Balkanization/Civil War II/American Decline

Have you ever read or viewed video content on the ridiculous increase in crime, particularly subway crime in NYC in the past few years? It is pathetic, and like my previous post, I can be stuck on this phone a long time collating it all. This is the fault of people I don’t want to unite with, both the criminals and those who coddle them and even glorify them.

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Step away for a few hours and there’s 50+ replies here haha. I’ll have to circle back with responses when I’m at a keyboard.

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I’m not saying there isn’t an increase in crime in certain places, but an increase from when?

Take murder for example. Is it trending upward? Yes. It is cause for concern? Yes. Is it at historic highs? No. Per capital homicide us still quite a bit lower than it was in the 90s.


All I’m saying is that we should take a more in-depth look at the data before we start slicing the sole remaining super power up into tiny slices.

I guess it’s possible that it was all about slavery. But I can’t help but think it wasn’t quite as neat as this zombie puts things:

Again, I would think that could be worked out. There has to be some way that marriages end without one spouse killing the other over property.

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There’s something to consider here, as I alluded to in the OP.

Does anyone really want to hold onto people they don’t like, or maybe even hate? Also, would you want to hold onto people who hate you?

Like imagine someone asked someone else, “Wanna hang out?” And the other replies, “No. I don’t like you.” Then the other one insists, “You must hang out with me!”

Wouldn’t that be weird?

Also imagine:

“I hate you.”

“OK, I’ll accept that. Take care.”

“Wait, hold up. Stay!”

“Why? You said you hated me.”

That would be weird too.

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It is weird…I get to see it all the time in real life, at work, though. Almost always with bottom feeders…but it seems to attract more normal people when you make it about the U.S.(and only the U.S…because we’ll risk nuclear war to defend some country’s right to split from another on the other side of the world).

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I don’t think most divorces need to separate military assets that could end life on earth, lol.

Once you go down this rabbit hole, you’re going to end up with everything from states to tribes to warlords to individual sovereigns. While watching the People’s Republic of Castoli be annexed within 24 hours of it’s inception would be entertaining, I just don’t see how it results in anything remotely functional and likely results in a lot of bloodshed.

Idk, maybe that’s better than what we have now, but I don’t see.

I think you’re flirting with a pretty ugly line here. What’s the logical conclusion of not wanting to live with people you deem undesirable? Nothing good. It’s not like you can come to a new world and start over. Even if the states are no longer united we all still live in the exact same place we currently do.

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This is more that I don’t understand. “Things are much more peaceful when people are forced together.”

For those with economic concerns(this was just a quick google search and a convenient pic-feel free to fact check it):

Leave them alone, and ask them to leave you alone.

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Neither do I. An example of forcing people together is the failed experiment of Yugoslavia, and we know how that worked out (this is after all, the Balkanization thread).

Exactly. This is peaceful. A civil war would be ugly.

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Ha, true. You’d think there was a way those at the top could still make it work for themselves with a prosperous and united country.

Maybe a reduced federal government and more localized decisions would get us there. Pipe dream obviously, those folks aren’t relinquishing power any time soon.

If you’re sick of the heat come up north! Maine is pretty rad, aside from the taxes, but no where is perfect haha.

I got your back bro. Even though we disagree on some stuff. I get what you’re saying here though. I don’t feel the same way. There are millions of people I don’t agree with, but theres tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people I do. And they’re probably evenly distributed throughout the nation for the most part.

Suppose that’s why they get paid the big bucks, right?

I’m with you here. United but not because big government mandates it.

A civil war is obviously the wrong move, I don’t think anyone needs to die because they bought a house in the wrong county 20 years ago. But, how do you displace those folks? On my street alone we have some Trumpers, some very liberal people, and whatever I am. Our community is super tight, we get along great. I suppose everybody is kind of a hick, so there’s some common ground there, haha. How long until the “others” start being persecuted for having been in the wrong state during the break up? That’s something I’d worry about. Then there’s the whole national security thing, like if we decide that all the insert people we don’t like here get their own region, and an outside force wants to attack, do we just say “f**k em, never liked them anyway”?

