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Author Topic: It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?  (Read 60706 times)

Zirunel

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2020, 05:23:56 PM »
Quote from: oggsmash;1133294
cities are WAY too fragile to exist on their own.  

I question this. It sounds like rural survivalist fantasizing. It's true that cities cannot exist in their own, but nor need they rely on their own rural hinterland. Especially port cities, which for centuries have drawn on distant cities and distant rural hinterlands for support. port cities rely on networks and far-flung connections. Yes, they draw on their rural neighbours, and that's not a nothing, but are they really more fragile? You could make the contrary case, that the rural hinterland, especially with modern agriculture, is way too fragile to exist without the cities. Either the cities are a willing market or they channel produce to other markets. Eliminate the "modern agriculture" and sure, some rural areas could survive without the cities... on a subsistence level with much reduced population, but is that what they would aspire to? The truth is that both the cities and the rural hinterlands require each other. Take either one away and both become more fragile.

 
Quote from: oggsmash;1133294
I suspect where the military at large sides will determine the outcome.  Given the voting habits of the military and especially combat troops, it is already decided how that goes.
I wonder about this as well. I can believe that the officer class and the careerists lean one way, but they are still divided. And I expect the enlisted even more so. I have a feeling that the military would be a whole lot more divided and a whole lot messier than you appear to hope.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2020, 05:26:58 PM by Zirunel »

oggsmash

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #16 on: June 09, 2020, 06:21:58 PM »
I do not hope anything.  I already know how most lean. The pentagon is certainly left.  The people who actually shoot and fight are mostly libertarian, some Right and a few left.  The people cooking and counting bullets tend to be half and half.  about 66 percent voted trump overall.  I have no hopes in any of it.  I have two fairly young kids and a wife.  Any serious strife and I am a dead man lugging them around trying to keep them alive.  Cities today are not fragile because of infrastructure alone.  They are fragile because they have a large number of useless eaters inside of them.   There is no fantasy in anything I say, just so far as I can see, a whole bunch of truths.  The power grid in the USA is extremely fragile.  Supply chains are extremely fragile.   Crops grow if soil is tilled by hand still.  Its rough growing enough food for a city to be fed.  And when you start telling people who eat for free that time is over, well the unrest isnt exactly great for the city as well.  Largely cities will be abandoned by people with money and means first thing, just like they fled New York for covid, they are not hanging around to lock arms with other people in the city and weather a storm.

oggsmash

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #17 on: June 09, 2020, 06:25:25 PM »
The military will be messy.  Extremely so.  So it comes down to practicalities.  New York is not practical.  Chicago is not practical.  Most urban areas with much over 500k people are not practical.  In even a subdivision in lots of places people can manage to subsist.  That is not happening in a major city.  Ports are great, if you have something to trade.

oggsmash

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #18 on: June 09, 2020, 06:29:27 PM »
Lots of small towns existed in the country that were largely self sufficient were around in the recent past.  Corporate hollowing out of small towns and so forth removed that, but I think need and demand can build anything back.  The real problem starts when an outside power decides to lend aid to one or both sides.  That I think would cause a nuclear detonation (because the reality is both sides of a real conflict in the USA will have access to nukes, and....hopefully the understanding detonation on US soil is a loser for all parties) or several in other nations. Then the USA gets hit back, and we get so see what a global nuclear war looks like after the fact.

RandyB

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #19 on: June 09, 2020, 09:54:07 PM »
The Nine Nations of North America

American Nations

Two models of the multiple, different nations on the North American continent. One identifies nine, the other identifies eleven.

Getting to either from here? No easy path.

Shrieking Banshee

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #20 on: June 10, 2020, 12:09:59 AM »
Quote from: oggsmash;1133294
As for standing up to China or Russia, who gives a shit?


The trading partners that the USA so likes to have? While the USA has a massive military, split into 25 or so chunks it's not so impressive anymore.

This whole thing just sounds like fantasizing.

tenbones

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #21 on: June 10, 2020, 12:13:36 AM »
All I can say is...

I'm kicking my feet up here in TX, watching all these communist hellholes burn their shit to the ground. Had some consultations with my neighbors, we're all in general agreement to watch each others backs. Picked up some new arms, planning on getting at least three more and currently building a nice AR by hand. Ammo levels are not quite where I want, working that. Going through a few permit-situations here for "unfortunate circumstances"... pretty easy peasy in the Lone Star.

All in all... I'm not too worried about anything even if it all goes to shit. Most of the crazies in TX are down in Austin and Houston... but Dallas has their share. It will be very unfortunate for those elements to decide to get too crazy outside of their spheres of influence.

