Post #390,628
6/11/14 3:38:42 PM
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I'd be willing to forego the common militia.
My initial thought was that it was necessary to thwart any attempts at landgrabbing from, say, China, Russia and/or India. Without a common defense, how could the Tidewater Republic stave off an attack from one of those 21st century "superpowers"? The details would be messy, but isn't that what Conventions are for? To work those details out? You mention NATO being force fed to Europe. I don't disagree, but do we not now see States attempting to join NATO of their own accord? I don't think the idea of a standing army for the common protection of the member states is necessarily unworkable. How will General Robert E. Lee IV feel any more inclined to keep his troops in line should the Tidewater Republic vote to annex the neighboring Commonwealth of Shenandoah without the consent of the other legacy nations? I'm not sure that such an attempted annexation would be within the common militia's sphere of concern. I'm not suggesting that this common militia be the only militia. A state could decide that it wants its own standing army. I was thinking the common military would be only a defensive force who would combat attacks from without upon any state or group of states. Attacking a member state for any reason should be expressly forbidden. (Aside: Here we see the bleeding through of the Stars and Bars in my thinking.) One thing that would have to be allowed is free, unimpeded movement from any state to any other state for all people. It would thereby be none of The State of Greater New York's business what happened in the knuckle dragging Blue Ridge. The Blue Ridge and Greater New York would be different sovereign nations. Any oppressed peoples could simply migrate to nations where they would not be victimized - sort of an above ground underground railroad, if you will.
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Post #390,636
6/11/14 4:54:31 PM
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"free, unimpeded movement"
I do believe that we've seen this sort of thing in living memory on the eastern side of the Adriatic. What did they call it? Wait, it'll come to me...of course! "Ethnic cleansing!" Suppose that the adjacent "nations" are disinclined to grant refuge or even passage to the "oppressed peoples?" There are always mass graves, I suppose. "Free, unimpeded movement" to be enforced how, exactly?
"Attacking a member state for any reason should be expressly forbidden." Ayup. That'll work.
I can't really see "China, Russia and/or India" landing Higgins Boats on our sacred shores, although I suppose the Russians might plausibly reclaim Alaska (which would surely afford mmoffitt a certain wintry satisfaction, given that its purchase was negotiated by a Lincoln associate) (and Ashton's ancestor), and I suspect that the various successor states would share my skepticism, shoring up their existing disinclination to contribute coin to the common good.
Your Compact of Disunion, however practical and enlightened its terms, would not survive the violation by one or two legacy entities: either disintegration or forcible reintegration on behalf of a coalition of other actors would follow.
Next?
cordially,
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Post #390,688
6/12/14 8:47:10 AM
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Dude, don't kill my Utopian Buzz.
Remember I said, "What I'd hope would happen," to kick things off. As Chinese and Russian diets become closer to American diets, their reliance on corn for feed will only increase. That'd make the "I" states targets.
As for enforcement of free movement, that could be the responsibility of the common defense, who would report to some sort of council comprised of representatives of the various states.
But I'm not (as you've suggested previously) delusional or suffering from any "symptoms of sclerosis." What I expect to happen is for the US to fail and break apart with all the problems (and possibly a great many more) that you've suggested will arise from my model. We cannot sustain our present configuration, no matter how true some folks remain to the notion that "we've got it pretty good." How long can a nation remain the world's leading debtor before complete collapse? We're pushing 30 years with that moniker - far longer than I thought we'd get away with it. Moreover, our federal government is a complete sham. Our legislators don't even pretend to write (or read!) legislation anymore. In the main, corporate lobbyists write the bills and deliver them to our so-called representatives for signatures. These interests are virtually all located in the worthless thumb of the US generally, and New York and Massachussets more specifically. Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Oil and Wall Street are the only entities served by our federal government. It's everywhere you look; from the Health Insurance Corporation Subsidy Law (aka Obamacare) to the fact that if you have worked hard, completed a graduate degree and are unfortunate enough to have most of your income derived from earned income (read: salaried professional) you will be taxed at a rate roughly four times that of Billy Gates and Warren Buffet unless you give huge chunks of your money to Wall Street Banksters directly.
When the Feds even bother to pass laws that affect, say, the kindergarten teacher in Huntsville, AL or Pocatello, ID, it is always to their detriment. The federal laws and guidelines hold them responsible for the IQ's of their students, back for-profit corporations to replace their public schools, tenure is now a thing of the past even in Progressive California, etc. sic nauseum. The United States will collapse into a host of separate nations because eventually, everyone outside of Manhattan and Boston will recognize that they are no longer the concern of the federal government.
