Dissolution: is it time?

The history of American politics is largely a history of the struggle between the mercantile values of the North versus the agrarian values of the South. Compromises held the country together in the revolution and until 1860. As slavery fell out of favor, the South decided it could not live with a Federal government opposed to its expansion and seceded. They were brought back in by force and it has made the South bitter. Now, it seems that the xenophobia, religious extremism and general intolerance dominates Southern political culture. That has spread to enough of the country to give them control over the political system. This has spread to all aspects of our culture. The right now dominates the country and is a real problem to the world.

After centuries of trying, is it time for us to admit that the North and South simply cannot live together? As Southern and some Midwestern states pass anti-gay Amendments, New England states and CA are moving toward gay marriage. While Bush bans stem cell research, CA funds it. While blue state voters are suspicious of religion, it is a requirement for getting along elsewhere. Other cultural and economic issues are equally divisive and seem to fall along regional lines. Is it time to just end it? Let the blue states and the northern swing states have their own country and let the cons take the South. This will permit the blue and swing states to join the rest of the world, promote education, science, the environment, have national health care and sane foreign policy while providing a hedge against the decreased power of the red states who will persist in their belligerent, egocentric policies.

It didn't work out.

This time it seems like people already think there are two Americas.

and that was the problem. We forced them back into a union they didn't want and they've been sabotaging it ever since then.

However, Dixie is no longer the real problem. The true moron corridor is the heartland, fron Texas in the south, through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, and up through the Dakotas in the north.

Dissolution, with the Union existing on the east and west coasts with a hostile area in between, would not work, especially as the oil gives out.

However, what will work is a steady discrediting of all the propaganda those folks hold so dearly. Only persistence and a long view of the future will alllow us to do this. Only by ridding our own party of Repuglican moles and regaining our own vision will we have a chance of changing things in the future.

It's a process, folks, and there are no instant fixes.

The issue was settled in 1865--- definitively.

Hatred in the South for the North, for integration, for religious tolerance continue to fester and now they dominate national politics, business and the media.

One Union, perpetual and indissoluble was definitively the answer arrived at in 1865.

It's time to form exploratory committes. Let's free America!
P.S. - the fundie south will be OVERJOYED to let us go.

There is no longer any *logical* reason for a geographic division, and there are plenty of red states up north.

But Ohio, for example, went for Clinton twice. Had there been no war, they would have gone for Kerry.

But Ohio, for example, went for Clinton twice. Had there been no war, they would have gone for Kerry.

...how do you handle the exodus -- a la India/Pakistan and "the partition" -- of, say, university faculty, students, liberal theologians, etc., many African-Americans, etc., who would all need to leave the "new" South?

than a north/south divide.

... the blue states are more concentrated in cities than red states. Also, it is not strictly rural vs. urban. Boston and its suburbs are very Democratic. Cleveland area towns tend to be a mixed bag while Cincinnati is downright conservative. So while cities tend to be blue, there is a range of blueness even among them. This is not strictly a north and south thing, but it seems to have grown out of it.

But each individual state should get to make those sorts of choices independent of others. We should have and do have the opportunity to emigrate to a new location if where we live doesn't match our ideological views.

Even here in solid blue New York, we've got our share of red.


Besides, everyone leaving to go be "with their own kind" is a great way to create new hatred and resentment of "the other." And it's much easier to hate "foreigners" than "neighbors"

Civil war in Kansas started five years before the national Civil War and did not end until 1865.

... in the Civil War, whether individual states had a right to decide. The toss of the iron dice revealed the answer to be "no." Any decision to dissolve would necessarily require a national concensus.

lets just take this idea off its feeding tube, please?

Not that I tink its a silly idea, or a nonsensical idea...

I just think its a bad idea. Wrong, and bad, and wrongbad. (That means its worse than either bad or wrong. Its wrongbad.)

How dare someone even think of removing its feeding tube!

