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Old 06-21-2010, 10:29 PM
 
Location: NJ
12,283 posts, read 35,586,214 times
Reputation: 5330

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duh. it's gonna end 12/21/2012.
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Old 06-22-2010, 01:06 AM
 
Location: Boston
1,214 posts, read 2,507,763 times
Reputation: 2016
I hate when people talk about this. It's not gonna break up, it's not gonna happen, not til something like another world war breaks out, or aliens invade, or Atlantis rises or something lol.

The people who say stupid things like, the country has never been more divided, our differences are irreconcilable, whatever, are so dumb. First off, what about the Civil War? I think that was our most "divided time". And second, the people who say that stuff are just fearmongers trying to whip people up into a frenzy to back their own political motives. The only rift "tearing this country apart" is the one fools like that are trying to create.

I feel sad for the American who looks at his own countrymen and sees enemies. You're all Americans, not Virginians, not Texans, not New Yorkers, you're suppose to be Americans first.

Growing up here as an immigrant, I've never even been that patriotic. But when people say stuff like this, it just pisses me off. I didn't even think about how much I like it here and how we need to protect it, til some morons started running around practically begging for us to destroy ourselves from the inside out.

I'm no huge patriot, I'm sure most "real" patriots wouldn't like to hear my views on American history lol. But still, long live the republic, and long live America lol.

Btw, if you think that was over the top in defense of this country, ask me how I feel about my home nation lol. Or don't lol.
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Old 06-22-2010, 09:54 PM
 
1,250 posts, read 2,503,509 times
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My guess is as long as the people want it to. Though another thing to note is that over time it might look different over time as things change.
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Old 06-22-2010, 10:18 PM
 
Location: Somewhere below Mason/Dixon
9,436 posts, read 10,710,680 times
Reputation: 15903
I find it funny that those who claim to be more educated, smarter than everyone else love to say that only fools think this nation could face a civil war, revolution or coup. If you are that educated, how is it that you have come to ignore the lessons of history. Great powers have faced countless revoutions throughout history. This nation was born of rebellion against a great power, and we had a very violent civil war in 1861. Given the current political divides, you would be a fool to completly discount the possibility of radical upheaval in this country. We are as divided today as the people of the 1850s were, and it almost seems we are in the same build up to a great confrontation that occured during that era. About half the population believes in traditional values, small goverment and capitalism. The other half believes in social liberalism, goverment solutions to social problems, and socialism or communism as an economic system. Can anyone tell me how these two opposing views of America can possibly be reconciled? In my opinion they cannot be. The only thing preventing civil unrest now is the fact that most Americans are still enjoying a prosperous life. If the current deep recession becomes a catastrophic depression then all bets are off. It is completly possible for this nation to split into two camps and decend into civil war. In fact it may be LIKELY that this will eventually happen. It may be in 6mo, it may be 5 years or 20 years but it is a real threat. If your one of the so called intelligent people who say "oh that cant happen here, we are above that now", then I would suggest picking up a history book and start reading. Thanks to the current political hatreds that are brewing, I would say "yes we can" (lol) when it comes to the possibility of insurection of some form in this nation. The truly intelligent person would mentally and physically prepare themselves for the fact that some tough times could be ahead of us. Dont ignore the dark clouds on the horizon, it could be a storm.
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Old 06-23-2010, 12:30 AM
 
5,816 posts, read 15,849,271 times
Reputation: 4734
Rep to Danielj72 for candidly discussing some of the real and serious issues we face. I think that ThomasR makes a good point in post 17 when he points out the possibility that American culture would continue even if the political entity known as the United States ended, or its boundaries changed (in fact, I believe that the American culture WOULD live on), but I would not be quick to dismiss the idea that the country might split up in the forseeable future.

Let's look at some of the arguments against that possibility which have been put forth on this thread:

1) Individual states could not make it on their own: With the possible exceptions of Texas, California, etc., this might be true, but entire regions might be able to break off and make it on their own.

2) We have been just as divided in the past without splitting up: Hmmmm, actually in the 1860's we did split up. It was only by use of force that the region which seceded was brought back into the Union. A key difference now relates to one of Danielj's points, namely that before we dismiss the notion that this nation could break apart we need to answer the question of how two subsets of our populace who have fundamentally differing views about how the country should be run are supposed to find a way to maintain a political system they both can live with. The Civil War was about more than slavery, but slavery was at the center of the conflict. Slavery was the marquee issue, so to speak. The war cost us greatly, but ultimately the Confederacy could be forced back into the Union through overwhelming military force followed by the requirement that slavery end.

