You know I had a Geography Teacher in college who was convinced that we would see the

[Justice wanted]

U.S. kind of break apart and reform into Regional mini Untied states. Like the south would break away and form it's own country etc. He was convience that the U.S. was getting so Polarized that it was going to in a sense destroy itself.


So was he completely wrong or are we starting to see signs indicating that it will happen?

[Tsiyu]

1. Nice edit

As to the OP, no sign yet of that. It would take a major breakdown of society for this to happen, and so far all the predictions of that major breakdown - Y2K, etc - have failed to materialize.

[Justice wanted]

4. Thanks. Half a sleep. Ever since he said that in class I wake up from nightmares of civil unrest

Handmaid Tale type events. So it happened this morning and it is on my mind. I hope you are right.

[Tsiyu]

10. Well, anything can happen

But sometimes nightmares are just bad dreams.

This country has held through a lot of unrest, like the Civil War, the Depression, the Civil Rights struggles when many in the South wanted to secede.

And we're still together...

[FreakinDJ]

5. You never heard of "League of the South"

http://dixienet.org/rights/index.shtml

[Justice wanted]

6. Honestly no.

[FreakinDJ]

8. Your teacher might have been reffering to them

as seperation is what they advocate

[Tsiyu]

9. I live in the South

that is a small minority of people. Most Southerners are not that extreme.

They depend on the Feds for quite a bit. They aren't going to abandon America yet.

[Bucky]

28. Wow, you sure got that wrong

There was wide-spread dissatisfaction and a long range coordinated and very public campaign of coordinated resistance, led by the country's economic elites over several years, culminating in 1775 (not 76) that led to the Revolutionary War... and then another 14 months of bloody conflict and outright hostilities, before the US actually proposed a complete break from the mother country.

[ieoeja]

31. Yup, at least back to the British occupying the French forts at the end of what we Americans call:

"The French and Indian War"

Prior to that war there was little British troop presence in the North Americas. Since those forts were placed by the French as a threat to the British colonies, the colonists viewed the British occupancy of those forts as a continued threat.

And the death of King George II just prior to the end of that war brought a strict contructionist regime to power in England. Suddenly a lot of laws, many outdated, others designed to protect English businesses to the detriment of their citizens (not a new concept), were enforced to ridiculous extremes.

White Pine forests were reserved for the British Navy. The new regime enforced the law even for individual trees on personal property.

Stamp Act was a perfectly reasonable tax, but impossible to implement as a single manufacturer held a monopoly and could not possibly produce and distribute enough stamped paper.

Previous regimes stopped enforcing the Sugar Act because British sugar growers had converted to rum manufacturers leaving no excess sugar to sell. But the law was still on the books, so the new regime decided it must be enforced.

The "Tea Party" was not a protest against the tax. It was a protest against the crown forcing the colonies to purchase the tea against their will.

The crown tried to close "failing" public schools. In later decades private correspondence would emerge showing they actually tried to close them because the schools were working *too* well. And educated people were getting tired of letting God choose their rulers by knocking up the queens of England.

And so forth.

[Bucky]

32. We'll have to disagree about the Stamp Act

Most of the colonies still were functioning on a barter economy. One of the things slowing growth in British North America was a lack of capitalization on the frontier. So a cash-on-the-barrel levy placed on every court document and every paper filed in county clerks' offices and every pamphlet passed out in the cities was a ridiculous cash drain on an already cash-poor economy. It meant marriages had to be delayed (or go unrecorded) and newborn heirs were left unregistered and land titles, the real source of wealth for the colonies, had to go unregistered. The Stamp Act was an economy killer, since those tax receipts didn't go into the hands of the colonial governments, who might've spent the money on improvements like roads and canals, but were exported to Britain. The American Revolution was a lot like the 99% rising up against the money-suck of the 1% today.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. It could happen in name only but the federalism built into the Constitution

and tax system would keep the regions together as a country unless the Constitution were amended.

[jwirr]

35. Most of the thinking about the separation is not based on disatisfaction. From what I have read

it is based on the fact that there are already regions inside the USA that have very different goals and cultures. Then it is assumed that there will be a big emergency that will collapse the ability to function (such as climate change and/or oil depletion) that increases the governments ability to continue the economic ties that bind us together now. The emergence of separate regions would be the way that these regions would continue to survive in a more local world. Rather this means that the entire USA structure would break up or that it would merely mean that smaller more local government would step up to fill the void until the government gets back on its feet I do not know.

[MilesColtrane]

11. The only way I see it happening is if there is a catastrophic breakdown of the federal government.

(nuclear terrorist attacks, global pandemic with a high mortality rate, etc.)

Over half a million were killed or wounded the last time secession was attempted.

A region of the country jockeying for independence would not be allowed to split off without another fight. More importantly, the federal government would intervene way before things got to the point of violence.

[HuckleB]

12. Sounds like that ivory tower of his is a bit stifling.

People forget that the bluest region in the nation still contains a huge percentage of red voters, and vice versa. This professor is absolutely full of it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. I think this was tried in the 1860's

It started a war, but that war is mostly finished now.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Good point

But the 'Dixie' won the peace!

