Inspired by the recent talk of Secession from the left, Kurt Schilcter at ‘The Federalist’ ponders the repercussions of a formal dissolution of the USA, with the Red States of the South and mountain west forming “The Republic of America” and the Blue States of the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, and the Rust Belt forming the “Democratic States of North America.”
Blue America … immediately set to drafting a new constitution. It featured 216 new affirmative rights, including “the right to a living wage,” “the right to abortion upon demand at government expense,” and “the right to define one’s own life experience in terms of race and gender.” Embarrassingly, the rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion did not make the leaked initial draft; they were hastily added, but there was no right to keep and bear arms. In fact, the first law the new People’s Assembly passed was to confiscate all privately-owned weapons. The second was to legalize all illegal aliens, and the third to triple welfare payments.
Red America reaffirmed the United States Constitution. Then the Congress began a review of all existing laws, statutes and regulations, repealing thousands of them. It also limited social spending dramatically, making known the expectation that able-bodied adults would support themselves and their families. The resulting non-military federal government in Red America was about one quarter the size of Blue America’s.
And, as Buzzfeed would put it, “You won’t believe what happens next.”
Some form of dissolution is inevitable; the end state of every empire in human history has been dissolution. Our current fiscal trajectory is unsustainable and there is no political will to correct it. I don’t think the end result will be what Schlicter suggests; but I am okay with the idea of dissolution. Let’s be honest, talk of “unity” and “all people united together” is dictator-talk. I have no affection for any particular landmass or jurisdiction; I care about liberty. Would I rather live in a “united” America, geographically intact, but under a repressive totalitarian regime? Or would I rather see the USA split into 2-5 countries, where liberty might survive in 1 or 2 of them. Easy choice.
If a binary-split, odds are that you’d want to live in neither since each would head for the extremes with few-if-any Rights remaining-intact in either. One a heavily-regulated socially-conservative quasi-dictatorship from the pulpit, and the other a politically-correct reducto absurdum People’s Republic nanny-state. **shudder**
So who’s running Red America? Sure as hell isn’t the Republicans.
Parasites never willingly leave their host. There really is not any part of Western Civilization that is not having 3rd world Muslims shoved on them at taxpayer expense except Iceland, & the Falkland islands. The cost to give up US citizenship keeps going up.
The Swiss are resisting but still getting dumped on but I don’t speak the language(their bunny slopes are 5xblack diamond), Germany will either be lost or bring the camps back. The Irish IRA is cracking Muslim skulls but will probably be like Russia where gay consenting adults that don’t have public sex are ok, luckily I am more fluent in Gaylick than German & Spanish.
With luck Australia will find its balls, its started turning back boats of muslims which passed 40 closer muslim nations to get onto the dole/welfare. It’s problem is the population is near the beach but affordable land is bad, however lots of people do aquaponics in the bad areas & are resilient. Basically NYC real estate on the outside and Mad Max on the interior. Of all the countries I have been to I liked Germany and Italy best but I don’t they will be good places to flee. Myanmar(Burma) is kicking out Muslims under threat of being placed in camps but only 14500 have left so far.
Hey Evan how about giving us reviews of Thailand & Cambodia?
Ted the choice is would you want to be able to get gay married/divorced/ pay alimony or not have jackboots curb stomp you for sharing a 20oz soda + an untaxed cigarette with your boyfriend? Before Garner people thought I was joking about nanny cops willing to beating up people over a 20oz soda.
If we want to try to keep the Union together, I think the states would have to be radically changed. There was a map that divided the country into states of roughly-equal population. It had the benefit of separating many of the deep-blue metro areas from the rural areas, which would help to alleviate the perception that the only votes that matter are those in the city.
If we divided the country into multiple countries, I think there would be five or so: one centered on the East Coast, one centered on the West Coast, one centered on the Great Lakes, one centered on Texas, and one on the heartland. I won’t hazard guesses at their political make-ups, though.
Feel free to take a stab at it, though.
