[Discussion] Should/Could Blue states leave the union?

The idea has popped up in a couple different threads and I thought it was worth its own discussion.

Yonder wrote:

Any idea what the legality would be of all of the blue States pulling together to make their own healthcare (so that the poorer blue states get a leg up)?

It seems like the sort of situation that the Constitution or subsequent case law may have vetoed as being harmful to the Union.

DSGamer wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

Ok. so it's this.

It's the next step in dismantling the government.

If this is where the GOP is going to take us either way, then let's go.

Time for a Bluexit

boogle wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

If this is where the GOP is going to take us either way, then let's go.

Time for a Bluexit

Loud boo.
Louder boo.
American states are not universally red or blue.
This is a childish response that would leave, to name one example, the 55% of the Black population that lives in the South even more up sh*t creek.

Get to f*ck.

boogle wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

If this is where the GOP is going to take us either way, then let's go.

Time for a Bluexit

Loud boo.
Louder boo.
American states are not universally red or blue.
This is a childish response that would leave, to name one example, the 55% of the Black population that lives in the South even more up sh*t creek.

Get to f*ck.

Personally I don't know that we are there yet but I don't see the problem really. The US was formed when being part of the British Empire didn't work for people. The same is true for almost every country out there. I don't see any special status of the US which means it can't or shouldn't be split.

While I agree that what is in the linked item certainly smacks of having been written by someone from a place of privilege, I also see it as more of a rhetorical device.

Put another way it can be read not so much as an endorsement of the end of federalism, but rather that those advocating the most against it will be harmed the most by it ending.

That being said I will say both YMMV and it is in my contact to be pedantic.

farley3k wrote:

Personally I don't know that we are there yet but I don't see the problem really. The US was formed when being part of the British Empire didn't work for people. The same is true for almost every country out there. I don't see any special status of the US which means it can't or shouldn't be split.

Well here's a glaring one: can you name one modern day country that doesn't have a geographically contiguous homeland?

We had a rather large argument about this, in the 1860s.

The upshot is that states can't leave, and f*ck you and everything you love if you try. The Federal government will torch the cities and salt the earth before they'll let anyone go.

Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:

Personally I don't know that we are there yet but I don't see the problem really. The US was formed when being part of the British Empire didn't work for people. The same is true for almost every country out there. I don't see any special status of the US which means it can't or shouldn't be split.

Well here's a glaring one: can you name one modern day country that doesn't have a geographically contiguous homeland?

United Kingdom
Russia
Japan

Anyway, that particular article isn't suggesting actual secession. Only that the Federal government reduce federal taxes and services to the absolute bare-minimum and the blue states can raise their state and city taxes to compensate. Then the blue states can form their own collective EPAs, NASAs, NSFs, or whatever and share them while the red states wither and rot.

This isn't so much an issue of Red states vs Blue states it's Blue cities vs the rest of the country. This article is from 2004:

The Urban Archipelago

It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers. Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples. Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged criminals and has historically executed the mentally {ableist slur}. (When the Supreme Court ruled executions of the mentally {ableist slur} unconstitutional in 2002, Texas officials, including Governor Rick Perry, responded by claiming that the state had no mentally {ableist slur} inmates on death row--a claim the state was able to make because it does not test inmates for mental {ableist slur}ation.) Dumb? The Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money on building new roads rather than public transit.
Malor wrote:

We had a rather large argument about this, in the 1860s.

The upshot is that states can't leave, and f*ck you and everything you love if you try. The Federal government will torch the cities and salt the earth before they'll let anyone go.

War is hell.
IMAGE(http://iamjwal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ShermanWT1.jpg)

In addition to the Urban Archipelago muddying the "Blue States vs Red States" issue enough to (imo) basically sink the idea on it's own, I also don't think that the split would be a good long-term solution for people trapped with the Reds. As I posted in the Trump Administration thread:

Morality aside, taking your ball home won't work. The best example of this is the ACA. The regions that had the most reason to hate healthcare--the red states that blocked the Medicaid expansion--did hate it the most. However they hated it in exactly the way the Republicans told them to hate it, not in a "you just intentionally took away our health care, so this next election we're going to vote every single one of you out" that would have been the logical response.

