Two in Three Republicans in the South Support SECEDING from the US While almost Half of Democrats out West Say The Same

#177
#177
zeppelin128 said:
I don't agree with you on much, but you are spot on with this. This notion of states splitting up in a North v. South v. West dynamic is outdated and would not be sustainable. You'd have active revolts in urban areas across the South, as well as the vast majority of counties in California, both for different reasons. If the US ever falls apart, it will make Balkanization look like a Sunday school trip to the zoo.
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I think in rural areas there would be major splits as well. I was amazed to go back home to small town West Tn and see Biden signs in my old neighborhoods. The economies have been decimated in the last 3 decades due to factories moving offshores. Overall Trump would've won the town/county but their are large pockets of low info voters whose key talking point is still racism.

In all my lifetime, I had never given it a consideration that America was divided beyond repair until the last 6-8 years. This type of government system we have is designed to creep to the left but I think the lurch to the left at a feverish pace is doing irreparable harm. We could point, debate and argue about what has caused this socialist free fall in the democrat party.
 
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#178
#178
KB5252 said:
The right has been every bit as responsible for government expansion and overreach, especially in the past two decades.
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Overreach for sure (Bush comes to mind), but when did the right add to government expansion? Was that Bush as well?
 
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#180
#180
Some form of Balkanization will end up being the answer here (long term at least).

We’re already two nations in spirit. Northeast and Northwest should just join Canada. SoCal can form it’s own thing and the rest of the country could remain together.

We could remain friendly and have thriving trade relations without the social and political infighting.

The power struggle to control the opposition party has gotten out of hand anyway. Neither side will back down. This is a good peaceful solution.
 
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#182
#182
BreatheUT said:
Overreach for sure (Bush comes to mind), but when did the right add to government expansion? Was that Bush as well?
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When they wanted power they talked a good game promising to scale it back, when they had power they never delivered. They accepted it, they are part of the problem.
 
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#183
#183
Our Founding Fathers faced splits just as difficult as these, and with the threat of the world's most powerful military force breathing down their necks. They came through it and birthed our great nation.

If we fail to keep the Republic together, the fault will not lie with the person over yonder but with the person in the mirror. Everyone had to sacrifice to make our country happen, and I believe that is the answer now.

The US will never be a conservative utopia or a progressive utopia, but it can exist with elements of both. We just have to have the will to make it happen.
 
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#184
#184
lawgator1 said:
I'm not. I agree our government is inefficient. But the solution is to vote for more efficient government, not dump the model.
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Maybe your definition of "efficient" is simply to quit progressively reinterpreting the Constitution and to kill and roll back federalism. Remake the federal government and its role what was intended to be. Put DC on a diet that makes it a shadow of what it is now.

One of the biggest indicators is the congressional approval rating - you'd be hard pressed to find any institution anywhere less respected, but as several of us have pointed out when you look at how people rank their own members of congress, it's significantly different. "We like our own guys, but despise the clowns the rest of the country elects." The biggest probable reason is simply that most people in one region don't wish to live like those in another region - we'd probably just move there, if we did. Federalism attempts to force the whole country to live as one, and it isn't going to work in a large country.

The urban/rural divide is definitely troubling, but at the state level, that is even more manageable than at the federal level.
 
#186
#186
AM64 said:
Maybe your definition of "efficient" is simply to quit progressively reinterpreting the Constitution and to kill and roll back federalism. Remake the federal government and its role what was intended to be. Put DC on a diet that makes it a shadow of what it is now.

One of the biggest indicators is the congressional approval rating - you'd be hard pressed to find any institution anywhere less respected, but as several of us have pointed out when you look at how people rank their own members of congress, it's significantly different. "We like our own guys, but despise the clowns the rest of the country elects." The biggest probable reason is simply that most people in one region don't wish to live like those in another region - we'd probably just move there, if we did. Federalism attempts to force the whole country to live as one, and it isn't going to work in a large country.

The urban/rural divide is definitely troubling, but at the state level, that is even more manageable than at the federal level.
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I disagree. You try to pull TN away with the theocratic state that would immediately replace state government and you'd have open rebellion in most urban areas in Tennessee. This goes for the flip in California.
 
#187
#187
LouderVol said:
Until there is some actual risk for those in power it wont get better. And it probably needs to be more than getting voted out.
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That's why we and politicians should view what happened on 1/6/21 very very differently. They need to understand that what they do carries risk - actually feel fear from time to time. It's easy to divide the country and profit politically - far easier than working from the middle to actually unite. There's gain to be made in chaos, but it's more difficult to profit during times of harmony.
 
