Can this country ever split up? Blue and Red States type areas? Many have

[Nimrod2005]

Suggested this...

Someone I saw interviewed by Lou Dobbs wrote a book saying the Southwest will be Spanish/Latin one day...Others on here suggested Boston/NE become part of Canada...etc.

Could this happen to America? Is it bad when/if it happened? Many great empires which held on to large territories broke up over the years. I am not suggesting America is an empire, I am just pointing out examples like Great Britain, Spanish, Turkish...etc. were all reduced to smaller countries overtime.

Is the US due for a Soviet Union type breakup?

[Deep13]

1. As a nation of freemen, ...

...we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Linclon. 1838. We already tried that in the 1860s. The result was pretty messy.

[mitchtv]

5. times change

let them try again. Take utah and Idaho with them

[0007]

7. They can have the people but not the land.

[Nimrod2005]

13. I don't care about Alabama, why keep places like that?

[0007]

35. Alabama is one state I've never had the opportunity to visit.

So I have no opinion. The photos I've seen shows a beautiful country. But then again what isn't beautiful in America?

Hear here, Crawford Texas is ugly!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

36. Alabama is a lovely

state with some good folks in it.

[Deep13]

8. I'm not becoming a Red State citizen.

Besides, how will the populous blue states survive without agricultural products from red states?

[Nimrod2005]

14. We are buying it now silly, from Chile, Dominican, Vietnam,

and everywhere else.

[mitchtv]

20. California

Mexico
NY by the way is fairly agricultural

[MrMonk]

24. Red state citizens don't control where the food goes.

That's now done by multi-national corporations.

[Tesha]

46. Same way we do now: we'll buy it. (How do you figure it works today?) (NT)

[Lone_Wolf]

65. Import them from Canada and California.

n/t

[Nimrod2005]

12. I like Utah, used to live there...

[Nimrod2005]

11. I am not doing suicide stuff n/t

[mitchtv]

2. Ecotopia ,Nor Cal, OR, WA, BC,

w're outa here, who needs the rest?

[Nimrod2005]

15. Southern OR for me n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

68. Can Alaska join you?

We're "red," but we're libertarian red.

[LiberalEsto]

3. I'd like to see Native Americans get their own country

if they want one.

As for the rest, I don't know what to think. Part of me would like blue states to secede and form their own nation or merge with Canada.

[Nimrod2005]

18. That would be nice to see - Natives get the land back.

[Bridget Burke]

58. Well, that means they'd get pretty much all of it.

Or do you just want bigger reservations? Any Native Americans living elsewhere can be rounded up & returned.

And many of those brown folks have Native blood, so they can be rounded up, too. By the way--most of them are legal and/or native born. The ancestors of quite a few crossed that River before my ancestors crossed the Ocean.

[Gildor Inglorion]

4. Sadly, it might be a good idea

The gulf between the sensible liberals and the insane conservatives is growing wider all the time. If they'd let us go in peace, I'd happily sell everything I own and move to California, New York, even Oregon, and let the christofascists set up their reich in the red states.

[Nimrod2005]

17. I will sell my stuff and move...Fast.

[BOSSHOG]

6. I don't want that to happen

I'm a fucking raging liberal, military veteran who "irrationally" hates george bush and I live in a red state. I spent 24 years supporting and defending our constitution against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. There is no way I would support the breaking up of this great country. I'd rather aggravate and kick conservative ass with truth and brawn and logic. And if "conservatives" didn't have blue state residents to make them feel so inferior how could the republican party have a base? Lets keep fucking with em.

[Nimrod2005]

9. I like that....Sign me up.

But what if the place is not worth living in anymore? A police state, death penalty, anti human rights, a religious state...etc?

[Deep13]

10. The Union forever! Harrah, boys, harrah!

Down with the traitors and up with the star!
As we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cray of freedom!

[Nimrod2005]

16. Are you drinking? n/t

[Deep13]

49. nope

That's a Union song from the Civil War. Thought it appropriate.

[hatrack]

51. Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the Jubilee!

Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.

[Bridget Burke]

57. They ain't making Yankees like General Sherman any more....

Wimps.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

37. I'm with you

politics changes too much, too rapidly, to make these kinds of decisions. We're talking like it has always been this way, when actually within my memory Democrats were racists in the south. We should learn to get along, not fragment ourselves even more.

[liberalpragmatist]

19. I doubt it

Although you learn when studying history that nothing is impossible, politically speaking. Three years out, did ANYBODY forsee the breakup of the Soviet Union?

In all honesty, I doubt that the country would split up over politics. We've been highly divided in the past and we're divided right now, but ordinary people are not fire-breathing partisans and there's a lot more common ground between most people than the political class realizes. And the vast majority of people identify with the United States.

Keep in mind too that the colonial European empires were not constituency-based states. They were empires, where one state (Britain, Spain) ruled overseas domains by fiat. People in imperial territories weren't citizens; they were subjects. There's a difference.

