Is a "national divorce" a pragmatic solution at this point?

[American Legionaries]

who is she? i've been around for years, and the acronym "nss" doesn't ring a bell

Original account was called New Somersetshire. (There was some mod discussion at the time over whether Nazi Flower Power was an acceptable name.) I believe she was also USS Monitor but that was after my time so I don't know for certain. Long time poster with an interest in history and a somewhat idiosyncratic, easy-to-recognise posting style.

But you could do whatever you wanted to those pesky conservatives over in lefty land!

This doesn't really work as a comparison because very little that American liberals want to do will actually affect American conservatives personally. For example, an upper-class evangelical christian probably isn't going to get gay married and therefore whether or not it's legal has no bearing on their life. There's nothing like, e.g., massive wealth redistribution or re-education of far-right supporters that is on the table, even within some kind of Bronx Soviet Socialist Republic under the leadership of Comrade Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; no American political movement on the "left" wants to cause slight inconvenience to right-leaning socioeconomic groups, let alone harm them materially. The reverse is obviously untrue, and it's fairly easy to guess what life would look like for any vaguely left-aligned socioeconomic group in Marjorie Taylor-Greene's Holy Empire of Chattanooga.

Gun control, taxes, race reparations, emissions controls, and labor laws all stopped existing in the last five minutes? Or are you just lying?

[Czardas]

Gun control, taxes, race reparations, emissions controls, and labor laws all stopped existing in the last five minutes? Or are you just lying?

Everyone pays taxes and follows labor laws; I know of no conservative politicians that (openly, at least) want to eliminate those. No liberal politician is actually proposing race reparations or emissions controls, and those who have floated the ideas have usually found intense opposition within their own party (usually from people like Nancy Pelosi), leaving them as extreme minorities. Gun control I'll grant you, but I suspect that wouldn't last long in a liberal breakaway state either.

I think it's also worth pointing out that things like labor laws and emissions controls in particular are designed, like gay marriage laws, to ensure that you don't have the right to violate other people's rights. Labor laws for example mean that you cannot hire someone else for less than minimum wage and require them to work in unsafe conditions: they are about ensuring that person can live their life. They don't actually impact you, the employer, except in terms of your financial outlay and overhead when starting/running a business; your ability to live your life outside of work remains unaffected.

[American Legionaries]

Gun control, taxes, race reparations, emissions controls, and labor laws all stopped existing in the last five minutes? Or are you just lying?

Everyone pays taxes and follows labor laws; I know of no conservative politicians that (openly, at least) want to eliminate those. No liberal politician is actually proposing race reparations or emissions controls, and those who have floated the ideas have usually found intense opposition within their own party (usually from people like Nancy Pelosi), leaving them as extreme minorities. Gun control I'll grant you, but I suspect that wouldn't last long in a liberal breakaway state either.

Not happily, and your ignorance is hardly an argument.

How did race reparations and emissions laws become law then? If not via proposals by politicians?

Yeah, "The liberals will stop being assholes if they have total unmitigated political control" seems like a viable argument.

[Czardas]

How did race reparations and emissions laws become law then? If not via proposals by politicians?

If you genuinely believe those things exist in law in the USA then yes, we have nothing to talk about, since we don't live in the same reality.

[American Legionaries]

How did race reparations and emissions laws become law then? If not via proposals by politicians?

If you genuinely believe those things exist in law in the USA then yes, we have nothing to talk about, since we don't live in the same reality.

You should try coming to the actual reality then, it's more real here.

[Countesia]

Everyone pays taxes and follows labor laws; I know of no conservative politicians that (openly, at least) want to eliminate those. No liberal politician is actually proposing race reparations or emissions controls, and those who have floated the ideas have usually found intense opposition within their own party (usually from people like Nancy Pelosi), leaving them as extreme minorities. Gun control I'll grant you, but I suspect that wouldn't last long in a liberal breakaway state either.

Not happily,

Fuck breathable air and minorities, am I right?

[American Legionaries]

Not happily,

Fuck breathable air and minorities, am I right?

What do those things have to do with taxes or labor laws?

[Alien Overlord]

Please look at this map and tell me what you see:

What you see is a map of red speckled with blue.

