else.
Another problem, however, is that, while you might get Massachussets and Vermont to go along with secession, you’d never get New Hampshire, and you probably wouldn’t get Maine. Connecticut? A toss-up. Rhode Island? Doubtful.
However, the “nothing to sell or trade” is short-sighted, even if you only have MA and VT. Boston is a major biotech center, and both states are strong tourist destinations. You’d have enough business to keep yourselves going, and if the fisheries were better managed, you might even get them to return to a higher capacity (that’s a BIG if, though).
I’m not sure what would happen out here in CA. I think the turbulence caused by a split might cause North and South to finally separate for good, and San Diego would not hang together with Los Angeles, if I know them. Water would be the major issue here, and I don’t know if the fractured state would have a solution for us. The San Joaqin Valley farmers might just turn off the tap for good, and we’d be screwed.
Well, of course, I was mostly joking. I don’t see this as a serious question.
<going on with the fun>
This assumes (like your MIT technology saving the day example) that most of the scientists, engineers and the businessmen who own and opperate those biotech companies (as well as the other companies in New England) would STAY in the mini-republic of New England. I’m far from convinced that would be the case, especially when the OP gets his way with universal health care, enhanced (i.e. European style) welfare system, very strict tree hugging environmental legislature, and the other plethera of socialist projects he’s itching to unleash. Someone has to pay for all that stuff, and suddenly New England would be on its own very limited resources.
But even if they did stay, all those projects you are talking about take resources. Not just energy but other resources that New England simply doesn’t have. How will they get them? What will they trade for them? Future breakthroughs that haven’t happened yet? Assuming that the remaining US stayed together at all, and assuming they would trade with a break away New England (both pretty big assumptions), what would New England trade with the US for all the high and low tech manufactured goods they would need but can’t produce themselves? What would they trade with the rest of the world for the same things?
And remember, at the same time you need everything from cars and trucks to TV’s, to medical equipment to high tech equipment for your labs, you also need to deal with the mundane things like…food. Ok, so New England could PROBABLY feed itself, but its a lot of work, and they’d have to ramp up quite a bit to become self sufficient (not to mention the farm equipment they’d have to buy, the fuel they would have to import to run it, etc).
Presently they get a lot of their food from other parts of the country. How will they get it when they break away? Through trade? We’re back to that again, assuming the US WANTS to trade with them. Maybe they will trade with Canada? Well, depends on how the break away is accomplished I suppose, but again, WHAT will they trade with Canada for the extra food (and energy) they need?
The nation is totally interconnected these days. No one region is self sufficient. Certainly New England isn’t self sufficient, unless they would be willing to build down to a much lower life style and tech level than they presently are at. And if they go that route, I can pretty much guarentee that all those engineers, scientists and business types will flee to warmer climes leaving a vast herd of tree hugging types living in pre-industrial bliss (until they freeze and starve to death…but they will die so happy).
I don’t see this as a serious question.