Should the US be split into 3 independent states?

[Minstrel Boy]

Given the fact that peace in Iraq seems impossible given a united American state, I think it's the only solution.

The Old Confederacy still chaffes at being ruled by Washington. Southerners still point out the mass graves and scenes of battle of their last uprising. New Englanders have their own ancient traditions, language and set of beliefs. Midwesterners want their own theocracy.

And when you consider the restless Hispanic populace of the South West, the Alaskan Innu's right to self-governance and more, perhaps three states won't be enough.

Let's face it, the United States is an artificial construct that doesn't do justice to natural, ethnic division. For the good of its many different peoples, once the Iraqi militias have pacified the urban areas, the process of breaking up this accident of history once and for all should begin. I see no other answer.

/sarcasm off

[patricia92243]

1. No for three countries.

[Daisey Mae]

2. don't forget

Our Hawaiian independence issues,,,,,,/sarcasm on

[skippysmom]

3. Northeastern secession

The rest of the country hates us for our latte-drinking, librul ways -- so I think we should secede. We can move toward a Canadian style of government.

Edited to add: I was being fairly sarcastic...but not entirely. I'm just really tired of being told that the Northeast isn't the "real America."

And I do see your point about Iraq.

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. The secession question

Was settled about 150 years ago.

[Rolling Titanic]

6. What ever happened to

violence doesn't solve anything?

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. I never said it

Violence DOES solve some things. My freedom is a prime example.

[Classical_Liberal]

18. How would it hurt your freedom?

Just curious? You live in DC, so you would end up in the Northeastern country of blue seccessionists.

Anyway, I think it would be easier to invite the Canadians into the US.

We do need to do something about fundy domination and that would be much easier than breaking up.

[LagaLover]

21. DC is in the South

Below the Mason and Dixon line, surrounded by two "southern" states: MD and VA. It is NOT part of the Northeast.

[Classical_Liberal]

22. MD is a boarder state. Both DC and MD are democratic (blue states)

Both were part of the UNion in the Civil War. Minstrel boy didn't look at the red vs blue map when hashing out his three states. I would say to be fair at you would have to work it in to five. NE, SE, North Central, Plains/Mountain, and West by SW.

[LagaLover]

23. MD was only on the union side

because of the presence of Federal troops there. Absent the Union soldiers garrisoned there, it would have been a confederate state (gross simplification, but accurate). MD is a "Blue" state because of Baltimore City, Montgomery County, and Prince Georges County. The rest of the state is red - LOTS of folks here consider themselves the South. And for accuracy, the M-D line is said to separate North from South; in manner and style MD (especially rural MD)is as "south" as VA.

[Classical_Liberal]

24. Maryland never voted for seccession

That is simply a fact. It's electoral votes have gone to dems for the past several elections. Another fact.

[LagaLover]

25. So?

We have a Republican Governor (yuck)...We never voted for secession due to the fact a vote was never held (thank God)...if it HAD been, MD would have joined the confederate states. I live here; MD is NOTHING like the Northeast and would have zero desire to "bond" with that part of the country.

[Classical_Liberal]

28. It is a contguous part of the blue northeastern swath of pro dem

states and has been for a while now. It is also a state that received lots of Catholic and Jewish immigration at the turn of the century more like the North Eastern states. My bet is it would join the North. We have conservative counties in my state too. Counties don't count.

[LagaLover]

34. Not a chance

MD is nothing like the Northeast. And how do you account for our republican Governor?

[Muddleoftheroad]

26. Used to live in DC

Fled there for survival.

Anyhow, crushing secession last time got me my freedom.

[Classical_Liberal]

29. Were Jewish people slaves in the South?

?


Anyway, I think not enforcing the fugitive slave act could have accomplished freedom for the blacks. The blacks would have had a stronger incentive to run away. This would have created other desirables like the fact that the poor whites would be the only thing left to exploit and they would have turned against the plantation class. The plantation class would have been destoyed politically and economically with no violence.

[Muddleoftheroad]

30. Your question completely confuses me

African-Americans were slaves in the South. Jewish people were actually fairly well treated.

Not enforcing the fugitive slave act would have only resulted in few victories for freedom and more bad treatment for those who didn't escape.

[Classical_Liberal]

31. Your answer givin your posting history confuses me.

but ok, whatever floats your boat.

I think a much larger percentage would have run away, and that would have had terrible economic concequences. Needless to say if Lincoln were serious he would have done that long before sending troups to the South. He also would have freed border state slaves.

[Muddleoftheroad]

38. Clarification

I am African-American, but my momma raised me to look out for your friends. The Jewish people were among the first to step to the plate and help blacks gain our civil rights. She never let me forget that.

Lincoln was trying to save a nation and, because of his background, had little understanding of the realities of slavery until her first came to Washington in Congress. Over time he realized how evil it was.

As an aside, the South did fire first.

[icymist]

44. I disagree with you about Lincoln.

It was during his time in the Whig party that he realized that his anti-slavery stance was holding him back politically, to a one-term congressman. Lincoln recognized that the newly forming Republican party had a big anti-slavery platform. Because of the anti-slavery stance Lincoln took in the 1860 Presidential campaign, the Southern states threatened succession if he were elected. The country was at war within six months after Lincoln became President.

Check out the Lincoln-Douglas debates during the 1858 Senate race in Illinois. http://www.bartleby.com/251/
"MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."
(italics added)
Ironic, isn't it, that the Republican party had first formed to help free people and now that same party is being used to control and deny rights to people?

[Muddleoftheroad]

47. Feel free to disagree

But initially Lincoln would have easily continued slavery to save the union.

Lincoln actually caught a lot of hell from the firebrands in the party who wanted to end slavery. But he sought concilliation.