That would continue on, that gap in results, economy, education, health would only worsen with a split Union, and I have absolutely no trust that the outcome would be "damn, the Democrats were totally right that when you take Doctor's and higher education subsidies away from poor people they can't pull even harder on their bootstraps to overcome it! Mostly they seem to just get sick and die. Well I guess it's time to be liberal!

Yeah I don't think so. North Korea blames the US for their terrible economic policies and central Jesus-land will too.

Even if things were better for Blue Land in the short to medium term, sharing a border that ridiculously long with a country that will be in as terrible shape as Red Land (even without assuming that there is any linkage between "sh*tty State economy" and "Republican policies") will be. Especially considering that in many cases it will be impossible to go from Blue Land to different parts of Blue Land without flying or going through Red Land, Canada, or Mexico. That's a pretty huge deal with so much of our person and goods transportation happening over land.

Why is everyone talking like the red and blue would be separate countries, I'm so confused. The article talked about basically letting the GOP make everything "state's rights/local control", then going all liberal utopia in blue areas while everyone else realizes how much they rely on federal money generally imported from blue states that pay more out than they get back in.

No splitting the country, no legal cause for war (red folks WANT this right now, after all), just each area funds itself and the market will determine which areas are best. All the rich conservatives can go find themselves a nice city to build Andrew Ryan style and see how well their above the sea Rapture goes.

Mixolyde wrote:
Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:

Personally I don't know that we are there yet but I don't see the problem really. The US was formed when being part of the British Empire didn't work for people. The same is true for almost every country out there. I don't see any special status of the US which means it can't or shouldn't be split.

Well here's a glaring one: can you name one modern day country that doesn't have a geographically contiguous homeland?

United Kingdom
Russia
Japan

Anyway, that particular article isn't suggesting actual secession. Only that the Federal government reduce federal taxes and services to the absolute bare-minimum and the blue states can raise their state and city taxes to compensate. Then the blue states can form their own collective EPAs, NASAs, NSFs, or whatever and share them while the red states wither and rot.

Yes. That's why I posted it. Note that I was responding to the EO on reducing the size of the federal government. Not sure if everyone just responded to the opening, but I read the whole piece. And I think there's a point there. Namely that if red states don't want help and want a small federal government, then the next logical step is for blue states to let them and figure out how to manage on their own.

Demosthenes wrote:

Why is everyone talking like the red and blue would be separate countries, I'm so confused. The article talked about basically letting the GOP make everything "state's rights/local control", then going all liberal utopia in blue areas while everyone else realizes how much they rely on federal money generally imported from blue states that pay more out than they get back in.

No splitting the country, no legal cause for war (red folks WANT this right now, after all), just each area funds itself and the market will determine which areas are best. All the rich conservatives can go find themselves a nice city to build Andrew Ryan style and see how well their above the sea Rapture goes.

I'm not sure everyone actually read the piece.

Mixolyde wrote:
Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:

Personally I don't know that we are there yet but I don't see the problem really. The US was formed when being part of the British Empire didn't work for people. The same is true for almost every country out there. I don't see any special status of the US which means it can't or shouldn't be split.

Well here's a glaring one: can you name one modern day country that doesn't have a geographically contiguous homeland?

United Kingdom
Russia
Japan

You forgot to include the United States on that list.

IMAGE(http://media.daykeeperjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sarah-palins-alaska.jpg)

Well, if Bannons scheme for basically dismantling federal government succeeds, wouldnt you have just that? States doing as they see fit and organizing in economic alliances with like minded ones. California is already kinda posturing in that manner.

Of course, you would have a very interesting, cyberpunkish aspect of federal government in shambles..except for the military.