If enough of us die in the revolution (hopefully, at least a few of our tactical nukes will be used domestically. This is even more likely to be the case since Obama has set the precedent that the President can kill any Americans he chooses), those that are left might be able to construct a federation as I roughly described. Those governments, serving a smaller number of people in close geographic proximity would naturally be more responsive to the regional needs of its people. At the very least, such governments would be vastly more responsive to the People's needs than the current puppets of Wall Street in Washington today.
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Post #390,695
6/12/14 10:05:14 AM
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brief clarification & then
I said that the Constitution was sclerotic, not you. How long can a nation remain the world's leading debtor before complete collapse? There's an old quip—sufficiently old that I won't bother adjusting it for inflation, and will attribute it to Doctor Evil—to the effect of "When you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you, When you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, you own the bank." I share in broad outline your sense that the country appears increasingly untenable as a going concern. A savvy woman of my acquaintance, now ninety, is fond of pooh-poohing these fears: "We survived x; we'll survive y. You'll see." I think, "Maybe yes, maybe no, but nobody ever gets past z." We differ, of course, with regard to your utopian buzz. There are many more ways of being completely fucked up than there are of being merely dysfunctional. When the Divided States, post-union diplomacy having failed them, reach the grave impasse where the alternatives facing them are genocide or mass slaughter, I pray that they will find the wisdom to choose correctly. cordially,
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Post #390,701
6/12/14 11:44:46 AM
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I'll bet you're a Kunstler fan
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Post #390,703
6/12/14 12:16:48 PM
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or conceivably of these folks
This site bills itself as "Pro-White, Pro-South, Pro-Independence." I link to the particular discussion because several of the comments are fascinating. When one sympathetic dissenter objects, "all very well and good, but what're we gonna do with all the blacks?" the proprietor says that once the reimposition of Jim Crow, which he asserts with approval is already underway, is put firmly in place post-independence, the nigras will head north of their own accord. I must say that there is something almost refreshing when our southern brethren leave off with the winks and nudges and let their freak flags (Confederate battle flag, natch) fly. Kidding aside, I should clarify here that I don't actually imagine that mmoffitt, notwithstanding his avowed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the War of Northern Aggression, may be justly classed with these loons. But you know, there does appear to be a growing collection of constituencies who, having little else in common (Ecotopia and New Dixie, to name just two), believe for various reasons in national devolution. Friend mmoffitt inclines to think that this could be a good development, and I am disposed to believe that things could go pear-shaped pretty quickly. The breakup of the USSR, however traumatic the first decade may have been, was really a pretty soft landing, almost astonishingly so. Here, I think, Yugoslavia would be the likelier model. For my part I very much prefer the lumbering, vast, unwieldy devil I know to the score of nimbler, crueler imps I see bursting forth from that devil's corpse. cordially,
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Post #390,736
6/12/14 7:59:45 PM
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Hmmm.. a Gantt-chart of these overlapping mind-sets would resemble a
pointillist's first-draft canvas.
A downside to the genius of Edward Tufte is that, now anyone can conjure-up (via antidotes to Power Punt) that which appears to corroborate fervid hookah-dreams.
Maybe I can skim more replies; a few seem pithy on first-pass, but my brain hurts.
(It is not just the lumpen-folk who can never be quite sure how their newly elected/or selected pig-in-poke might squeal, once anointed.
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Post #390,713
6/12/14 2:39:37 PM
6/12/14 5:09:10 PM
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another imagined contention
The Republic of Greater Texas, which has the Gulf of Mexico sewn up to a hundred miles or so east of the present Florida border, really, really wants that Keystone XL pipeline down from the Grand Duchy of Alberta. Problem is, the Commonwealth of Ogallala has become unexpectedly protective of its eponymous aquifer, and is demanding extortionate terms to which no true Texan could acquiesce with honor. It'll be necessary to send the Lone Star Army through sparsely populated Shiprock, and to annex its eastern reaches, on the way to occupying and subduing the Ogallalans. California's President Brown is about as keen to have Texas controlling the Colorado River as Bush the Elder was at the prospect of Kuwait's oilfields in Saddam Hussein's pocket. The Guns of August thereupon morphs from cautionary tale into instruction manual.
cordially,
Edited by rcareaga
June 12, 2014, 05:09:10 PM EDT
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Post #390,745
6/13/14 9:18:40 AM
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I wonder.
Do you think the fact that you are not a Marxist enables you to more easily imagine situations where things could go pear shaped than how things might be better? I think you've acknowledged that we roughly agree on the current situation being untenable in the long term, but we disagree on whether the impending break-up would be good or bad. Do you think it could be that our difference on the subject is a manifestation of our predispositions?
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Post #390,747
6/13/14 10:09:16 AM
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That seems plausible
Alas, I'm obliged to step back from the pixels these next 48 hours, so the discussion must needs proceed (or tail off) without me...
cordially,
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