The country isn't nearly as divided as people pretend; the average Kerry vote in the red states was around 45%, and the average Bush vote in the blue states was a similar. The real division is urban-rural, and that's a division that has been around for ages.

As for the future of different regions in the country, I'm not so sure that the Southwest is going to be predominantly Spanish-speaking. Most younger Hispanic immigrants know and speak English, and recall that New Mexico, despite being mostly Mexican-American in origin, is English-speaking. Historically, people used to say that Yiddish-speaking Jews, Italians, and Germans weren't immigrating, and those groups were retaining their own schools for over a generation! Pennsylvania was largely bilingual for a time.

If the country were to split up, I'd see the West Coast splitting off, as well as the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Perhaps the South, the Midwest and the Plains states would form a separate union.

[mitchtv]

22. people idnetify with the US until

they seetheir state being ripped of to enrich do nothing, welfare states who hate them case in point, California

[TallahasseeGrannie]

38. It's probably more likely that

the coastal areas will "split off" naturally with global warming and the country will shrink inland.

[mikeanike]

52. bingo

Fully agree with you, in my travels I have come to find that the vast majority of people, and I do mean the vast majority, are generally the same. We news junkies and politics addicts may have stronger opinions on issues but for the most part people don't really give a shit. Which is in reality, why the progressive movement will inevitably win the day. Since the movement is really about letting people do their own thing, and most people don't really give a shit about what other people do.

[newyawker99]

67. Hi mikeanike!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[we can do it]

21. Sounds Good to Me - I Am Ready to Get Out of This Red Hole NOW

[AtomicKitten]

23. I would love it.

[Popol Vuh]

32. LMAO AtomicKitten

I think I like your map better, its a little more accurate.. :)

[Bridget Burke]

53. This map is a bit more accurate. Where would YOU draw the borders?

Edited to add the source--more maps here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/wallpaper.html

[Greyhound]

63. Yeah, just keep pushing that crap. We're purple, not red and blue.

Unfortunately that is not reality. Individuals are red or blue wherever they live. You seem to think this is a negotiation, well let me tell you something, they're not interested in negotiating a compromise, they want all of us, including you, dead or in a work camp.
"It's a war, damn it, we're going to have to offend somebody."

[Bridget Burke]

54. Then remove the picture of the Gores from your posts...

They are definitely Southerners.

[Popol Vuh]

25. Something like this?

:evilgrin:

[nevergiveup]

26. Being from Illinois I don't particularly

care for our position on these maps. We are surrounded on all sides except the north. :scared:

[ucmike]

27. read "untied", i forget the author. probably the one you saw.

it puts the "united states" in perspective by comparing our republic to others that have broken apart or been altered radically. it also gives many examples of possible scenarios where many parts of the north american map may change drastically with only a few factors lining up at the right time.

it's an easy read, with lots of info and it hit the shelves in the last few months, so the author is probably still doing PR for it.

[MadHound]

28. Bad idea then, bad idea now

A number of reasons for not doing this. How are you going to split up mutual assests, things like military equipment, money, things in the Smithsonian, etc.?

Conversely, how do you split up our staggering debt? Even if you divided it evenly, 4 trillion dollars is a staggering weight of debt to lay on a brand new country.

Balkanization could be a huge problem. The South faced this prospect in the Civil War, and almost lost Georgia over it. The same problem would probably arise now. States divide into two, then they squabble amongst themselves, and divide into four, then eight, etc. etc. until we're all little nation-states, beating the shit out of each other. No thanks.

Speaking of beating the shit out of each other, how long do you think it would be before the hyper militaristic amongst us start hankering for a war against the others? I mean really now, we're on the verge of beating the shit out of each other right now, take away the block of not wanting to kill fellow citizens, and we'll be at war quickly.

Divided we fall, period. Seprately, two such countries that would be made out of the current US would be in dire straits. While food production would be prevalent in one country, relatively little would be coming out of the other. Same for most other resources and commodities.

And finally, we're NOT a simplistic Red State/Blue State dichotomy. Even in the reddest of states, there is a significantly large population of liberals, likewise in the Blue states. We certainly couldn't make a nice, neat geographical seperation, it would also have to be a seperation of the population, many of whom wouldn't want to move, myself included. The potential for violence and abuse in such a situation would be quite high.

Sorry, but this was a bad idea 145 years ago, it's a worse idea now. Better we take our country back from the shitheads currently in charge.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. One word YES, but more than two states by the way

[carolinayellowdog]

30. Bush approval exceeds 50% in only 7 states

http://surveyusa.com/50State2006/50StateBush060117Approval.htm

The red state/blue state meme is an absolutely harmful and destructive one, created and promoted by Republicans but all too often embraced by Democrats and used to attack fellow Democrats who happen to live in the "wrong" places.