Demosthenes wrote:

Why is everyone talking like the red and blue would be separate countries, I'm so confused. The article talked about basically letting the GOP make everything "state's rights/local control", then going all liberal utopia in blue areas while everyone else realizes how much they rely on federal money generally imported from blue states that pay more out than they get back in.

No splitting the country, no legal cause for war (red folks WANT this right now, after all), just each area funds itself and the market will determine which areas are best. All the rich conservatives can go find themselves a nice city to build Andrew Ryan style and see how well their above the sea Rapture goes.

This is still not an acceptable solution given the abandonment of large swaths of the US population for this "they'll get what they deserve" freshman dorm thought experiment.

boogle wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Why is everyone talking like the red and blue would be separate countries, I'm so confused. The article talked about basically letting the GOP make everything "state's rights/local control", then going all liberal utopia in blue areas while everyone else realizes how much they rely on federal money generally imported from blue states that pay more out than they get back in.

No splitting the country, no legal cause for war (red folks WANT this right now, after all), just each area funds itself and the market will determine which areas are best. All the rich conservatives can go find themselves a nice city to build Andrew Ryan style and see how well their above the sea Rapture goes.

This is still not an acceptable solution given the abandonment of large swaths of the US population for this "they'll get what they deserve" freshman dorm thought experiment.

It's totally not. It's awful and horrifying and callous... but it's something that basically is going to happen over the next decade anyway without some pretty sizable leaps from the Democratic Party or a lot of Red State folks who voted Trump to suddenly realize the billionaire asshole is just taking care of other billionaire assholes rather than MAGA like he said he would.... which as the article notes, why would they?

If they're reading BreitBart and watching Fox News, why would they think there's a problem at all? They went from believing that the unemployment rate was 39% to 4% in a month and that was somehow Trump's doing in spite of Trump having done exactly nothing on the economy so far other than throw a few businesses under the bus to make himself look like the expert negotiator.

The article even notes trying to help get people to those areas, they'll likely have enough money left over to institute their own sort of "refugee" program for those who can't afford to get up and leave. It's not ideal, sure, but there is some suggestion of caring for those who want to be in the Blue rather than the Red too.

That said, I'm confused as to why we're taking anything that is titled A Modest Proposal (even if only in the byline) as serious/an actual literal suggestion. This is a satire piece meant to point out that "hey, folks who are receiving 4x more federal aid than federal tax dollars spent, you keep chipping away, it isn't going to work out for you" in much the same way Swift didn't actually want poor people to start eating their own children.

Some folks are saying "hey, this would be a good thing" and THAT is unfortunate, sure... but it's, weirdly, following the Trump Effect and may actually go from satire to reality within the next few years too. :\

boogle wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Why is everyone talking like the red and blue would be separate countries, I'm so confused. The article talked about basically letting the GOP make everything "state's rights/local control", then going all liberal utopia in blue areas while everyone else realizes how much they rely on federal money generally imported from blue states that pay more out than they get back in.

No splitting the country, no legal cause for war (red folks WANT this right now, after all), just each area funds itself and the market will determine which areas are best. All the rich conservatives can go find themselves a nice city to build Andrew Ryan style and see how well their above the sea Rapture goes.

This is still not an acceptable solution given the abandonment of large swaths of the US population for this "they'll get what they deserve" freshman dorm thought experiment.

I think you are putting the cart in front of the horse, at least in terms of how something like this split could play out in today's political environment.

As others have stated that the policy Congressional Republicans and the white house (at least Bannon and his faction) seemingly want to pursue is to effectively remove the federal programs in question.

I see the general argument as less screw those people in the red states and more as how can the governments of the blue states use that money to replace lost federal functions that are still desired.

EDIT: I also do not see how the Democratic party can convince "red America" that they are on a path to potentially severe hardship; I think thanks to right wing media etc the idea that federal assistance and safety programs is somehow wrong in all circumstances is firmly ensconced. Out side of getting what they want (less federal government) and realizing there is a price to pay for that stance (i.e. hitting rock bottom) I do not see that portion of the population changing their views.