The South feared Lincoln because they feared his supporters. He personally was not a party firebrand.

[Kitsune]

37. Actually

The Supreme Court never ruled on the Constitutionality of it, because the North declined to charge Jefferson Davis or anyone else with a crime.

</trivia>

[Muddleoftheroad]

39. And you harbor doubts about it?

Six hundred thousand soldiers died proving the point.

[icymist]

5. Secession is illegal.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
"What's wrong with American can be fixed by what's right with America." -Bill Clinton

[Captain Absolut]

9. Just to continue the debate

How is seccession illegal? The Declaration of Independence allows it...

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. We settled it on the battlefield

The precedent has been set.

[pnorman]

17. The precedent of settling things on the battlefield

has certainly been set. Perhaps it's time to look to other precedents.

pnorman

[Muddleoftheroad]

27. Why?

That one ended slavery.

[icymist]

19. We've fought a very bloody war to settle the matter of secession

which could have very well ended at Gettysburg. The Northern country and the Southern country would have been established with a hostile border. The West would have most likely have been established as a third country that would hold in check the two warring nations. Technically, using your logic, secession is not illegal as declared in the Declaration of Independence. It simply isn't a wise thing to do. A good friend once told me that it is easier to change an existing organization than to create a new one.

It's early in the morning here on the West Coast and I, as yet, have not had my second cup of coffee so I may be taking the 'sarcasm' of this thread too seriously.

[NewJeffCT]

11. If we left, the rest would fall apart

The northeast states (New England, NY, NJ) pay more into the federal government than we get back, unlike those freeloading southern states... and those open range states in the midwest.

(Go Huskies!)

[LagaLover]

14. Yeah, but you'd starve! :-)

[Kathy in Cambridge]

40. I'm sick of my federal TAX MONEY

funding 'faith-based' initiatives that exclude others based on race, sex and sexual preference.

[Bridget Burke]

7. Am I the only one who caught the "sarcasm"?

I agree with you. We need fewer borders, not more.

Of course, to truly parallel the Iraqi situation, we would not be the ones to decide. A few old men far away, drawing lines on maps, should design our future. It's always worked so well in the past.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. Maybe! Thanks for getting it.

I didn't think I was being that subtle.

I thought it was obvious my target was the armchair imperialism that glibly says "Iraq's a problem. Let's divide it."

[Screaming Lord Byron]

32. The irony there is of course that armchair imperialism created Iraq

in the first place. Basically the whole situation is massively fucked.
I have no answer as to what can be done for an area we can now (thanks to PNAC) add to Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Israel/Palestine, the Koreas and all those other hotspots that are truly fucked. Thanks, Rumsfeld.

[Minstrel Boy]

36. One of the big problems with imperialists

is the lack of a sense of irony.

[drumwolf]

41. I think the previous posters DID get your irony.....

It's just that this country IS so deeply polarized and split that, long before your post, a lot of us were already tossing about the idea of us breaking away from the red states, at least jokingly.

[THUNDER HANDS]

12. Yes...New York, California & Everything Else

Lets see how grand a country America is without NY and Cali to bookend it economically.

Without NY and Cali, the USA is a second rate Canada.

[LagaLover]

15. Well, without the great state of California anyway...

New York? Blah!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

42. New York-like California-contribute more to the GNP than say VA

If the Northeast states seceded, they could easily survive as a separate country. As I said earlier, I'm damn sick of my tax money going toward institutionalized prejudice in the red states.

[LagaLover]

45. Is that why the majority of the 10 most segregated cities are in the north

? :-)

[Kathy in Cambridge]

48. That has nothing to do with what I just said

But judging by your posts, reading comprehension isn't your forte.

For every $1 of my federal tax dollar, I get 50 cents back. Alabamans give $1, and get $2. Faith-based programs can receive federal tax money, yet because they're affiliated with religious institutions, they don't have to COMPLY WITH THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964.

Now how did you make the JUMP from talking about tax money to segregated cities? Nice disruptive attempt on your part to change the subject.

[Classical_Liberal]

13. If you are doing a red vs blue division

The upper midwest, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan or north central states are in the blue.

It kind of foils things for us if you make us join the Mountain/Plains state confederacy.

[terisel]

20. Actually it may happen without planning

I think there have been predictions of a Pacifica (west coast)plus predictions of an eventual merging of southwest with northern Mexico.

The question is was holds the US together as one country? Consumerism (we buy same products)? Media concentration(we watch the same programming)? Military budget, installations, and maintenance (like long term planning needed for nuclear waste, national deficit?

I do think we are a more cohesive society than the old USSR, and that if there ever were a pulling apart, the northeast, the southeast, and a state like Ohio would actually stay together. East and West I am not so sure about.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

33. Go get a comic book miniseries called "Give Me Liberty"

Originally published in the early 90's by Dark Horse.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1569710678/103-3204581-8235010?v=glance

[Jose Diablo]

35. LOL Minstrel Boy

Your question shows the arrogance of us Americans when we contemplate a solution for somebody else's country.

I salute you in your point well made.

We should just pack-up and leave Iraq now and let the Iraqi sort this mess out themselves. Of course, we owe resources to the Iraqi people to rebuild. The Iraqi are able to rebuild their country themselves if we supply them what they do not have.

The Iraqi should themselves determine the best future for their country, not us. The best thing we can do at this point is just help them with what they need.

Edit for clarity and spelling

[Onlooker]

43. nevermind

[sleepystudent]

46. Sigh...

LOL...the responses to this show how slow on the uptake some people on here are and how much they lack a sense of nuance and a sense of humor. I love how people will take any chance, no matter how flimsy, to show off how much they hate another part of the country. It's like they began to fire off bitter responses without even reading the entire thing-you know, like the "sarcasm" at the end.