We need to protect the illegal alien tranny kids from Evan.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/new-frontiers-in-intersectionality-democrats-demand-better-protections-for-transgender-illegal-immigrant-children/
In 1965, about 50% of the American population identified themselves with mainstream Protestant denominations. Today, under 10% still do. That is a vast “freeing” of people to carve out their own foundations for morals and manners; Alexis de Tocqueville commented on America’s “undivided current of manners and morals.” But that was then.
Now the generally self-secularized people take their notions of the “Social Gospel” to the government with a liberal political zeal replete with its own Inquisitions and witch hunts. Political ideology is religion for many. (See: Joseph Bottum’s An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America.)
Red America is largely comprised of people who cling to their Bibles and guns and believe that manufacturing, mining and agriculture are the backbone of a viable economy. Maybe they don’t actually cling to their Bibles and guns, but they are not hostile toward those who do.
Washington D. C. just decided not to make its superintendent of schools the head of all home schooling in the District. Whew! A bullet dodged. Only the state can educate a child according liberal theology, but apparently they aren’t ready just yet to short circuit the possibility of Core Curriculum saving the masses by state mandate.
What is at stake here is how We the People of today define the Social Contract. Does the state provide for our needs or do we have power to go our own way without the micromanagement by the state?
The attack on religion is an exercise in cultural nihilism. The collective wisdom handed down through the ages was not grounded in intellectual posturing by a group of elites. One of the reasons for the Greek Chorus was to represent “everyman” in contrast to the heroes, gods and goddesses who strutted the stage.
Our First Amendment protection of speech was meant to protect “unauthorized” speech. Statists of today are bent on silencing Rush Limbaugh because of his “inconvenience” to their ideological smugness. Or, as Nat Henoff put it: “Free speech for me, but not for thee.”
We in the Neanderthal world look at Hollywood, the mainstream media, academia, popular music, and much of the internet and see a ship of state mired in sludge and slime. Some of us are inclined to toss a lifeline anchored in traditional ethics and the moral roots of religion. But, more and more we are seen as outliers and anomalies. Even the establishment Republicans look upon most conservatives as nonlinear in the natural political prices.
Dante informs us that the gates of Hell bear this inscription: “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” [“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”]
Smug intellectuals have often posited: 1) If God were all-powerful, all knowing, and all-good, then this would be the best possible world. 2) But this is not the best possible world. 3) Therefore, God is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. 4) Therefore, screw God, we will get our elites together and design a better world.
So, they dethrone God and appoint themselves to be judge and jury in arbitrating what qualifies as “evil” or good at any given time under prevailing circumstances and current political climate.
Now we have Obama, Holder, Warren, Sharpton, Feinstein, Schumer, Hillary, Biden and no one to pray to.
He nelgects to mention that New Mexico will likely stay with the Blue States, but parts of northern California, Oregon, and Washington, will likely split with their present states, form a new state of Jefferson, and apply for entry into the Red States, which will likely be granted.
Red States will then reinforce their borders, especially allow the border with New Mexico, which will seek re-union with Mexico after it discovers that it can’t be supported by the east and west coasts.
Yeah, Craig, especially when you consider that blue America is mostly large urban areas, I don’t see the post-USA as simply being states or defined by statelines. Michigan and Illinois are only blue states because of Detroit and Chicago. Indiana would not want to be part of blue America, neither would any part of Michigan outside of Detroit and Ann Arbor.
As far as religion goes, I think the rise of the “spiritual, not religious” crowd is informative, and is in keeping with a growing trend towards a greater desire among some for self-determination in other areas of life. Alternatively, it could be because people can’t find a religion that fits their personal views, and choose to forgo an organized faith for a personal belief system.
That’s not to say that religion will stop altogether. People with generally similar spiritual and philosophical viewpoints will want to associate for support, and these support groups will spawn group rituals- and all a religion is, from a purely mechanical/material standpoint, is ritualized philosophy.
Ebb and flow, boom and bust. All human institutions experience cycles of consolidation and growth, followed by disintegration and fragmentation. It would not surprise me if the apparent crisis within Christianity of many Christians labeling themselves as “non-denominational” eventually leads to people in this category coalescing into one or two new denominations.