Most wrote:

Well, if Bannons scheme for basically dismantling federal government succeeds, wouldnt you have just that? States doing as they see fit and organizing in economic alliances with like minded ones. California is already kinda posturing in that manner.

Of course, you would have a very interesting, cyberpunkish aspect of federal government in shambles..except for the military.

This is not actually Bannon's scheme, his scheme is totalitarian state at war with Islam.

It's totally not. It's awful and horrifying and callous... but it's something that basically is going to happen over the next decade anyway without some pretty sizable leaps from the Democratic Party

Bingo bingo bingo f*cking bingo

boogle wrote:
It's totally not. It's awful and horrifying and callous... but it's something that basically is going to happen over the next decade anyway without some pretty sizable leaps from the Democratic Party

Bingo bingo bingo f*cking bingo

For reference, because you cut out the other half, I'm talking like electoral leaps, like taking over a few state houses.

Otherwise, as sad as it makes me, what exactly are we expecting to happen in like.... Montana? Alabama? There are plenty of conservative states' residents that continue to starve their neighbors/themselves just to make sure that hypothetical welfare queen isn't abusing the program. No government housing! Can't have all those lazy good for nothings doing nothing but sitting in their luxury apartments collecting checks while I'm out working for less than the poverty line (even though those programs have requirements for either jobs being worked, community programs being worked, or jobs being searched for)... and somehow manages in the process to ignore the "hey, why is your boss allowed to pay you less than you need to live when you work a full day there?"

No one in any state deserves to be abandoned to die without food, electricity, clean water, healthcare, any of those things... but with Republican control and voter suppression efforts in full swing, unless those folks not affected by that suppression start to realize that the Republicans aren't JUST sh*tting on their black, Muslim, etc... neighbors and are ALSO sh*tting on their white heads... how does anything change there? And, as the article notes, those same folks are largely relying more and more on news sources/outlets that reframe THEIR problems as somehow still caused by black people, gay people, trans people, and so on.

It's becoming increasingly clear that what Democrats need to do is somehow break through BreitBart/Fox News/InfoWars/whoever to show how the people writing for them are using their support to keep them in, if not poverty, near poverty. To show them how they've been used and how they've kept their own boat from rising... and yet to do so means to approach those who would deny others very right to live, right to marry, and how do you reconcile that? Do we accept those who have been disadvantaged for so long to just forgive and be the bigger people? AGAIN? Why? Haven't they put up with enough?

I dunno, I don't see good answers anymore. I see the expectation that Blue not only care for Red, but try to get them out of the sh*t they're smothering themselves in... and it's getting harder and harder to say "yeah, you denied everyone not like yourself's humanity, but you still totally deserve yours even while you keep doing it until we can get you to stop." Especially when they keep just throwing more and more folks under the bus and keep trying to act like it'd be perfect (with an implied again) without all those folks around.

That said, I think it's funny that the article seems to have noticed exactly this problem, lots of Blues left in Red areas and noted that they'd also have a refugee/resettlement program designed apparently to help move folks stuck in the sea of Red to a nearby Blue area.
(This, of course, ignores people's roots to their home, whatever else it may be, but still strikes me as kind of a double jab of "we'll even take care of the folks you've abandoned in your own states" and "refugees are great to take in".)

States rights only matter to the GOP when they disagree with a federal decision, and in practice is usually newspeak for plain bigotry - from slavery to marriage equality.

See: position on states who legalized recreational marijuana, or on states who refuse to enforce the immigration EO, ...

As long as that remains the case, the blue states becoming liberal utopia's is just that: an Utopia.

Edit: removed off-topic part.

Nothing would delight Putin more than the dissolving of the United States of America.

boogle wrote:

This is still not an acceptable solution given the abandonment of large swaths of the US population for this "they'll get what they deserve" freshman dorm thought experiment.

The discussion has moved a bit beyond this but; why?