#189
#189
hog88 said:
LOL

You must love paying taxes and fees
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Sales tax at least when I was there is lower then it is in TN. No income tax so that's a wash. Depending on your locale in TN, it was better because most places aren't required to have state inspections like they do in TX. Property tax in general is higher in TX of course with Maryville and Alcoa city taxes at the rate they tax may exceed anything you see in TX. Other than that, is there some fee you must pay in order to be an awesome Texan?
 
#190
#190
zeppelin128 said:
I disagree. You try to pull TN away with the theocratic state that would immediately replace state government and you'd have open rebellion in most urban areas in Tennessee. This goes for the flip in California.
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This is very true. For anyone that's been to Cali, you'd know that when you get away from the cities people in California are possibly more "conservative" than they are in TN.
 
#191
#191
zeppelin128 said:
I disagree. You try to pull TN away with the theocratic state that would immediately replace state government and you'd have open rebellion in most urban areas in Tennessee. This goes for the flip in California.
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I'd mostly disagree, and refer back to the old "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" theory. State and local governments are closer to the affected people than DC ever will be. While you may never get urban and rural segments of the population to agree; proximity makes for more responsibility - intimidation, peer pressure, whatever you wish to call it moderates working to the extremes.

Think back to the attempted Greg Schiano hire at UT. Word got out and the response was quick and brutal. That's the kind of thing that can happen at a local level You can say it had to do with Tennessee and the Bible Belt, but I'll bet if you could really roll out the truth to the opposition, you'd find that the Schiano ethical dilemma was a smokescreen - just a great excuse to derail an unpopular decision. If coaching decisions were appropriated by some body like the NCAA rather than a local hiring decision, Schiano would have been the Tennessee coach - local opinion would have made the decision makers untouchable.
 
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#193
#193
LouderVol said:
Homeland security, TSA are the two top for bush.
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Disaster always opens the path to a power grab. That was probably much more a bureaucratic push than anything - far easier for Bush to comply than buck it. For the record, I never have and never will respect or like Bush II; I just think he was a weak president who generally rolled along the path of least resistance. If 9/11 hadn't provided a rallying point, Bush would have been a one term president - 9/11 made Bush just like covid killed Trump.
 
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#194
#194
AM64 said:
I'd mostly disagree, and refer back to the old "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" theory. State and local governments are closer to the affected people than DC ever will be. While you may never get urban and rural segments of the population to agree; proximity makes for more responsibility - intimidation, peer pressure, whatever you wish to call it moderates working to the extremes.

Think back to the attempted Greg Schiano hire at UT. Word got out and the response was quick and brutal. That's the kind of thing that can happen at a local level You can say it had to do with Tennessee and the Bible Belt, but I'll bet if you could really roll out the truth to the opposition, you'd find that the Schiano ethical dilemma was a smokescreen - just a great excuse to derail an unpopular decision. If coaching decisions were appropriated by some body like the NCAA rather than a local hiring decision, Schiano would have been the Tennessee coach - local opinion would have made the decision makers untouchable.
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I still disagree. You try to enact the authoritarian, theocratic government folks want in Tennessee and watch every urban area immediately go in to open revolt.
 
#195
#195
tnmarktx said:
This is very true. For anyone that's been to Cali, you'd know that when you get away from the cities people in California are possibly more "conservative" than they are in TN.
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I think you can say that about most of the country. The big population centers tend to attract liberals and the urban areas conservatives no matter which state.
 
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#197
#197
zeppelin128 said:
I still disagree. You try to enact the authoritarian, theocratic government folks want in Tennessee and watch every urban area immediately go in to open revolt.
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You mean watch the emotional, progressive urban areas throw a temper tantrum. In that I can agree, but why do you think that the wants, desires, etc of city dwellers are more important than those of the rural population? Why should the people who make life possible for city dwellers be second class citizens? I don't underestimate the growing amount of foreign foodstuffs being imported, but you really have to look at the divide in terms of self sufficiency. The thing that has probably most disenfranchised the rural population is the development of corporate farming - the growth of absentee landlords - the thing that has killed civilizations by fanning civil wars.
 
#200
#200
AM64 said:
You mean watch the emotional, progressive urban areas throw a temper tantrum. In that I can agree, but why do you think that the wants, desires, etc of city dwellers are more important than those of the rural population? Why should the people who make life possible for city dwellers be second class citizens? I don't underestimate the growing amount of foreign foodstuffs being imported, but you really have to look at the divide in terms of self sufficiency. The thing that has probably most disenfranchised the rural population is the development of corporate farming - the growth of absentee landlords - the thing that has killed civilizations by fanning civil wars.
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Not sure why you think I was trashing rural folks.
 
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