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Voters in Scotland have turned down independence for now, but separatist movements continue across Europe, possibly threatening to dismantle Spain, France, and Belgium as well as the UK. The next milestone will be an independence vote on Nov. 9 in Catalonia, the region on the northeast coast of Spain which includes Barcelona; separatists are expected to win handily, but the vote is not binding on the Spanish government. Slate has a neat map showing what a completely redrawn Europe would look like, if accommodations were made for all movements that have joined a loose collective called European Free Alliance; a more complete but visually less satisfying map, including EFA holdouts such as Northern Ireland, appears in Wikipedia. The Washington Post has thumbnail descriptions of eight movements.
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:12PM
I'd like to see where the break lines would be here, too.
I'm getting to the point where I believe that the philosophical divide between the red and blue states are too great to be bridged in a purely political process. In this case, divorce is more useful than trying to hold the family together. Or you can wait until the next Civil War - probably fomented over some bullshit issue in our never-ending political arguments (GLBT issues, abortion, gun rights, etc.) that distract from the real issues (economic disparities, government surveillance, foreign meddling, etc.). It's my contention that a split would force an end to much of the debate on the side issues, as each position in the debate would have an overwhelming majority in their own political regions.
I say this as a proud blue state liberal who loves his country but sincerely believes that the red state conservative political viewpoint is just wrong and I will never be convinced otherwise (Really. I've heard all the opposing arguments. To me, they're all bullshit. I'm sure many red staters would say the same of me and my views). Nor do I believe that the red staters will ever change their views enough to co-exist peacefully in a regime I would like to live under. As such, I believe we would be much happier living in separate countries without each other. It's not like this isn't personal for me, too - four of my siblings would (probably) become red-staters, as it suits them more politically. I'd still have other blue-state brother to keep me company. Let everyone keep the current constitution (to start with), but agree to a peaceful split with a negotiated settlement over resources and property. Let people keep their property and give the sates a reasonable time to set up programs to help with the inevitable relocation effects.
To me, it seems that the only way we actually preserve the ideals of this country and to prevent revolution is to split it, because this red-/blue-state division (which is real) keeps us from uniting on other matters of import.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:37PM
The main division is between country and city. Look at a colored (red/blue) county map of the USA after a major election, it looks like an ocean of red with pockets of blue. That's because there are many sparsely populated rural counties, though not so many in the northeast. Even in states like Texas and New York you'll see blue around the big cities and red in the countryside and distant suburbs (aka 'exurbs').
(Score: 3, Interesting) by CRCulver on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:40PM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @03:52PM
Yeah, that's why China is slowly steamrolling over all those tiny European nations, right?
Oh wait...they aren't. Hell, China couldn't even invade Mexico; half the planet would take up arms against them if they tried. Maybe a hundred years ago that would have been true, but both halves of a divided US would still have enough allies to hold off that sort of invasion -- almost certainly including each other. And the military-industrial complex wouldn't vanish either. Lockheed Martin isn't going to just pack up and call it a day...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:46PM
FREE CASCADIA!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement) [wikipedia.org]
Also, Stephen Maturin would be stoked on the Catalan vote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Maturin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 23 2014, @03:26PM
Scots have had a people and cultural identity separate from England for centuries-to-millenia. Similarly, Catalonians have been a distinct people (with their own language and culture) much longer than an accident of geography made them part of Spain. The Kurds have been a distinct people without a homeland for centuries.
The current Red State/Blue State divide in the US? Not so much.
There's not a massive majority group in ANY state - even the reddest states voted around 65%-35% in the last election (similarly for the bluest). And that's when people were forced to identify one way or another - the rabid democrats/republicans are a distinct minority even in the most extreme states. Not exactly the cleanest division. And fundamentally temporary - what happens when Hispanics become a near-majority in Texas, for example?
But more importantly, the differences are not exactly long standing, nor are the representative of a deep philosophical alignment. The Dixiecrats held most of the South for the democratic party through to the '50's, for example. Rand Paul and Ralph Nader are good illustrations of the divisions even within the "red" and "blue" groups - some love them, some hate them (even on "their own" sides).