@usmccds423 I’m largely in agreement with your points. Figured it’d just be easier to tag you than respond individually.

Cool that everyone is being pretty civil on the topic. PWI rarity.

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It’s difficult to answer a hypothetical like that. Maybe they’d go to war over the right to pollute the water supply of the other. Maybe they’d settle it. None of this changes with the United States, or even a world government.

This kind of hints at what may happen in all of the divided states if the states were actually permitted to separate.

That could happen now.

True, and I wasn’t expecting much of an answer to the hypothetical. It was more of a shot at business leadership and their motivations more than anything.

If it’s happening on my street, couldn’t it already be happening? Perhaps we just aren’t hearing about it because we can’t be on all streets at all times. There’s a lot I don’t like about the political landscape of Massachusetts, but I don’t hate those Massholes.

Idk, I mean everyone seems to hate NJ but if an invading force wanted to take out the Jersey Shore we’d probably begrudgingly be like “No, that’s our armpit, only we can rag on them”.

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Exactly. It’s the forced union that’s the problem. Whatever countries resulted from a split would almost certainly be close allies. I’m not sure(well, I’m pretty sure) why we believe that a division would have to lead to war, trade restrictions, and the end of life on earth.

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If all of those countries were forced together there’d be a lot of bloodshed. Acting as if America is anything like that is a bit silly. For example, I don’t think Florida and Alabama are all that different where as the Netherlands and Qatar are entirely different.

A better comparison is the EU and it took them thousands of bloody conflicts to figure it out.

That sounds wonderful, but sounds like the antithesis of human history. I think we are more inclined towards killing each other.

Even if it began peaceful, do you believe it would remain that way? What would stop foreign powers from taking resources in the former United States? Some kind of alliance between states. What happens when Texas decides Mississippi and Alabama look like nice additional to their territory?

I get it, national divorce sounds good on paper. The US has and continues to go through some serious growing pains. Maybe you could split the nation into 1/3 or 1/4. Idk, but I just don’t see it making things better in total. I only see it making things worse.

The solution is to weaken the federal government with states taking on more responsibility of governance, imo.

Eliminate Home Land Security, Dept of Education, the CIA, ATF, IRS, and probably a dozen other agencies. You maintain the military (scaled down imo). States are responsible for their own internal security and intelligence capabilities. States also agree to a federal budget on a per annual basis via convention or the Senate for equal representation. You keep the Constitution as is. Consider abolishing the house’ although, I like it as a check. Maybe increase the number of chief executives from 1 to 3 or more.

That’s off the top of my head and might be crap ideas, but that’s what I would explore.

I think you missed the point of it…it’s just showing the size of individual states’ economies relative to countries of the world.

And being forced to share a government negates that?

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Gotcha, I didn’t read the caption…

In terms of warfare, I believe so, yes.

Edit:

You don’t think California or Texas would conquer smaller surrounding states if each state was it’s own sovereign nation? I do.

That implies that it was at least in part due to slavery. Can we quantify an appropriate amount with regard to slavery to make the war unjustified? If it was 20% about slavery, does that mean the war was wrong?

Maybe. I’m not sure surrounding states would even want to separate from them. And if California or Texas were to attempt to conquer surrounding states, that would be an obvious act of aggression. I like to think some of the other split states would come to the rescue of people much closer than Ukraine.

Yes. 80% about limiting the freedom of the seceding States?

What would have been justified? Taking all slaves to the United States, freeing them, and ensuring that the Confederate States not take them back.

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You’re more optimistic than me I guess. I think most states would try and broker peace deals with the aggressors, but would ultimate be swallowed up to the point that we’d have 3 or 4 new nations after a lot of people die. I think even Mexico and maybe even Canada would get in on the action. Possibly even others. All the while, none of the problems Brick posted about are addressed at all.

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