[Doctor_J]

15. I won't happen until we start to fight back

Right now the right wing and Repukes just take everything they want, enact fascist laws, set up and expand fascist media cabals, strip civil rights and subsistence from more and more people, and basically serve as whores to .1% of the population. And we never push back, so there it really no danger of the union splitting apart - those who own and run it like it just as it is, and the other 99.9% don't do anything to change it. If, OTOH, we decide to actually inflict some damage, maybe something substantial will happen to make life livable for the other 325 million of us

[Marrah_G]

16. I still think it will happen

We are to large and too divided.

[justiceischeap]

18. I could see it happening some day but not in our lifetimes. nt

[lunatica]

19. I don't ever say something can't happen in this country anymore

As a matter of fact I'm beginning to think that if it happens anywhere in the world or in history, it will happen here too.

We're not so special.

History has proven time and time again that there's no such thing as a country that's Too Big To Fail.

edited to add the last sentence

[EC]

20. The North and South has been completely

different since the beginning. I for one would like to see the division and often wish they would have just split during the Civil War instead of celebrating the union. Will it eventually happen? I hope so.


If the repubs get what they want, States rights will be the rule. Then we may as well split each State or District, into different countries without a central government, since they will eliminate most of the fed. anyway.

[Puzzledtraveller]

21. Heard the same from sources I forgot, Balkanization I think was the term.

[cthulu2016]

22. Unlikely for the same reason we had a civil war

Any subdivision of the US would be a real or perceived military threat to the rest of the US -- not just directly, but in terms of its alliances.

Whichever part of the US has effective control of the military will not allow formation of new nations.

Think of it as a sideways extnsion of the Monroe Doctrine

[liberalhistorian]

23. My 70-something mother has thought

this for years. She thinks we are simply too big of a nation with too many varied regions to be able to continue to survive as a whole country (she's a retired history/social studies/English teacher). However, she thinks it will be many decades before it actually starts to happen. While it seems that, in history, things like that happen fairly quickly, it usually takes a long time to actually take place once the groundwork has been laid.

[bvar22]

24. Whatever happens,

I'm sticking with the piece that gets New Orleans:
the food, the culture, the art, and the music.

Geaux Saints!

[Bucky]

25. He was completely wrong.

Predictions of the dissolution of the Union run back 50 years. Those who put forward a timeline inevitably get it wrong. Conservatives and liberals each think they country would be better off without the other side, but no one's stepping forward to say they themselves would be better off without the country.

[cowcommander]

26. There was a videogame exactly about that scenario

[Bucky]

27. There's also Crimson Skies. Same plot, but the country broke up over Prohibition & Depression.

Also the game play is basically dogfighting and aerial acrobatics.

Shooting down zepplins is a lot more fun than turn-based occupation of cities

[yella_dawg]

29. Some futurists predict just such a thing.

Some futurists, basing their predictions on historical trends, but tempering their scenarios in light of advancing technology believe that we will fracture along regional economic lines. They imagine distributed agriculture, manufacturing, and so forth will follow advances in energy generation, and political boundaries will contract along economic and geographical lines. In some ways, this change will reflect the way we manage and transmit information. Consider that the internet is very much in it's infancy. Also, this prediction considers planet-wide, long-term trends of growing personal and public wealth, more widespread education, and wider regard for human rights as well.


It is proposed that this prediction will unfold over centuries rather than in some climactic fashion.

[woofless]

30. Hail, hail Cascadia!

[barbtries]

33. i don't see it.

the polarization is person to person. i know some argue that the south is dispensable, but what about nebraska, idaho, utah, arizona? there are both liberals and conservatives in every single state. it would be hell to try to split this country apart at this point.
not only that, but i would have to move. i want to go back to CA but not before i can live there comfortably (speaking financially).

[jwirr]

34. If things like climate change and oil depletion have the expected effects on our future then it is

possible. Some books to read include, "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler and "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order" by Emmanuel Todd. I found both of these books inspiring and comforting because they give us a hint that things can be okay even if the worst happens.

[LanternWaste]

36. As our differences are no longer regional, but rather social,

As our differences are no longer regional, but rather social, I have a somewhat difficult time perceiving how, why and where the breakups would occur.

The polarizations of 175 years ago were delineated along a rather obvious latitude line. So other than the border states, the perspective of the combatants was indeed that of two wholly separate nations and cultures.

However, the polarizations of the here and now divide neighbors, co-workers and families-- no geographic borders are relevant. Mass media has inculcated a much greater sense of synthesis and identity amongst North Americans.

Anyways, as long as kids can play X-box and Guitar Hero and drink beer, and the parents can watch Glee and Survivor and drink beer, I don't envision any crisis as having an impact great enough to counter-act our complacency.

[NNN0LHI]

37. Your Geography teacher was Harold Camping?

Whodathunk?

Don