If you and I are going out to eat and you say you want Denny's and I say I want Olive Garden why is it not acceptable to decide not to eat together but to each go where we want?

If Red folks want to live one way, with one kind of government and Blue folks want to live another way why is it not acceptable to split?

And does this go to the personal? Meaning - what if I don't' like how the country is going so I decide to move to Canada or New Zealand? Is that not acceptable because I am taking my tax dollars and effectively abandoning the US.

And....if it is ok for me to leave as an individual why is it suddenly not ok for thousands of individuals to leave? And if all those thousands are in one geographic area why is it wrong for them to form their own country and leave the US?

farley3k wrote:

And....if it is ok for me to leave as an individual why is it suddenly not ok for thousands of individuals to leave? And if all those thousands are in one geographic area why is it wrong for them to form their own country and leave the US?

Not 'wrong.' It's stupid. Stupid to a degree that is really tricky to articulate because it fails at every single thing that makes a country a country.
For starters :How would you evaluate Ideological purity of the 'thousands of individuals?' A vote? A show of hands? What question would you ask? How many dissenters would it take to sink the idea?
Let's assume that every one of those thousands of people is in perfect lockstep. Great! How do you secure your border? What if it turns out someone was lying and they're really one of 'them.' Kick them out? A child grows up and expresses 'wrong' ideas. Now what?

farley3k wrote:

If Red folks want to live one way, with one kind of government and Blue folks want to live another way why is it not acceptable to split?

States are not evenly divided along party lines.
States are not evenly divided along party lines.

boogle wrote:
farley3k wrote:

If Red folks want to live one way, with one kind of government and Blue folks want to live another way why is it not acceptable to split?

States are not evenly divided along party lines.
States are not evenly divided along party lines.

I agree but it seems quite clear that when given the power conservatives have no problem doing things I don't like, so if in CA for example there is a majority of liberals who want to leave why should they not be able to - if such a referendum passed?

because not everyone in the state agreed? Well again a metric sh*t ton of things are being done in red states (and the US generally) that not everyone agrees with. Why would leaving be different? Why should it require that everyone agree?

As much as I hate to admit it, some of my rural conservative friends make good points that the coastal elite cities could not feed themselves without the rural areas. Blue states need red states even if it's just for basic necessities, and that's before we factor in the need to unite to face climate change, or to have a shot competing globally against the EU, China, India or a resurgent Russia.

jdzappa wrote:

As much as I hate to admit it, some of my rural conservative friends make good points that the coastal elite cities could not feed themselves without the rural areas. Blue states need red states even if it's just for basic necessities, and that's before we factor in the need to unite to face climate change, or to have a shot competing globally against the EU, China, India or a resurgent Russia.

I don't think dissolving the Union is the way to go, but Blue America could use California for a lot of the food and use currency to purchase the rest from the Red States (which is what already happens, It's not like farmers donate food out of the goodness of their hearts).

Not sure how much price stability there would be, because I'm not sure if Red America would be able to continue to afford the farm subsidies we have right now.

jdzappa wrote:

As much as I hate to admit it, some of my rural conservative friends make good points that the coastal elite cities could not feed themselves without the rural areas. Blue states need red states even if it's just for basic necessities, and that's before we factor in the need to unite to face climate change, or to have a shot competing globally against the EU, China, India or a resurgent Russia.

Of course, those red states can't feed themselves either without the huge influx of undocumented labor..

farley3k wrote:

If you and I and our 300 million friends are going out to eat and you say you want Denny's and I say I want Olive Garden why is it not acceptable to decide not to eat together but to force 150 million people to each go where I want?

That's why.

Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:

If you and I and our 300 million friends are going out to eat and you say you want Denny's and I say I want Olive Garden why is it not acceptable to decide not to eat together but to force 150 million people to each go where I want?

That's why.

Considering that the majority of voting Americans being forced to go where they don't want because of the way the republic is setup I have a hard time digging up sympathy for people who don't like the Olive Garden.