Time for a Divorce?

From article, ". . . Secession, of course, isn’t close to going mainstream yet, thankfully. The real impetus for the talk of a breakup is despair. It constitutes giving up — giving up on convincing our fellow Americans, giving up on our common national project, giving up on our birthright.

This is an impulse to be resisted. Breaking up is hard to do, and quitting on America is — or should be — unforgivable."

 

I have spent the past 5 years reading Civil war books, and secession is ridiculous.

 

Based upon Jesus parable of the Dragnet in Matthew 13, I see the conflict as the inevitable drawing of the nets closer to the shore. The different types of fish are having conflict in the net.

 

While dividing the nation is a bad idea, there are several states that should probably divide: New York and California. Both have a geographic area that is very urban and liberal and has one culture and ideology and another geographic area that is very rural and conservative and has a different ideology. Since the rural, small town portions have such dramatically different needs and goals from the urban portions, it almost makes more sense for each to have Congressional Representation advocating for THEIR needs AND State representation advocating for their needs.

There may be other states that have low populations, but such common culture and goals that combining the states into a larger regional economy and collective State government might also make sense.

 

Well, not succession from the union, but if states legislatures voted to split their states into two states, I think that is constitutional. That would add Senators but not reps at the federal level.

I don’t think it’s a good idea, though. It further divides the country and separates us all. Better to spend more time debating/discussing the issues and changing peoples mind.

peace to you

 

How do you debate the issues and change peoples mind when some people live in an urban environment where electric cars, mass transit and gun control make sense and save lives, while the other half live in a rural environment where electric cars leave them stranded, mass transit is an impossibility and you need a gun to shoot the varmint that attack your livestock. The worlds are literally diametrically opposed. So the Urban Majority will simply impose its will on the rural minority (typically 60%/40%). That is what we have now and a source of the “radical acrimony”.

 

Isolating the groups will change none of that.

Bottom line, majority conservative states are not going to split and give libs two extra Senates, and majority lib states (like NY) are not going to split and give conservatives two extra Senators.

Maybe invite some of those city dwellers to spend time in the country to see what life is like and versa vice.

peace to you

 

Rural Majority states enact STATE LAWS and state institutions that support the rural needs of its population (thus the Laws of Alaska are very different from those of New Jersey) … and vice versa.

You are almost certainly 100% correct about the states never agreeing to split. However, it was the radical different needs of a more urban-industrial NORTH vs an rural-agrarian SOUTH and the refusal to compromise or acknowledge the NEEDS of the other that lay at the core of the Civil War (far more than the issue of slavery, which was a symptom rather than the root cause).

Personally, I liked the idea to redraw the state boundary to allow North-East California to join a more rural state adjacent to it. That, too, will never be allowed, but it maintains 50 states while allowing states to focus on common characteristics and needs among the population served.

Inviting empathy and a “Golden Rule” approach is a very WWJD solution, unfortunately, we really seem to be living in a post Christianity world. There seems little to no interest in even basic, civil, communication … let alone any concept of a “common good”. What person that NEEDS a gun is willing to advocate for “gun control” to reduce urban violence? What person that wants to end gun violence is willing to advocate for “the right to responsible gun ownership”? Which hand will be the first to reach across the aisle (and which side will crucify them first)?

 

I believe it was the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont that hung (by their belts, not killed) State Officials from NYC when they wanted to make clear JUST how strongly they wanted to be an independent “territory”. My family survived the burning of Newark during the riots of the 1960’s. When tensions and differences get ignored long enough for violence to erupt, people suddenly start to pay attention. Not how it should be, just how it too often is (if history is any judge).