Something to think about:
http://www.blazingcatfur.ca/2014/12/16/europe-should-learn-ethiopias-islam-lesson-2/
” Would I rather live in a “united” America, geographically intact, but under a repressive totalitarian regime? Or would I rather see the USA split into 2-5 countries, where liberty might survive in 1 or 2 of them. Easy choice. ”
Hobson’s choice……….
Systematically remove the 74 US Senators and 164 US Congressmen hostile to the COTUS and the American worker.
“Blue” nation per the parable: “…third to triple welfare payments.”
“Red” nation per the parable: “It also limited social spending dramatically, making known the expectation that able-bodied adults would support themselves and their families.”
Considering that our current “Red”* states take between $2-$3 from the federal government for every $1 they send in tax money, this is not exactly an unrealistic equation. Taxes might not even have to change. And I don’t meant that as a slam on red states or anything (heck, I moved to one and love being back here), just an observation that the implication I read into that is a bit….disingenuous maybe? (Not sure that’s the right word.) I am going to have to go read the whole parable.
*I used the asterisk for Red and Blue above because I don’t think you can qualify a whole state that way, as noted by a commenter above.
Successful consensus religion depends upon charismatics who manage to either bilk the sheeple, die and leave an empty shell or establish a few viable landmarks like Liberty University or Samaratan’s Purse or Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.
Eventually, the powers of a John Wesley, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, or Emanuel Swedenborg wear off and begin to wither. In their wake they leave place markers who talk the talk but largely fail to instill the drive to walk the walk. The one church in America which has grown and kept its mission alive is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is largely scoffed at as being a cult by those who window shop religions. And it has had is own screw-ball charismatics.
The point, however, is still the same: if you shop outside of religion for morals, ethics, “manners” and the rules and assumptions of civility, where do you go? The UN? Academia? The Rec Center? Hollywood? TV? A gang?
The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations “encourages people to seek their own spiritual path. Oops! “The Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), issued this statement: ‘The fact that the grand jury failed to indict New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner would be a miscarriage of justice at any time.'”
Somehow, I always return to Charles Pierre Péguy: “Everything begins as a mystique and ends as a politique.” That is to say that even fundamental beliefs are bound to end in political debate as in “when does life begin?” Péguy is far more than a string of aphorisms, but his terse observations make for a feast. “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.” And, “Freedom is based on courage.” And, “He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.”
So, were do we go to get the moral courage to be good, to be faithful, to know why right is right and wrong and wrong? We have seen how the community is organized by a charismatic boosting “hope and change” as a curative panacea. The tired, the poor, the humble masses yearning to breathe purer air teemed to his brassy banality. “I am from the government and I am here to fix your life.”
Where do we go to find rest, to guide us on the right road, to give us courage, to be joined in brotherhood, to face evil and to set our guardrails for the journey through life? Where do we go to be comforted and shown the light and the way? How do we overcome our personal antecedents to faith in order to deal with our imperfections? Maybe George Soros, Noam Chomsky, and Rahm Emmanuel have a place in Chicago that will service us from top to bottom.
When red states give bus tickets instead of welfare to the able bodied the money will work itself out. It takes the taxes of thousands of productive people to support a squatmonster. The 80-20 rule only works in homogenous areas.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/village-forced-to-raise-taxes-after-muslim-refugee-family-consumes-13-of-budget/
Leftists have been trying to move their ghetto blacks out of cities(looking at you NYC) into red areas via section 8 and dump Refugees there as well. Ferguson was still a whiteopia before 2 section 8 complexes opened 10 years ago. Lancaster PA had so many 3rd world “refugees” dumped on it in 3years the city became 4% refugee added directly to the welfare/safety net.
@ Steve: I live close to Lancaster. I don’t go into the city limits unless I have to. Daytime stabbings and shootings are an almost weekly occurrence. Buggy-hunting’s becoming something of a local sport for the Vandals- I mean, the “immigrants” that are flooding down this way from New York.
I prefer cleaning house and keeping The Republic intact.We’ve had malcontents try to rip The Union in half before.I don’t see why communists and anarchists can’t be dealt with in the same way that we dealt with confederates.Eventualy they will push too far and the culling will begin again.