I'll go with Texas in any configuration. Not that I think that'll happen. But you never know, hence the firearms. i.e. TL/DR it'll never happen peacefully.

Shasarak

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #22 on: June 10, 2020, 03:16:45 AM »
I dont know why you guys what to break up the USA.  Just give some of those blue states a while with no Police and they will be begging for some good people to come in and show them how things are done.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

oggsmash

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #23 on: June 10, 2020, 08:41:33 AM »
Quote from: Shasarak;1133383
I dont know why you guys what to break up the USA.  Just give some of those blue states a while with no Police and they will be begging for some good people to come in and show them how things are done.

   That will not work.  Leftist for all the hate of colonialism they seem to have sure pack up and move to red areas as soon as their Blue state ways begin to fail.  Oddly, a whole bunch of them still vote blue after moving.

oggsmash

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #24 on: June 10, 2020, 08:42:41 AM »
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1133366
The trading partners that the USA so likes to have? While the USA has a massive military, split into 25 or so chunks it's not so impressive anymore.

This whole thing just sounds like fantasizing.

  Trading partners?  You mean how multinational corporations do all they can to get access to US consumers?  I think it has come time to end that.  If by fantasize you mean predict Chaotic breakdown.  Sure.   Rome did fall.  The USSR did fall.  Those are historical events that happened.  There is no fantasy to the USA splitting/falling, that is pretty much a historical pattern for humans.   Maybe I am not communicating as well as I could.  Outside invaders are not and have never been the problem with the security of the USA being a unified nation.   I also do not think I have delusion nor have communicated any regarding the end of the whole thing.  Do I think a side wins/can win? Yes.  King Pyrrhus won too.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2020, 08:48:04 AM by oggsmash »

Brad

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #25 on: June 10, 2020, 09:12:40 AM »
Quote from: oggsmash;1133394
That will not work.  Leftist for all the hate of colonialism they seem to have sure pack up and move to red areas as soon as their Blue state ways begin to fail.  Oddly, a whole bunch of them still vote blue after moving.

Oddly..? They ALL vote the same exact way after moving. Talk to any Californian and you get the same basic script:

"This place sucks, it's nothing like California"
"Why'd you move to Texas then?"
"I couldn't find a job there and taxes are too high, can't afford a house"
"Texas has none of those problems so why does it suck?"
"THERE'S NO CULTURE!"

When you point out they could always take a trip to Austria or something to see "culture" (because what they REALLY mean is WHITE Western European bullshit from the 1700s) they act like that's the dumbest thing possible.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Chris24601

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #26 on: June 10, 2020, 09:45:29 AM »
Quote from: Shasarak;1133383
I dont know why you guys what to break up the USA.  Just give some of those blue states a while with no Police and they will be begging for some good people to come in and show them how things are done.
To paraphrase an idea someone had; split the USA 50/50... the Left gets 25 states, the Right gets 25 states. The Left even gets to pick which states it wants. Then everyone gets a year to move before the fences go up.

Inside of five years people in the Leftist states will be trying to crawl over the walls to escape because when they look into the Right areas they'll say "LOOK! They have FOOD! I remember food."

Shrieking Banshee

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #27 on: June 10, 2020, 10:22:24 AM »
Quote from: oggsmash;1133395
Trading partners?  You mean how multinational corporations do all they can to get access to US consumers?

OK this is getting dumb. Being anti-globalist is one thing, not understanding that America imports shit is another. A balkanized USA would be MORE dependant on foreign trade not less.
In addition China already wraps its inky tentacles into the USAs power base. You think that will stop or will be weakened by Balkanization?

Im not against some logical debating, but this is a power fantasy or something. Not a logical discussion of the outcomes.

Zirunel

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #28 on: June 10, 2020, 11:18:30 AM »
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1133403
OK this is getting dumb.


I agree. Dumb and strangely revealing. Here we have supposedly conservative voices blithely spouting plans for huge involuntary population displacements. Treating people as pawns. It's like the mask of conservative "freedom" is stripped away to reveal the Soviet central planner beneath.

This can't just be about abstract political forces and abject populations, any of these schemes would have to confront real people. Human beings, guys, not demographic blocs. People who won't or can't just dutifully pull up stakes, leave homes, farms, jobs, family and plod across the lines the Great Leaders have drawn on a map just because they are too red or too blue.

holy moley, power fantasy indeed.

KingCheops

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It's time for the USA to balkanize. How can that happen peacefully?
« Reply #29 on: June 10, 2020, 11:45:26 AM »
I like the idea of no longer being hitched to Ottawa but I'm not sure whether I'd want to be in Ecotopia or The Left Coast.  I like my Greater Cascadia better.