This is precisely why a "national divorce" would never work out. Take the state of Pennsylvania for example and you'll see that almost the entire state sans Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are firmly "red." Nevada is similar with only Las Vegas and Reno voting "blue" and the list can go on with many other states where you see a clear divide between "blue" cities and "red" for the rest of the country; a clear urban vs rural divide. Neither the urban nor the rural areas of the country would benefit from a "national divorce."

It would be more productive to recognize the simple fact that both left-wing and right-wing are becoming more radical and violent; some have used the term "polarized" to describe the situation and I agree. You have the left-wing rioting and looting as well as the right-wing march on the capital that happened two years ago. It's my belief that these are just the natural symptoms of division and I don't see it becoming any better until either the left-wing or right-wing achieves dominance and crushes the other.

So what can we do to solve this issue? I believe the answer lies in electoral reform specifically aimed at getting rid of the electoral college as well as our system of First Past the Post Voting. Both issues go hand in hand in building a system where third parties cannot survive and you will always end up with two sort of super-coalition "parties" in the form of the democrats and republicans representing the left wing and the right wing. The issue with this is that it's not geared towards voter happiness and both systems were in place specifically because it made elections easier to run at a time when America was much, much harder to communicate across. The First Past the Post system is archaic and we have better systems available to us today. A wagon train would have been innovative in the 1840's but there is a reason we use cars now; similarly first past the post was fine as an election system when our nation was still in it's infancy, but with the advent of systems like Single Transferable Vote, Instant Runoff, Approval voting and so on we would do well to switch over.

Ridding ourselves of the Electoral College and instituting a more effective system of voting would go a long way towards maximizing voter happiness and thus reducing cause for violence. Plus it has the added benefit of breaking the two-party monopoly.

[Countesia]

Please look at this map and tell me what you see:

(Image)

What you see is a map of red speckled with blue.

This is precisely why a "national divorce" would never work out. Take the state of Pennsylvania for example and you'll see that almost the entire state sans Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are firmly "red." Nevada is similar with only Las Vegas and Reno voting "blue" and the list can go on with many other states where you see a clear divide between "blue" cities and "red" for the rest of the country; a clear urban vs rural divide. Neither the urban nor the rural areas of the country would benefit from a "national divorce."

It would be more productive to recognize the simple fact that both left-wing and right-wing are becoming more radical and violent; some have used the term "polarized" to describe the situation and I agree. You have the left-wing rioting and looting as well as the right-wing march on the capital that happened two years ago. It's my belief that these are just the natural symptoms of division and I don't see it becoming any better until either the left-wing or right-wing achieves dominance and crushes the other.

So what can we do to solve this issue? I believe the answer lies in electoral reform specifically aimed at getting rid of the electoral college as well as our system of First Past the Post Voting. Both issues go hand in hand in building a system where third parties cannot survive and you will always end up with two sort of super-coalition "parties" in the form of the democrats and republicans representing the left wing and the right wing. The issue with this is that it's not geared towards voter happiness and both systems were in place specifically because it made elections easier to run at a time when America was much, much harder to communicate across. The First Past the Post system is archaic and we have better systems available to us today. A wagon train would have been innovative in the 1840's but there is a reason we use cars now; similarly first past the post was fine as an election system when our nation was still in it's infancy, but with the advent of systems like Single Transferable Vote, Instant Runoff, Approval voting and so on we would do well to switch over.

Ridding ourselves of the Electoral College and instituting a more effective system of voting would go a long way towards maximizing voter happiness and thus reducing cause for violence. Plus it has the added benefit of breaking the two-party monopoly.

arguably the most intelligent take here

[Nazi Flower Power]

We both know that's not all it's about.

It is though. We want our borders protected from illegal immigration, Drug and Human Trafficking. Y'all just make it a race thing because most of the problem comes from the southern border meanwhile our border with Canada is respected by the Canadians.

I live on the St Lawrence River. Border security up here is terrible.

1) Conservative-voting states are concentrated in the south, sure, but there seems to be little recognition that they extend up through the Midwest and into Canada. Even if this were a politically tenable idea, it would involve dividing blue country in half.

