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Quite a profound thought. I'm surprised I haven't wondered about it before! They say that Texas has enough land to be broken up into 4 or 5 states of its own. But groups of states..together? Like a country of its own..that's a good idea. In a way...it kind of already IS like that. Just not official.

It makes me think of the different districts in George Orwell's 1984 or in Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. Props to you for thinking of this.

I have to say..I don't mind this idea at all. ^ ^

I can and will. The idea is to focus on whether or not the idea is supported in theory, not advance any manner of plan from whence people can get hung up on details.



Matters with wide areas of question are the fodder of debate. Settled matters are not. And your opinion is far from universal on the merits of this subject as the poster before you was quite interested.



No, I don't want to see the Nine Nations of North America, Igor Panarin's map, or Patchwork Nation posted by a half dozen people. Instead I'm interested in hearing people's personal opinions on the subject.



That's factually incorrect. The US has a fiat currency system, not a gold-backed currency.



The idea hasn't been planned out to the point of being thought out. Soliciting opinions is part of a thinking out process. The decision to be offended is yours. Everyone finds their own meaning in things, and if you choose to find something and construe it in a manner to take offense, that's up to you.

I stated my position was to solicit opinions, not attack them. Where you were sharing your opinion, I preferred to let it stand as your opinion. Where you made diagnostic attacks on exploring an idea, I chose to respond.



And you're taking the term "Debate" far too literally. Most of what occurs on the internet is discussion and dialogue. As I saw no sticky threads pertaining to stock issues, aff and neg positions, or Lincoln-Douglas format, I went ahead and assumed this forum, like most others on the internet entitled "debate," took it in the loose form meaning discussion and dialogue. If you feel this belongs in another subforum, by all means name the one it does belong in. Also point out to me whether this is a Lincoln-Douglas debate forum or a policy debate forum and who the judges are.



I made no statements of advocacy whatsoever. But to pretend the regions of the country have no cultural differences suggests a myopia born of someone who has not traveled much within the US. Massachusetts is not the same as Mississippi. People in these states have different attitudes, different economies, different life goals, etc. What is discussed as "cultural diversity" generally does not pertain to the matter of our different regional cultures.



If this uniformity of cultures actually existed you would see uniform voting patterns in elections. As it happens, you do not. Voting patterns reflect regional divisions within the country, suggesting divisions in both culture and economy.



And I say again, point to me where in the rules it specifies if this is Lincoln-Douglas or Stock Issue policy and I can formulate it accordingly. Short of that, it looks to me like you are confusing not liking a particular discussion with a need to silence it.

If you wish to advance evidence as to the nature of your opinion, I'm not averse to that. Again, my disclaimer was simply to avoid seeing links to oft-run sites on the subject of US division which I have seen a million times before. However, it seems to me that perhaps you might benefit from giving them a look at yourself. So, I provide these simply as proof of natural division within the US, not as advocacy for any plan of division:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America
http://patchworknation.csmonitor.com/



Understood.



My intention was never to advocate a separation. It was to see just how receptive people are to the idea. One person has openly embraced the idea, and the poll indicates a 4 - 1 level of support for the idea. My intent was neither to advocate or discourage it, simply to measure the general level of support people have for national dissolution. Here is why. Most nations in history that have dissolved have dissolved not due to external pressures, but due to a much more important internal factor; that the population loses the will to sustain common statehood.

See, we tend to look at the existence of states in a very fait accompli mindset. This shapes our thinking on why states form and why they dissolve. This is best evidenced through the popular views of the collapse of the Roman Empire coming largely at the hands of an external influence (barbarian invasions), or the formation of states occurring through military achievement. Rarely do we stop to think that states exist because of the will of the people living in them. An understanding of states on this level provides a much more useful model not just in explaining why states occur and endure, but in predicting where they will end up failing. Consider France after the Nazis overran it in 1940. By an external theory of state collapse French history should have ended with the Nazi victory and occupation. However, by an internal theory, one can easily explain that France would not have been destroyed by a military occupation, even one intent on outright annexation, so long as the people retained a will to sustain France. In contrast, consider the fate of Austria-Hungary (formerly the Austrian Empire). This is a country that clearly had a long history of ethnic uprisings that evinced a strong desire not to sustain Austria-Hungary. When it was formally partitioned at the end of WWI, no movement of the successor states afterward sought to reunify the nation. Where the war played any role was in removing the artificial forces in Vienna that had acted as a substitute for a will to sustain the Austro-Hungarian state (such as it were, the numerous military suppressions of Hungarian uprisings and Czech uprisings that plagued Austria-Hungary [and the Austrian Empire] throughout the 1800s).

