What If Poll: Secession

[The Blood]

[WVProgressive]

(Well, now that's over with, let's get back on topic...)

1 hour ago, Rezi said:

Seeing how many online libs think that rural Appalachians and Southerners are just lost causes who should be abandoned... I wouldn't be surprised if there existed a solid amount of people who were okay with this.

Yeah, I definitely agree that the blasé attitude a lot of liberals have towards red (and even some purple) states is really concerning, but a part of me hopes the lack of empathy is a product of forgetfulness rather than malice. I feel like they're so focused on what Republicans do on the state level, and what the GOP stops them from doing at the federal level, that they forget that states like Mississippi, Alabama, or West Virginia aren't inhabited by just MAGA hat wearing far-right conservatives, and that vulnerable communities live in those areas as well.

I think it really stems from the thought process of "I want x Policy; the representatives in these states are stopping me from passing policy x; the representatives are bad therefore the people are bad; the people who live in these states are bad, and are stopping us from doing good things therefore they should be cut loose and given independence." forgetting of course that this 'solution' would ruin (or end) the lives of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of innocent lives all in the pursuit of improving their own lives. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to better your life, but you can't do that at the expense of other people, especially not at the expense of hundreds of thousands of other people.

[vcczar]

6 minutes ago, WVProgressive said:

that they forget that states like Mississippi, Alabama, or West Virginia aren't inhabited by just MAGA hat wearing far-right conservatives, and that vulnerable communities live in those areas as well.

I definitely understand this, having been born and raised in Texas, leaving Texas at age 29. If the MAGA states ever seceded successfully, I'd hope the US would create incentives for non-MAGAs to flock to US states. Considering the best, brightest, most innovative, most creative, and most education are likely going to be non-MAGA from these state, we could bleed them of their best residents. 

There's also MAGA people in blue states, or even in major cities, which never makes sense to me. However, I think sometimes it because they're stuck here (work or family), which is probably the case with a lot of non-MAGA in MAGA states. 

[pilight]

21 hours ago, vcczar said:

Also, are you suggesting Southern blacks are better off enslaved (South secedes successfully) than free and equal (does not secede equally)?

By the mid 1860's slavery was on its last legs anyway.  It would have been abolished in an independent Confederacy within a generation.  Every country in the Western Hemisphere abolished it by the end of the 1880's, including those like Brazil that had more slaves than the US did.

[vcczar]

1 minute ago, pilight said:

By the mid 1860's slavery was on its last legs anyway.  It would have been abolished in an independent Confederacy within a generation.  Every country in the Western Hemisphere abolished it by the end of the 1880's, including those like Brazil that had more slaves than the US did.

For the Confederacy, I'm not sure if this is quite accurate. Southerners were hoping to expand slavery. There were discussions of getting as much land in the Carribean and Latin America as possible to spread slavery. I don't know if there's any data to show that the slave states--at least the deep south--moving away from slavery. The South didn't have a diversified economy, so they couldn't really just get rid of it. The transition away from it would have lasted until the 1890s, is my guess. Then it is unlikely that Blacks would have been allowed to vote in the South anytime soon after that. You'd likely have unofficial slavery for another generation or two or three. 

 

[MrPotatoTed]

The only one that gave me pause was Hawaii, but I suspect if we didn't conquer them, Japan would have.

[vcczar]

4 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

The only one that gave me pause was Hawaii, but I suspect if we didn't conquer them, Japan would have.

Maybe eventually, but we annexed them, supposedly for their own protection. The French, and possibly the British, were planning on taking it. 

[MrPotatoTed]

11 minutes ago, vcczar said:

Maybe eventually, but we annexed them, supposedly for their own protection. The French, and possibly the British, were planning on taking it. 

Don't count out Russia too, eventually.  

[jnewt]

On 3/24/2023 at 5:22 PM, Mothwoman said:

but when we think of a brain surgeon we think of a white guy

When I think of a brain surgeon, I think of literally the only brain surgeon I've ever heard of, a black guy (Ben Carson)

[Edouard]

Traditionnaly most reasons for secessions shift with the time @vcczar

In Quebec in 1960 it was mostly led by the idea of decolonization. Africa is decolonized, so should be francophones who by the time were real poor ones. There is a book about it called the "White negros of America" written at this time.

Then the idea nowadays is no longer about it but shifted on others topics, mainly three key issues : Protecting french language and so control immigration in Quebec, and leave a Canada which has oil energies, this is the new main argument of independentists in Quebec.

For Catalunya the two motors of independence are the reject of their autonomy status in 2010, the catalan language and culture and the economic crisis where Catalunya pays more than it receives.

Now it has been showed with Brexit that even when you are a net contributor to an inter-states or international budget as part of a common economic zone, it's not always sure that independence will give you additionnal money. Most independences in my opinion are not driven by economic interests first, but by identity, autonomy or political freedom ones.

The first reason why Quebec wanted to seceede in 1995 was the betrayal of the attempt to give good compromises to Quebec into the Canadian constitution. The reason why almost half of Scotland wanted to seecede was a mixt of cultural identity but also a real societal difference in economic choices in the long run and some news which served to trigger and amplify these long run sentiments.

In the US it is true that Texas and California are not the same, but with all population's movements I would say that an american from Philadelphia is closer to another one from Phoenix or Los Angeles or Nashville than he is from an american of rural Pennsylvania who would be closer to an american citizen from the rural south.

It tends to change particulary in the Western Coast and in New England, where rural areas tend to become more liberal, but the whole midwest and central US keeps a real rural vs cities divide.