Just because the Northeast and the West Coast are both "blue" doesn't mean you would have to keep them together in a hypothetical partition of the US.

2) Since this is based on political beliefs, within states there are several counties that are either “red” or “blue,” and these opinions don’t always align with the state’s voting as a whole. Even in California, a blue stronghold, the western part of the state votes fairly strongly Republican, it’s just that due to the electoral college, their votes aren’t well-represented.

Even if you prefer smaller countries where the government can more accurately represent the people, you will still have to tell a few people that their little group is not big enough to justify redrawing borders.
Splitting up a country once does not mean you have some moral obligation to keep dividing it up further and further until 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 2 is a separate country from 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 3. The guy in Apt 3 might be more right-wing than the guy in Apt 2, but it should be common sense that they both need to be able to reach the front door without going through customs and immigration.

Some secessionists have common sense and some do not, but I think most would understand that there is a limit to how far you can split things up before it gets dumb.

This whole idea only makes sense if you believe that the US is evenly split into two parts, with one being made up of ontologically evil people, and that’s just not true. Don’t get me wrong, the popularity of QAnon and other such conspiracy theories is a problem, but it’s not one that’s going to be solved by turning the blue states into a couple of exclaves.

There is nothing about splitting up the country that requires it to be two equal parts.

[American Legionaries]

It is though. We want our borders protected from illegal immigration, Drug and Human Trafficking. Y'all just make it a race thing because most of the problem comes from the southern border meanwhile our border with Canada is respected by the Canadians.

I live on the St Lawrence River. Border security up here is terrible.

1) Conservative-voting states are concentrated in the south, sure, but there seems to be little recognition that they extend up through the Midwest and into Canada. Even if this were a politically tenable idea, it would involve dividing blue country in half.

Just because the Northeast and the West Coast are both "blue" doesn't mean you would have to keep them together in a hypothetical partition of the US.

2) Since this is based on political beliefs, within states there are several counties that are either “red” or “blue,” and these opinions don’t always align with the state’s voting as a whole. Even in California, a blue stronghold, the western part of the state votes fairly strongly Republican, it’s just that due to the electoral college, their votes aren’t well-represented.

Even if you prefer smaller countries where the government can more accurately represent the people, you will still have to tell a few people that their little group is not big enough to justify redrawing borders.
Splitting up a country once does not mean you have some moral obligation to keep dividing it up further and further until 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 2 is a separate country from 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 3. The guy in Apt 3 might be more right-wing than the guy in Apt 2, but it should be common sense that they both need to be able to reach the front door without going through customs and immigration.

Some secessionists have common sense and some do not, but I think most would understand that there is a limit to how far you can split things up before it gets dumb.

This whole idea only makes sense if you believe that the US is evenly split into two parts, with one being made up of ontologically evil people, and that’s just not true. Don’t get me wrong, the popularity of QAnon and other such conspiracy theories is a problem, but it’s not one that’s going to be solved by turning the blue states into a couple of exclaves.

There is nothing about splitting up the country that requires it to be two equal parts.

But what if I'm in apartment two and the guy in apartment three smokes Marijuana cigarettes?

[Nazi Flower Power]

I live on the St Lawrence River. Border security up here is terrible.



Just because the Northeast and the West Coast are both "blue" doesn't mean you would have to keep them together in a hypothetical partition of the US.



Even if you prefer smaller countries where the government can more accurately represent the people, you will still have to tell a few people that their little group is not big enough to justify redrawing borders.
Splitting up a country once does not mean you have some moral obligation to keep dividing it up further and further until 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 2 is a separate country from 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 3. The guy in Apt 3 might be more right-wing than the guy in Apt 2, but it should be common sense that they both need to be able to reach the front door without going through customs and immigration.

Some secessionists have common sense and some do not, but I think most would understand that there is a limit to how far you can split things up before it gets dumb.



There is nothing about splitting up the country that requires it to be two equal parts.

But what if I'm in apartment two and the guy in apartment three smokes Marijuana cigarettes?

Ask the landlord.

[American Legionaries]

But what if I'm in apartment two and the guy in apartment three smokes Marijuana cigarettes?

Ask the landlord.

