« Eye Candy for Today: Sargent’s Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose | Main | We Will Feast in the House of Zion »

April 15, 2015

[Bumped] Is it possible for the United States to break up, either de facto or formally?

The country is not a happy place. Today it is more consciously and resentfully divided,
politically, regionally, racially and by sex and class than perhaps ever before. The rich prosper and the middle class sink. Three major racial blocs eye each other with fear and hostility. The hard left controls the media and government against the desires of much of the country, enforcing social engineering that is deeply disliked. Feminists make war on men, and destroy the schools and universities. Washington is widely loathed. Rules, laws, and regulations never voted on grow ever more burdensome and intrusive. Many quietly want out. The question is how to get there. Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at April 15, 2015 10:14 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I suspect we're not far away from a sort of hyper federalism where states separate more and more away from the federal government in laws and practices. The biggest hurdle for them is to break their addiction to federal dollars, though.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 10:54 AM

Those "Federal dollars come from the States where the citizenry and corporations reside. If one and several states stop sending those bucks up to DC, they soon run out of cash.

Now they can print more but that simply reduces the value of what is in circulation. States can mint their own coin and back it with hard currency; those states doing so can "confederate" and proceed on their own.

Did not someone say those that pay no attention to history... fumble the ball or something.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 12:55 PM

Sorry Chuck: U.S. Constitution -- Article I -- Section. 10. No State shall ... coin Money ...

Posted by: Fat Man [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 1:28 PM

I sense there will be some sort of breakup or division although 'disintegration' might be a better word. But how and when can't be known.

Several of the northern states might join Canada. If Canada would have them. The three Pacific states, or four counting Hawaii, could be OK w/o the rest of the USA.

The southern border states will be heavily hispanic majority and might join Mexico in some imagined renewal; dumber things have been done, give me a few days and I will think of one.After that their pressure to pull CA, then Oregon, then Washington in Hispanic Heaven would become enormous.

The northeast corridor from Boston to Washington so admires itself that they would mandate self esteem training for everyone. Every year would be 1984, calenders would no longer be needed.

The other states,the deserts, plains, mountains, and Dixie would simply be a mess. Hope for good growing seasons, they would be living on turnips within a decade.

Washington D.C. would employ any amount of force to crush the first departure. Empires do strike back.

Posted by: Ken [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 1:59 PM

People are already living like escaped convicts, below the radar sweep. This will expand, and they will cover their tracks heavily. Barter and trade rather than using cash, no paper trails, no banks. Grow yer own, do yer own, help others in exchange for their help. You know, like people did 150 years ago before the place became infested with thugs.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 2:34 PM

@ Fat Man, You are correct. No state IN THE UNION shall coin money.

States can mint their own coin and back it with hard currency; those states doing so can "confederate" and proceed on their own. That is an important part of what I wrote.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 2:51 PM

Ken, I have no idea where you live, but Dixie isn't some backwater as you think. Cotton isn't the prime product; as for the border states, I would like you to give me a good reason why they would join a failed corrupt country like Mexico.

The toughest part any state leaving would face would be shutting the borders keeping those trying to escape from the blue states. Consider them the Walking Dead.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 3:05 PM

VC: You seem to take this seriouly. I don't and regard it all as anyone's guess, total speculation.

i.e. as if I had been told to compose a comic book about 2030 by tevening.

There may be no break up. Or an American Lenin may come and impose tyranny, Race warr are possible. Or self replicating robots may rule.

A new plague or climate change or foreign wars might make unsatisfaction with Washington the least of worries.

A million scenarios are equally likely. Ghostsniper seems to think central authority will evaporate from within while outwardly the political form might still appear alive.


Posted by: Ken [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 4:17 PM

Could the United States break up? Sure. All human institutions come to an end.

Will the United States break up? Probably not soon. The regime in Washington wants regulate the minutest details of the lives of 320 Million people. They can't do it competently, but that will not stop them from trying. They will not shrug their shoulders and give up. They will crack the whip harder.

What will stop them? Bankruptcy. The bankruptcy of the United States is a mathematical certainty. It could be avoided only by super human acts of patriotic self-sacrifice and steadfast statesmanship. Which is to say that it will not be avoided.

BTW: Chuck assumes the consequent. The crumbling of the Constitutional order, particularly the limitations on the power of the states, will follow the the collapse of the federal Government, not precede it.

Posted by: Fat Man [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 14, 2015 10:15 PM

There are a couple of judges sitting on SCOTUS now that believe the Tenth Amendment might bring the Feds to heel faster than you might think.

But whether such a ruling is produced or not, if people in various states go about acting that way the Feds have a serious problem. Consider that failing to get obedience to a court decision, military force is the only other choice left to the Feds.

Please tell me what the Federal Government has that the States don't give it?

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 15, 2015 3:39 AM

Evaporate? Not soon.
I believe the gov't will become increasingly irrelevant. People are sick of being told what to do, sick of paying out the ass and getting very little if anything in return. They also see that their is little they can do about it. Voting only adds salt to the wound and amplifies the bitterness. There will be no war, but millions of little battles everyday. The little people, the foundation, is eroding and eventually the big people will become top heavy, and fall. The best anyone can do is stay out of the way. Many won't and many will succumb as victims. I don't plan to be one.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 15, 2015 7:17 PM

"Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done." ~ Robert A. Heinlein

And that is the sundering of this Union of States.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2015 6:09 AM

ghostsniper: actually what you last wrote is what I meant by 'evaporate'. A sort of evaporation of any significant support from the people evenwhile the formal framework of government lurches on.

i.e. a dead government walking.

I believe imperial china ended that way. And how long was there a Holy Roman Empire which meant nothing?

It is hard to get the words right on such topics. A feudal model wasn't mentioned but is certain to arise in some locales if central authority fails. ala Britain after the Romans left.


VW: I like the Heinlein quote. He seems wiser and wiser as the years pass.

Posted by: Ken [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2015 4:50 PM

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)