Where this idea becomes predictive is in showing attitude conditions to watch for that become conducive to national dissolution. States and people change over time. None of them last forever. The United States will be no different. Some day there will be no United States. Measurements of national attitude that gauge our willingness to remain in common nationhood help us place where on the trajectory we are towards the day where there will be no United States (again bearing in mind that no nation lasts forever, all are on the trajectory towards the day when they will cease to be, this is not just the US). During the US Civil War the country was under the influence of two competing attitude currents; the attitude that wanted to dissolve the US and the attitude that wanted to preserve it. Those favoring preservation ultimately had a commitment to that position equal to or greater than those favoring dissolution. Thus the US was preserved as a single state. Today the sorts of frustrations that lead to a desire for separation are beginning to manifest themselves again, and this time seem to be on much more of a mutual grounds than they were in 1861. This certain mutual willingness can best be demonstrated in the northeast and west coast by this old map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map
And also in areas that are more traditionally associated with dissolutionist tendencies such as Texas:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/gov-rick-perry-texas-coul_n_187490.html

So while I do not argue that we are on the precipice of national dissolution, I do think a certain groundwork is there which could easily grow over time as our differing economies, attitudes, regional cultures, and values continue to drift. Of such an eventual dissolution I am neither an advocate nor an opponent, just an observer.



And I thank you for it. It helps to gauge the continuing support in the country for the concept of common statehood.



I'm not in the business of trying to convince you that dissolution would be a good idea. It is not my intent. But after addressing this post I will address some of your concerns that I find in particular to be off-base.



I said no such thing and defy you to point out where I did.



You're trying to tie me into a specific plan of dissolution which I outright said I would not advance or advocate. In general one could conclude that the people advocating any successor state would decide them, generally keeping within where popular acceptance of their criteria can be sustained.



And the problem is you are confusing the concepts of being cosmopolitan and of culture. There is a prevailing culture in the south. There is a prevailing culture in New England. Immigrants who settle into either of these areas, while preserving their native identities, will also adopt cultural leanings with respect to their local surroundings. To illustrate, here in Detroit we have a very large Chaldean community largely drawn from Lebanon. There is no ice hockey in Lebanon. Yet, at Red Wings victory parades it was all too common to see Lebanese Chaldeans out on the streets celebrating Stanley Cup wins, wearing the Red Wings jerseys, and flying the Red Wings car flags just like the rest of the Detroiters. And, time and time again those Chaldeans with relatives in the south were constantly having to explain what all the hubbub was about. Why? Nobody in the south watches hockey. Everybody in Detroit does. So, while a Red Wings victory party at a Chaldean house might serve baklava, its still a hockey-related party. So while a region can, indeed, be multi-ethnic, this does not negate differing prevailing regional cultures. Nor has it ever. Consider, for example, in the US Civil War that there were Irish immigrants fighting on both sides of the conflict.



Merriam-Webster:
Culture -Noun-
5b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time

And yes, a number of regions in this country meet this criteria which would qualify them as having their own culture.

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Me and my mother have similar attitudes, but we are cultural opposites.

And I think you're confusing culture in its anthropological sense for some other concept.

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I have said throughout this entire thread that cultures are diverse in most areas. Why would you think I believe in a uniformity of cultures when I have been stating the exact opposite? I don't believe there are voting patterns, for the simple fact that our cultures ARE so diverse.

Regional voting patterns are crystal clear in our elections. It is how they exit poll and model to project winners. This is well established demographic and statistical science. That and it's plain as day to see to anyone who has looked at the electoral map for more than two elections. The south votes Republican, New England votes Democratic. These clearly evince regional voting patterns. The point behind bringing up uniformity in voting is that you assume in your arguments a uniformity of distribution of disparateness in culture. You advance this at the exclusion of common regional cultural tendencies. For this to be true there could be no concentrations anywhere in the US of common value sets such that no discernible voting patterns would emerge. In other words, every state, every region would have to vote in the exact same proportions. For them not to would indicate the formation of regional concurrence, and thus common regional value sets forming the backbone of regional culture.

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I have never stated that certain states don't lean a certain way either culturally. But that does not mean everyone within that state is of the same culture.

And you're confusing an individual understanding of culture for a social understanding of culture.

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Again, I have stated my opinion and my reasoning behind it. You have stated your opinion but have yet to back it up in any way.

I have in no way, shape, or form stated my opinion on the larger question. I solicited the opinions of others on the larger question.

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If you simply wish to continue arguing what this topic is about, I will leave.

Nobody was arguing what the topic was about until you decided to come in and do so. I created the topic, I know very well what it is about. If you chose to leave the topic that is up to you. This is another matter which I will neither advocate nor oppose.