Can't he's in a different country, and The Democratic Republic of 197 Whatchamacallit Ave. just outlawed foreigners from owning rental properties...

[Alien Overlord]

I live on the St Lawrence River. Border security up here is terrible.



Just because the Northeast and the West Coast are both "blue" doesn't mean you would have to keep them together in a hypothetical partition of the US.



Even if you prefer smaller countries where the government can more accurately represent the people, you will still have to tell a few people that their little group is not big enough to justify redrawing borders.
Splitting up a country once does not mean you have some moral obligation to keep dividing it up further and further until 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 2 is a separate country from 197 Whatchamacallit Ave Apt 3. The guy in Apt 3 might be more right-wing than the guy in Apt 2, but it should be common sense that they both need to be able to reach the front door without going through customs and immigration.

Some secessionists have common sense and some do not, but I think most would understand that there is a limit to how far you can split things up before it gets dumb.



There is nothing about splitting up the country that requires it to be two equal parts.

But what if I'm in apartment two and the guy in apartment three smokes Marijuana cigarettes?

Embargo him, don't let him leave the apartment until all Marijuana cigarettes are removed.

[State of Lavastan]

We now have tens of millions of Americans alleging that the top Democrats are involved in child sex trafficking rings. Even if they're faking the belief, the willingness to fake it is alarming on its own. The closest thing to this I can think of on the left are those who smear teachers as pedos for enforcing dress codes, but even that is not alleging the rot runs to the top.

I'm not sure one could ever reason with these people. At this point, can we just give them their own country so they can wallow in their own ignorance and leave the rest of the United States alone? Obviously we should offer an opportunity for people who want out of red states to claim refugee status in blue states before the national divorce, but apart from that, is it really worth risking harm to 300 million Americans in 2024 when you can at least save the blue states by cutting the red states loose?

Yeah,doing that would probably do absolutely nothing since after that,there will still be people who come to believe that afterwards

[Nazi Flower Power]

Ask the landlord.

Can't he's in a different country, and The Democratic Republic of 197 Whatchamacallit Ave. just outlawed foreigners from owning rental properties...

Well, I hope your border control are ready to secure the borders against illegal immigration from the Federal Republic of 197 Whatchamacallit Ave.

[The Two Jerseys]

No
The usa means the UNITED states of amercia
Not the DISUNITED states of america

Turns out it's a typo, it's actually the Untied States of America.

You mean Untied Skates of America.

[Ethel mermania]

Turns out it's a typo, it's actually the Untied States of America.

You mean Untied Skates of America.

That would be Canada

[The Two Jerseys]

You mean Untied Skates of America.

That would be Canada

Canada: "Don't mean to pry, bud, but why would you be wearing skates on your head?"

[New Zoigai]

Isn't your proposal the same the thing as the what OP proposed just in a different form?

Yes, but it would be a better alternative than splitting a country up every single time the lefts and rights don't get along.

The hypocrisy here is glaring. Your calling the OP'sidea dumb (Which it is) while presenting an Idea that is equally as foolish.

[San Lumen]

Isn't your proposal the same the thing as the what OP proposed just in a different form?

Yes, but it would be a better alternative than splitting a country up every single time the lefts and rights don't get along.

How is that a better alternative?

[Ethel mermania]

Can't he's in a different country, and The Democratic Republic of 197 Whatchamacallit Ave. just outlawed foreigners from owning rental properties...

Well, I hope your border control are ready to secure the borders against illegal immigration from the Federal Republic of 197 Whatchamacallit Ave.

I think they need a Monitor

[Ethel mermania]

That would be Canada

Canada: "Don't mean to pry, bud, but why would you be wearing skates on your head?"

Freestyle.

[American Legionaries]

Well, I hope your border control are ready to secure the borders against illegal immigration from the Federal Republic of 197 Whatchamacallit Ave.

I think they need a Monitor

I doubt a Monitor would be much use in a building. And I don't plan on living in a bay...

[Ethel mermania]

I think they need a Monitor

I doubt a Monitor would be much use in a building. And I don't plan on living in a bay...

Turretted 11 inch Dahlgren's pack quite the punch no matter where you put them