I took some photos of the full moon too. It was amazing last night.
As for holding America together… Meh. We’ve always been a collection of antagonistic cousins who really want to move in radically different directions. Let the old Confederacy cut loose. Texas can go its own way as it appears to want to. California could manage nicely without the rest of the country. Indiana and its neighbors in the Midwest could form a regional coalition of semi-cooperative states. It wouldn’t bother me in the least if I needed a passport to visit Mississippi.
I strongly suspect that a lot of the bitching and moaning that comes from places that think they’re subsidizing evil big cities and the undeserving poor will discover exactly where most of that federal tax money really comes from – and what happens to their cul-de-sac and strip mall utopia when those funds dry up.
Bring on the Brexits…
I’m curious, who would serve in the California Army? Wouldn’t Texas and Mississippi just colonize us, and appropriate what resources they wished? Since we’re talking end times scenarios, just asking…
Who said anything about End Times scenarios? Why do people always assume anything that isn’t exactly like today’s arrangements means the Apocalypse? Things change. Life goes on…
FYI, California has the largest number of active military in the entire country – more than Texas.
California: 190,160
Texas: 173,118
North Carolina: 129,049
Virginia: 117,084
Florida: 94,288
Georgia: 88,521
Washington: 65,731
New York: 50,824
South Carolina: 50,426
Hawaii: 49,347
Maryland: 49,187″
Those 190k military personnel “from California” signed up to serve for the USA. How many would stay to fight for Downton Abbey on the Pacific? What would that flag look like? A mashup of the Apple/Google/Facebook logos? How many people now working at those companies would spend weekends drilling with the CA reserves?
The possibility of breakaway republics is one you laid out. I find the idea fascinating. But also something close to End Times. Maybe we should both blog about it.
Most of what goes on in D.C. is a culture war of touchy feely social issues based on jacked up local politics. If a person represents rural South Carolina or Utah they absolutely have to be anti abortion, pro gun, and anti gay. The opposite is true for anyone representing Brooklyn or San Francisco. So the country is bogged down in a lot of paralyzing nonsense while much more pressing issues go unresolved. Breakaway republics will quickly reconstitute the important parts of a continental sized economy while letting the Bible Belt and the liberal strongholds do their own thing. I don’t see the downside.
I took some photos of the full moon too. It was amazing last night.
As for holding America together… Meh. We’ve always been a collection of antagonistic cousins who really want to move in radically different directions. Let the old Confederacy cut loose. Texas can go its own way as it appears to want to. California could manage nicely without the rest of the country. Indiana and its neighbors in the Midwest could form a regional coalition of semi-cooperative states. It wouldn’t bother me in the least if I needed a passport to visit Mississippi.
I strongly suspect that a lot of the bitching and moaning that comes from places that think they’re subsidizing evil big cities and the undeserving poor will discover exactly where most of that federal tax money really comes from – and what happens to their cul-de-sac and strip mall utopia when those funds dry up.
Bring on the Brexits…
I’m curious, who would serve in the California Army? Wouldn’t Texas and Mississippi just colonize us, and appropriate what resources they wished? Since we’re talking end times scenarios, just asking…
Who said anything about End Times scenarios? Why do people always assume anything that isn’t exactly like today’s arrangements means the Apocalypse? Things change. Life goes on…
FYI, California has the largest number of active military in the entire country – more than Texas.
California: 190,160
Texas: 173,118
North Carolina: 129,049
Virginia: 117,084
Florida: 94,288
Georgia: 88,521
Washington: 65,731
New York: 50,824
South Carolina: 50,426
Hawaii: 49,347
Maryland: 49,187″
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/military-civilian-active-duty-employee-workforce-numbers-by-state.html
Those 190k military personnel “from California” signed up to serve for the USA. How many would stay to fight for Downton Abbey on the Pacific? What would that flag look like? A mashup of the Apple/Google/Facebook logos? How many people now working at those companies would spend weekends drilling with the CA reserves?
The possibility of breakaway republics is one you laid out. I find the idea fascinating. But also something close to End Times. Maybe we should both blog about it.
Most of what goes on in D.C. is a culture war of touchy feely social issues based on jacked up local politics. If a person represents rural South Carolina or Utah they absolutely have to be anti abortion, pro gun, and anti gay. The opposite is true for anyone representing Brooklyn or San Francisco. So the country is bogged down in a lot of paralyzing nonsense while much more pressing issues go unresolved. Breakaway republics will quickly reconstitute the important parts of a continental sized economy while letting the Bible Belt and the liberal strongholds do their own thing. I don’t see the downside.