The kind of eliminationist rhetoric that made DU a horrendous place for Southerners a year ago had completely disappeared until this post. The enemy is Republicans, not Southerners or Mountain Westerners.

[Innocent Smith]

34. And even approval/disapproval is too stark

Approval is painted as people being entirely on Bush's side. I'm reminded of what Tolkien had Treebread say - paraphrasing: "I'm not entirely on the side of anyone because they are not entirely on my side." The majority of people are not in the completely hate or completely love Bush catagory. Most people are in the "kind of dislike" or "kind of like" catatgory. Which is why his approval ratings can go up for no real reasons after certain events. A large group of people's opinion is fluid. And for the same reason the degree of disagreement between people is not as stark as the MSM makes it out to be. Disagreement is stark and large between the bases, but not the large bulk of the American public. What percentage even voted last election?

[Nimrod2005]

42. Good point, I never thought of that.....n/t

[Innocent Smith]

31. yes/no

Could it happen - yes

Will it happen - no

Check back in 100 years or so...

[Nimrod2005]

41. How about 30-40? That would be my guess.

[radio4progressives]

33. Personally, I wouldn't mind it, but the Empire State won't allow this! n/t

[cassiepriam]

39. If things continue like they are, it just might happen some day.

I would never have imagined I would say that, but anything is
possible given the current divisions in this country.

[Nimrod2005]

40. Exactly, I am surprised we are even discussing it.....n/t

[tom_paine]

43. Even IF this was a good idea (it's not), the Busheviks have been waiting

for 151 years to General Sherman us Northern Liberals, and make no mistake, they WILL do it with extreme relish.

But one can never forget that, without the Union victory in the Civil War, the Confederacy almsot certainly would have allied with Hitler against Liberal Yankee Democracy (where they let nigras and wimmen vote, the socialists) and Bushevism would have been a protectorate of Naizism.

Whatever the situation today, we cannot forget that, without the Union's supreme sacrifice, the Confederacy today would STILl be dotted with concentration camps & murder factories.

Athough, as we see from KBR and it's contracts for New Amerikan Concentration Camps, the circle is coming back to the start. The only question is how fully, in the end, the Busheviks will emulate their spiritual antecedents.

[onenote]

44. not a chance

First, I doubt that "many" have suggested this, relative to the entire population of the country. Second, as others have pointed out, every state has a mixture of 'blue' and 'red'. Take Virginia -- Democratic governor, repub Senators, mixture of Dem/rep congressional reps. California: repub governor, Democratic senators, mixture of Dem/rep congressional reps. And on and on.

onenote

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

45. I thought it might be a good idea for the following reasons:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2050871

[mtnsnake]

47. It happens constantly around the globe. Why not here, too?

The Northeast could be one powerful country and the West could have it's own with California and whoever else wanted to be part of it out there. If the Northeast States ever decided to form their own country, it might surprise everyone just how many other states from the North and midwest would join in. Hell, we'd have direct access to the coast and to Canada, too.

[enough already]

48. The nazis can have the south

I've given up on those people.

[Bridget Burke]

59. Ah, no profile!

Can't you at least PRETEND you're from one of the Perfect States?

[blindpig]

60. Given up on ME, have you?

Along with the 35-45% of those blue voters in red states? Mighty kind of you.

A lot of my fellow red staters are throughly misguided and some are throughly fucked up. But a lot of us aren't. A lot of us are black, hispanic, gay. Hell, half of us are women. Mighty kind.

If it came to that I would endeavor leave the old USA entirely rather than reside with those who would have me dispossessed for their peace of mind.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Deep13]

55. Then you fight it!

x(

[Bridget Burke]

56. The world does not need MORE political borders.

It needs lots fewer.

Of course, those who want a Wall on the Southern Border must be getting real nervous about the Southwest being Spanish/Latin. Yes, the overall percentages are changing. But the Anglos, African-Americans, Asians & Africans will not disappear from Texas. We'll continue to do quite well.

Is everyone in Boston white? Will you send our non-whites down south? Or perhaps move them to Quebec...

[Felix Mala]

61. Red states need Blue state money too badly to maintain their

fantasy of self-sufficiency... Pull the government largesse and life suddenly becomes very hard in these places.

[Nimrod2005]

62. When countries split, new entities start trying to make it on their

own or through trade...We can't have neighboring countries supporting each other.

[Greyhound]

64. According to the results of the Civil War, we're not allowed to leave

this particular club (the U.S.A.). Any attempt to leave is an act of war.

[FormerDittoHead]

66. I'm for some states breaking up! (please read to understand)...

Seriously - for Wyoming to have as many Senators as California or New York or New Jersey?

There's no way the framers could have envisioned this imbalance...

For starters, I'd like to see those three states break up into say, ten states (3 for NJ, NYC can be its own state, etc) and we might get better proportional representation in the electoral college as well as the Senate...