*writes congressman*

*starts hunger strike*

*carves crucifix into scalp*

please stop carving scalp totems.

Thats double plus wrongbad.

Is there a dark side of Southern politics? Yes.

Is there a dark side of Northern politics? Yes.

The South had de jure segregation. The North had and has de facto segregation.

The South gives us zillions of 'Professional Christians.' Joe McCarthy, William Jenner, and Frank Bricker were not Southerners (guess what these 3 had in common).

Southern politics has had a very strong racebaiting component since the Civil War. So does politics up North. After all, it wasn't in Atlanta that No Irish Need Apply signs were put up.

The America First movement was quite powerful in the North. It hardly existed down South.

Virtually all the New Deal legislation owed its passage through Congress to two Southerners, Sam Rayburn and Joe Robinson.

One pack of demogogues is hardly sufficient reason to condemn everyone in the area. After all, I don't see people here blaming Wisconsin for McCarthy, Pennsylvania for Rick Santorum, Connecticut for the entire Bush family, or California for Reagan and Nixon.

I am just wondering if, broadly speaking, residents of red states, which seem to be the reddest in the former Confederacy, see things so differently than blue state and swing state residents that it is better if we lived seperately. Maybe not. Maybe the Federal Union is still worth preserving. I just get the increasing impression that a lot of people in this country wish the result of the Civil War had been different and that the South especially would rather live free from pinko, liberal interference.

With the exceptions of notable mediawhores Robertson and Falwell, the South was as horrified by 9/11 as anyone else in the country. What I heard after that day was not 'Why did God do this to us?' but 'What can we do to help the people in NY?'

Every region has its share of assholes. The goal should be to beat those assholes in elections, not let them win by default.

Of course they are bit more civilized than we gun-totin' lords of the world.

It doesn't mean that it couldn't happen peacefully here.

Came out something like fifteen - twenty years ago, but holds true. The NA continent is really comprised of several distinct nations, culturally and ideologically, not the nations that currently exist. The Carribean, which includes S. Florida, is one. Dixie is another. N. California, Oregon, Washington and Vancouver is another. The mid-west breadbasket is another, ranging from Kansas into Canada. The industrial belt from NY to Illinois. Etc, etc.

Though the mid-western states are now counted as reddish, they have little in common with the deep south or with the western 'barren lands', the other so-called red states. Culturally they are more aligned with the old industrial states. The culture of the far NE is more aligned with eastern Canada than with the industrial states.

It is an interesting read that can change the way you see the US.

:silly:

Maybe we can survive, but it seems like we could fall apart.

I feel totally alienated from the people in power now. My ideals and philosphy of life are polar opposites to the Bushlers. I don't believe in war except under extreme duress where there is no other recourse. I believe religion is something to be practiced in private and not in our courthouses and hospitals.

I believe in social programs that nurture each citizen every step of the way to allow them to reach their full potential to contribute to their well-being and that of the rest of society. I think we have an obligation to preserve our environment not exploit and ruin it for monetary gain. I think animals should be treated humanely.

I cringe everytime these bible thumping neocons do something stupid, cruel or destructive in my name. I think they need their place in a corner of Hell, waiting for the Rapture, so that the rest of us can be free at last to pursue creating a garden of Eden for everyone to enjoy and flourish in.

because we have gone too far to isolate and contain. The marriage of the fundies and the Gold,oil&drugs crowd, while not pervasive in the population is massive in global reach and power. Its no longer as simple as north/south or ideology. The nut-jobs add passion to a ruthless, heartless corporate beast that pulls the strings by which we dance.

"They have laid down their lives
On the bloody battle field,
Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom!
Their motto is resistance
'To tyrants we'll not yield!'
Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom!
CHORUS"

Battle Cry of Freedom, Confederate version, Anonymous.

federalism on an even smaller scale - the concept of polycentric law.

http://www.theihs.org/libertyguide/hsr/hsr.php/12.html



something bigger than gated communities and smaller than states.