It was inevitable given the structural deficiencies built into the Constitution: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674023956 The gross misallocation of resources away from public education in the last fifty or so years has just poured gasoline on the fire.
Happy that Trump is visiting Saudi Arabia finally. He'll show them a thing or two. "We rent bases from Saudi Arabia, did you know we are paying them to protect them? That is incredibly stupid." - Donald Trump 2016 Ron
The Civil War happened because the South seceded from the North. This time there aren't a North and South, so how does the breakdown work? Even blue states are mostly red by geographical area.
If we get a breakup it will be a few states breaking away followed by a bigger settling and rationalization period. Best bets are California, Texas, Vermont and New Hampshire at this point. All it will take is one state successfully breaking away to get the process rolling.
It also happened because of several deep Ideological divides that could not be bridged peacefully. The South needed slave labor because it was not only cheap, but also provided a source of wealth via the slave trade. The North of course did not agree with that. The entire concept of "state's rights" began with this. Today, we're looking at another huge gulf between opposing ideologies that cannot coexist. It may not come to a shooting war, but several states have already toyed with the idea of succession. Like Brad said, all it will take is one state, maybe Texas, to successfully leave the "Union" and the avalanche starts. Like minded states will band together and in all likely hood, the old Confederacy will come back from the dust bin of history. Texas and California both are high GDP states and most likely could stand on their own. States like Mississippi otoh, will have to latch on to a state like Texas to be able to survive as they receive more FedAid than they contribute in taxes.
California would be the 34th most populous country in the world and would be the 6th richest behind only the US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK. If Scotland and Northern Ireland seceded from the UK California would be 5th. To the question of Confederation: why would Texas burden themselves with a state like Mississippi? The only argument that I can see is to get unfettered tax-free access to the river to move oil upstream and really pipelines will do that job better by the time this might transpire. I am guessing that California might be persuaded to take Washington and Oregon with them and maybe even Colorado but that is probably the limits of their ability to function as a coherent nation. They'd take Washington for the tech sector and Oregon as intervening and politically sympathetic population. They'd take Colorado to simplify water rights and because so many Californians are invested there. I can't see why they'd take anybody else at this point. Montana is another heavy investment area but the politics would not fit well. Texas might take Oklahoma for the shared oil industry and to facilitate tax-free pipelines. It's not clear they really have common cause or values with anybody else. They'd be more likely to try to confederate the Southwest than the old South. Just opinions on all of these but I think they're grounded in fact for the most part.
Yes, and that's why he's got Pence (and let's be real, Trump is no politician, Pence is calling most of the shots). Without their support he isn't president right now.
I was just saying that we are starting to head toward that path. Laws or orders should not be made to bring politics into churches. Separation goes both ways. Tax free church organizations should not be using their pulpit to endorse politicians. If people are worried about corruption in the church NOW, just wait until they start getting bought by politicians.
WASHINGTON — President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” LOL https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-comey.html?partner=msft_msn&_r=0
Except the separation doesn't go both ways. It's a regulation of the government not the church, not what you would have made the separation had you founded the country.
I'd love to see California secede; it would get invaded by the first group that decides to take it over. The ideology of the government and the citizens would restrict it from developing a military or police force capable of defending itself.
You're describing a breakup of the US, not a civil war. Regardless, unlike the previous breakup, geography would be a major problem this time. For one, the coasts would want to be part of the same country, but they couldn't be. You'd have scattered and powerless blue territories and a red territory that would slide downhill economically faster than it already is. Blue and red America would lose in the end.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump last week amid an agency probe into alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election, has agreed to testify before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee at a public hearing, the committee said in a statement on Friday. The hearing will be scheduled after the May 29 Memorial Day holiday, the statement said.
The St Lawrence Seaway and The Great Lakes link the East Coast to states as far away as Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Arctic is going to be ice-free in summer by 2030 or so. I don't think the linkup is that implausible. I'm not sure that the political will would be there but none of the big blue states are an overall drain on the economy and staying strong economically will definitely be on people's minds in the event of a breakup. It's a lot easier to manage the Social Security and Medicare transitions in a large liquid economy than in many small local ones. I think many of the red states will be hopelessly screwed though. The reality is that medium sized red states do not pull their own weight at this point and trying to convince their citizens to just give up Social Security and Medicare is going to be a slow motion inferno burning the pols and governments in those states for a loooong time.
Wisconsin voted Trump lol. Seriously, there's an even bigger problem than the distribution of blue and red states. It's that blue and red states aren't really that different. See New York and Alabama. New York is deep blue and Alabama is deep red, but that's only because NYC has enough people to overcome the rest of the state and Birmingham doesn't. If you broke the country into blue and red states, most of the landmass of blue states would want out, and most of the cities in red states would want out too.
The issue isn't whether the blue states are a drain on the economy but could they maintain their economy absent of the rest of the country? It would seem the large, publicly traded corporations located in California depend tremendously on those red states buying their goods and services.
Its more like can the rest of the country survive without California... California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts,99 percent of almonds, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 96 percent of olives, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 94 percent of broccoli,90 percent of grapes, 89 percent of cauliflower, 89 percent of strawberries, 88 percent of lemons, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots And the list is a lot longer than that