The Civil War centered largely on specific issues, as difficult as those issues were. Now we face a problem with broad, fundamental differences in the outlook on basically how the country will be run. How do we resolve this?

That question brings me to a third point that has been made in this thread which I disagree with. That is the notion that our governement is not really so centralized, the idea being that because many European nations have more centralized governments that we have, this means that our government has not shifted too far toward increasing the power of the federal government. The problem with this argument is that European countries are much smaller than the U.S., which means fewer disparate regions and therefore fewer variations in regional culture.

Think of the entire European Union as a nation of sorts, and of each European nation as being like one of our states, or like one U.S. region in the case of larger European nations, and you get the idea. Those relatively small nations have their own autonomous governments which meet the particular needs of their cultures, while they all support a few broad common interests through the E.U. That is similar to the federal system as it was originally set up in the U.S. We were founded as a true nation rather than the loose economic confederacy that is the E.U., but the important point is that this country was founded on a system where we were unified in maintaining relatively few common national interests--maintaining a monetary system, delivering the mail, defending the shores, etc.--with states having power to govern where regional interests were concerned.

Our Founding Fathers had the right idea about the political structure that would allow a nation to grow large, or huge, as we have become, yet remain united despite the variety of subcultures that inevitably develop over as large a landscape as that covered by the present-day United States. By limiting the federal, or national, government's jurisdiction to certain broad national interests, while leaving the states to govern in other areas, the U.S. system as originally devised would allow differences between the policies of various states without causing so much of the tension seen today between left and right, red and blue, because the adoption of a certain policy in one state would not be seen as a potential threat to the way of life in another state where most people disagree with that policy.

A major reason for the severe strain between those with differing views in this country today is that we worry that if "the other side," whichever side that happens to be depending on one's point of view, gets control of the country, we will see polices to which we feel a deep aversion imposed on the entire nation. By returning to a system where most matters fall under state jurisdiction--a true federal system as initiated by the Founders--we could alleviate much of this tension, since the political policies favored in one region of the country would not be a threat to be imposed on other regions where the people disagreed with these views. Unfortunately, too many people of all political stripes now seem to feel that the way they want things to be has to be the way things must be for the entire nation.

The question of how we can get back to the sentiment that, for example, Minnesota can run things its way and that won't have to affect life in Utah, or vice versa, is really key. Paradoxically, the system set up by the Founding Fathers promoted unity by allowing for differences between regions. In a time when many, many people seem bent on imposing their views on the entire nation, a crucial question is how we get back to the true federal system those geniuses who founded this nation envisioned. Until we resolve that question, we must seriously consider the possibiility that a breakup of the nation could very well happen.
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Old 06-23-2010, 06:58 AM
 
Location: Greenville, Delaware
4,726 posts, read 11,919,461 times
Reputation: 2650
To understand the present Constitution, you need to look back at the Articles of Confederation which "the founding fathers" (hate that hackneyed, quasi-religious term) were trying to reform. The constitutional convention was called to amend the Articles, which had provided for a confederation of the states that was so impotent and ineffective as to be unworkable. They found, of course, that the Articles of Confederation were so flawed that they needed to be dumped entirely and replaced with something providing for a stronger federal union. However, you have to take the Articles as the starting place. The members of the Constitutional Convention could only move a certain distance away from the framework of the Articles and certainly couldn't envision the developments that would take place over the ensuing 200 years. What they "intended" is quite irrelevant for what we do today. Entities that don't change and adapt are doomed to die. Especially if America desires to play the great power on the world stage, then strong federal power is a necessity; including, unfortunately, an increasingly imperial presidency. Even Thomas Jefferson found once he got elected president that he couldn't stay strictly within his delegated constitutional powers as narrowly defined; he made the Louisiana Purchase without any explicit constitutional authority to do so. Especially since the Civil War the American presidency and power of the federal government has grown ever greater. That's the "cost" of the nation as a whole being a great power. Americans seem to want contradictory things. They allegedly don't want a strong federal government, yet want to be a great economic, military and world political power. You can't have the latter without the former. As to a supposed precedent in the Revolutionary War, that isn't a good example of a revolution at all. It was a war for the independence of all the colonies and was a politically very conservative thing. The colonists would have been happy to have representation in the British Parliament, the preservation of their own local legislative assemblies, and the normal liberties of free Englishmen. The American Revolution wasn't a social revolution like the French or Russian revolutions. Even the Civil War involved a quite organised secession of provinces with their own governments, rather than a social dissolution in which stateless war lords were fighting for control of a fragmented society.
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Old 06-23-2010, 08:36 AM
 