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However, I have ask some valid questions, and I would still like to hear your answers to them.

I will address matters to which you raised questions in your first post and address matters where you are off base.

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What would be the benefit?

The same benefit any nation finds in government that more represents its people I suppose. There is a Germany and an Austria today. Both speak German. They border one another. Yet, Austrians oppose common governance with Germany. Clearly they find some benefit in governing their own, separate affairs. And this is to say nothing of ethnic issues that have led states to break up, such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia.

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The economy would most likely take a serious dive, as there would be "international" taxes stacked onto everything.

Unless states entered into free trade agreements and abided by multinational agreements such as GATT and the oversight of the WTO. That's what prevents the scenario you describe from happening today between nations, and this existing framework is more than capable of ensuring it doesn't happen in a dissolution situation.

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How would each group of states support itself?

The same way any other nation on the face of the earth does. I'm not advocating it, but if you use the Nine Nations of North America map, and only tabulate the Gross State Product of wholly contained states, at least two of those successor states would have GDPs higher than France. I'd like to think we're all in agreement here that France can support itself.

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Our meat products, crops, textiles, etc etc, all come from specific places.

Yes, they do. Many of our meat and produce products come from Mexico and other areas of Latin America. Our textiles come largely from Asian countries like Vietnam and Pakistan. The notion that we could not continue importing products to fill needs belies a very crucial fact, we currently import consumer goods and food products to fill needs.

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If you even try to say
"well, that's what trading is for" then you don't know anything about the economy or how it works.

Your inappropriate personal jab aside, this is precisely how the economy works. The food market is global. The US alone from Oct 2009 - Apr 2010 imported $48 billion in agricultural produce. And we are one of the largest food producing nations in the world. We live in a globalized food market, plain and simple. The import and export of food products is both a viable economic model and reliable to ensure food supply. If it wasn't, how else would we explain the $48 billion in US food imports?
Source:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FATUS/#calendar

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So how would a division be done that would work economically?

Again, I refer you to the gross state product analysis. Nearly every section from the Nine Nations map (which I am not endorsing) would yield a GDP larger than well accepted stable and economically prosperous European states. That argues very well in favor of the likely economic stability of these states.

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On another note, it WOULD cause war, if you wanted it or not. We could peacefully separate, but there has to be a reason behind it, or it wouldn't happen.

Czechoslovakia separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia without any war, either then or now, between the two. The breakup of the Soviet Union, which was not a totally willing breakup, occurred with about 300 people being killed. The only conflicts of note that have been generated by this were the Chechen conflict and the South Ossetia war. Neither would really be considered a large-scale conflict, though the Chechen conflict was relatively destructive to Chechnya.

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Other countries would take this opportunity, North Korea comes to mind.

There is as much danger of North Korea crossing the Pacific and invading anything as there is of Martians boarding flying saucers and taking over the world. The North Korean navy is replete with such outdated boats as diesel submarines and lacks any carrier capacity. With no forward bases of operation or beachheads in the western hemisphere there is no way they could mount such a campaign. North Korea's military is largely a ground-oriented military. It's job is to surge across the DMZ, it is not configured for projection.

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And what of the U.S's allies?

I imagine each section would handle that on an ad hoc basis.

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Which divisions would continue to receive the aid of which allies?

And you're trying to pin me into a specific plan which I said I was not looking to advance. I do not endorse any specific plan of dissolution which would address this question. I imagine those successor states which would prefer to continue an international role in the NATO framework would simply continue to do so under their regional auspices. But, that would be a matter they would decide.

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This alone could start wars within these different factions, along with other countries.

You're forgetting that the main security disposition quoted in the early 20th century doesn't necessarily change in this. We have the Atlantic to one side, the Pacific to the other, Canada is friendly, Mexico is inept. France isn't going to sign an alliance with some section of the country and declare war on a section allied with Britain. That gravely misreads the strategic interests of France and also the general political climate of Europe.

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What about personal lives now? I don't like the idea of my country splitting and my family living in another country.

And that is a solid argument against dissolution that people would have to come to terms with if it happens. Again, I never said I advocated dissolution.

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So, whoever gets fort Knox is going to have a serious advantage.

Fort Knox is a federal institution, and therefore collectively owned. In a peaceful dissolution its fate, and the fate of any assets it contains, would likely be negotiated between successor states.

Now, I have answered your questions.

Thank you for answering them. Though I continue to disagree that this could work peacefully, there's no way we would know for sure unless it happened.

Also, I apologize about assuming you were supporting this plan. I misread your original post.