Sure, the political discourse has gotten increasingly uncivil, but there's a huge difference between Scotland (for centuries independent and even within their current structure recognized as an independent nation) and (say) the states that are currently republican majority in the south taking their bat and ball and going home.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:45PM
I agree with the rest of your post, but this argument doesn't really hold. The majority party in those regions flipped because the positions of the parties themselves flipped. It wasn't because the majority ideologies in those regions changed.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:50PM
Which is my point.
The geography of "who belongs with who?" isn't some fixed thing - it changes over time. In this case, it changed with the change of party platforms. Making long-term decisions based on present-day political boundaries is a fool's errand, because those political boundaries (history tells us) are highly likely to change.
Oh, and by the way, I'd argue the "parties themselves" didn't flip or reverse positions. It was that the Democrats went from "paying lip service to civil rights" to "actively advocating civil rights" in 1964.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:31PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @06:00AM
The parties didn't really flip positions; the Democrats put forward a Catholic candidate, Kennedy. The South was solidly Protestant; the Catholics were in the Northeast. The South switched to Republicans because Lincoln's party wasn't as bad as a northern Catholic.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:48PM
I have to roll my eyes at the ignorance here. There's two problems with this. First, when someone's point of view is "wrong", it's generally because you don't understand it. I think that's the case here. Sure, there are times when things are clearly wrong such as the people in charge oh, murdering six million Jews or executing people because they wear prescription glasses. But here, people are just "wrong" because they're on the other team. Oh sure, I bet you have all sorts of straw men rationalizations for why you believe whatever it is you believe. I just don't care.
Second, how would the blue country feed itself? By importing food from the red country. Such a dependency has a habit of creating long term strategic tensions. After all the "society is three meals away from collapse" observation is a blue country problem not a red country problem. Resources in general would tend to be on the red country side as would most of the nuclear weapons.
Similarly, the blue country would have the population and perhaps industry to build a huge military advantage. So we have a really bad combination of considerable weakness and considerable strength on the part of the blue country. That tends to lead to wars rather than peaceful break up. And the only sort of war that the red country would be likely to come out ahead in would be a nuclear war - due to its dispersed population.
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Wednesday September 24 2014, @05:25AM
I completely agree with this. It is far beyond obvious that the US is too large and polarized to function as a proper nation.
On one side of the broad spectrum, you have clear-minded individuals who aren't really liberal by any absolute measurement, but are still more rational and sensible than the opposite far end of the spectrum. These individuals are still frequently corrupt or just downright stupid/pro-lawyer, but they might just pass as a politician from the far-right wing in another country.
Then on the opposite side, you have absolute, downright nutty morons whose positions are based on lunatic dogma including conservative radicalism, xenophobia, anti-literacy, religious fairy tales (with no respect for the tradition of non-theocracy in said country), a refusal to
accept anything remotely humanitarian or "socialist" (a term they don't even understand), and simple, stubborn obstinacy to be a jerk to everyone else. And many other reasons as well. While normal parts of the country are trying to invigorate science and technical literacy/education, these nutcases are trying to put fairy tales into science and history textbooks. And they're going completely backwards on environmental preservation and climate science, amongst many other political issues.
Naturally there are many more politicians in the middle as well who sometimes demonstrate enlightened decision-making and at other times, Neanderthalism. But these two extremes just cannot and do not operate cohesively and I honestly feel like it shows that the country would be better off if they didn't have to acknowledge each other. Of course the last few years shouldn't be taken as a trend for the indefinite future, the country is so polarized that they can't even pass common sense laws (see: net neutrality) or budget bills. And the best part of a break-up would be the (potential) dismantling of the surveillance and civilian oppression agencies who are protecting their underlings from free thought, justice, and civil liberties.
I could see the country broken up as such:
* East of New York
* Pacific Coast states
* Atlantic Northeast (Maryland and everything north)
* Western Great Lakes (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and maybe Iowa - they could call it Monsantoland)
* Desert/Mountain region (Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona)
* South (the remaining shitholes nobody cares about)
This seems like the most logical division of geopolitical distribution that I can think of. There are certainly edge cases to be decided (states on borders which could go either way, and the question of what to do with all the other territories). Though I can also imagine potential dangers of this new world, like corporations economically sieging smaller nations into serving their dominion, but this is a start worth considering I feel.