Location: Blankity-blank!
11,446 posts, read 16,133,530 times
Reputation: 6958
The future of any nation is only as bright (or dim) as the general mentality of its inhabitants. So, it's downhill for America.
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Old 06-23-2010, 12:00 PM
 
Location: San Diego/Tijuana Metro Area
96 posts, read 362,615 times
Reputation: 40
far from that, instead i believe The U.S. will gain more and more territories.
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Old 06-23-2010, 12:22 PM
 
Location: Orlando - South
4,194 posts, read 11,645,223 times
Reputation: 1674
The US is too transient to divide up. There is no way that a whole state or region would agree on dividing. People from the north are living in the south and west and vise versa. Back in the 1800s America was not nearly as transient, pretty much everyone in the south shared the same views and everyone in the north shared the general same views. Now a days this country is mixed everywhere with all types of views. If a group of people in a state tried to petition to divide them out of the Union, they would not get enough support because just as many people would disagree. We aren't living in the history. Its a different world these days. Things don't work the same anymore. Yes you should always study history, but history doesn't always repeat it self. I highly doubt there will be another civil war in America, just like I doubt there will be another holocaust..
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Old 06-23-2010, 01:51 PM
 
Location: MINNESOTA
1,178 posts, read 2,695,448 times
Reputation: 505
Quote:
Originally Posted by danielj72 View Post
I find it funny that those who claim to be more educated, smarter than everyone else love to say that only fools think this nation could face a civil war, revolution or coup. If you are that educated, how is it that you have come to ignore the lessons of history. Great powers have faced countless revoutions throughout history. This nation was born of rebellion against a great power, and we had a very violent civil war in 1861. Given the current political divides, you would be a fool to completly discount the possibility of radical upheaval in this country. We are as divided today as the people of the 1850s were, and it almost seems we are in the same build up to a great confrontation that occured during that era. About half the population believes in traditional values, small goverment and capitalism. The other half believes in social liberalism, goverment solutions to social problems, and socialism or communism as an economic system. Can anyone tell me how these two opposing views of America can possibly be reconciled? In my opinion they cannot be. The only thing preventing civil unrest now is the fact that most Americans are still enjoying a prosperous life. If the current deep recession becomes a catastrophic depression then all bets are off. It is completly possible for this nation to split into two camps and decend into civil war. In fact it may be LIKELY that this will eventually happen. It may be in 6mo, it may be 5 years or 20 years but it is a real threat. If your one of the so called intelligent people who say "oh that cant happen here, we are above that now", then I would suggest picking up a history book and start reading. Thanks to the current political hatreds that are brewing, I would say "yes we can" (lol) when it comes to the possibility of insurection of some form in this nation. The truly intelligent person would mentally and physically prepare themselves for the fact that some tough times could be ahead of us. Dont ignore the dark clouds on the horizon, it could be a storm.
Very good post, but I honestly think you're giving Americans too much credit. This is the post-MTV age. Age of idiots. Think of the generations under mine (I'm 25). During college we had huge political turmoil- The Geogre W. Bush saga, the 'Iraq' war, skyrocketing tuitions, the Afghanistan War, Patriot Act stuff, all that... did you see any protesters? Hardly. In the 1960s and 1970s youth and young students weren't afraid to voice their opinions as a group. Now it seems like nobdoy has the patience to even gather together and to agree to a common theme to fight for.

It's sad, but we are in a short attention spanned, selfish, babied society. Any revolt, revolution or protest will come in the form of a Facebook group or mass texting.

Half of Americans can't even tell you what the three Branches of Gvt are - Executive, judicial and legislative.

Half of Americans can't even tell you what 'Capitalism' is.
Half of Americans couldn't even tell you who their representative in Congress or Senate is.
Half of Americans are complete morons who have no clue and just live their lives and then chime in politically like they know what they are talking about.
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