Given the State of Near-Hostilities in Our Political Culture, Is It Unthinkable That the Country May Split?

Before quoting National Review let me point out that a failure of imagination is not the same thing as a counter-argument or rational theory. All during Trump's run through the primaries, people kept saying that he couldn't win the nomination. It just couldn't happen.

I wasn't pro-Trump at that point (though I did see him as useful blocker to clear out #FakeConservatives like Mario Rubo), but I kept asking these people who said it couldn't happen: What's stopping it from happening, apart from your desire that it not happen, and your lack of imagination of imagining it as a possibility?

Things that could stop Trump at that time included, for example, a candidate rising up to steal Trump's issues, other candidates dropping out and throwing their weight behind the candidate best positioned to steal (or blunt) Trump's issue-portfolio appeal -- Ted Cruz being the obvious choice, except to the Establishment #FakeCons, etc.

In other words: real things. Not just postulating that the Keepers of Universal Order would get together to conspire to arrange circumstances so that he just wouldn't win.

So let me repeat: Someone's failure of imagination to contemplate a possibility as possible is no argument at all against its possibility, just as the religious faith that Trump can't win, I don't know why, but he just can't was no talisman of protection against that very event.

The fact that some people are rather dull in terms of imagination and unschooled in terms of history -- yes, countries do divide as well as combine; both happen with some frequency -- is not any kind of magic protection against the unexpected or even unprecedented happening.

The unexpected happens literally all the time. The unprecedented happens almost as much. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, The Black Swan, pointed out that, as a simple statistical matter, not only were near-impossible events possible, but were guaranteed to occur lots of times over any period of a decade or longer, given enough trials

People very wrongly assume that very improbable things -- those chances way down at the skinny end of a bell curve -- just can't happen.

Of course they can. If you tell me the odds are 1,000,000 to one against something -- well, as any idiot can tell you, so you're saying there's a chance.

And not just a hypothetical chance that we can pretend isn't a chance at all. The odds are hugely against anyone winning any particular Powerball lottery, and yet, every month or so, we hear of someone hitting the jackpot.

The thing is, if you just let history run a single time for each one in a million incident, you'd probably be right, most of the time, in predicting that one in a million possibilities wouldn't happen.

The trouble is, history is always running, 24/7/365.24, and it's running many, many, many Monte Carlo non-simulations of various possibility scenarios at all times, which means that the world is going to see a bunch of one-in-a-million events happening.

After an "unprecedented," "no-experts-could-have-predicted-such-a-thing" event actually happens, all the experts gather round for a chin-rub and then announce: We could have, and indeed should have, predicted this was at least a live possibility.

And yet, the day after that, they go back to insisting extremely unlikely events cannot happen and are not worth thinking about.

Taleb used some simple math to illustrate this. I forget his exact numbers, but they went something like this:

1. Assume an "impossible" event is one which we'd say are one-in-a-million events.

2. Assume that someone who consumes media will be exposed to -- in the sense of hearing about, reading about, knowing about -- one thousand or so bits of news about events happening each month.

Given those two assumptions, Taleb figured (again, I'm just guessing at his estimate) the average news-watching human being would witness (indirectly, through media reports) something like thirty "impossible" events in his lifetime.

Those who say that the United States cannot break up only because it hasn't happened before used the same logic to unsuccessfully predict the election of Trump being an impossibility.

Bear in mind, this almost happened once before. One would think that something almost happening once before, and only not happening due to a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, would be proof against people dismissing this as "impossible" and thus not even worth thinking about.

Ben Shapiro has a saying: Facts don't care about your feelings.

Let me propose another rule: The iron law of probability -- that, given enough trials, near-impossible events are not only possible but almost guaranteed to occur -- don't care about your failure of imagination. Or your innumeracy in statistics and probability theory.

So here's Geraghty allowing his imagination to imagine "the impossible:"

Some people gave my friend Kurt Schlichter some grief about his speculative fiction novels that imagined the United States splitting into two countries, a traditional United States and a breakaway "People’s Republic of North America" that attempts to enact the progressive idealist dream and encounters quite a few problems along the way. Some contend that Kurt is rooting for this scenario or attempting to encourage some sort of secessionist fantasy. I don’t think that's a fair reading of a man who says his military service in the Balkans shaped his view of this issue, but I suppose some might think that depicting a formally divided America might inadvertently encourage people to think more about a formally divided America.
But to those who feel so horrified at the thought of the United States no longer being so united, it feels fair to ask . . . just what road do you think we're on? Did we see a lot of soul-searching after the attempted mass shooting on the Republican baseball team, or the attempt to run Representative David Kustoff off the road, or the assault on Congressman Rand Paul? Was there anything like the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting, when President Obama spoke of the need to debate our differences "in a way that heals, not a way that wounds"?

If we no longer even go through the motions of calling for a debate that doesn’t demonize and dehumanize our opponents -- "Deplorables!" "Soulless!" -- just how wild and unthinkable does more political violence seem? And if more political violence doesn’t seem so unthinkable . . . why would a future formal national division be unthinkable as well?

If a People (capitalization intended) no longer act in fact like a People, how long will they remain, formally, officially, a People? At what point will the formal arrangement change to reflect the actual on-the-ground reality?

Generally formal on-paper-only fictions do not last very long. Marriages-on-paper-only do not last too much longer after one party begins strongly questioning why a fictitious marriage should be maintained as a polite fiction.

Victor Davis Hanson notes that we're living in "revolutionary times."

Insidiously and incrementally, we are in the process of normalizing violence against the elected president of the United States. If all this fails to delegitimize Trump, fails to destroy his health, or fails to lead to a 2018 midterm Democratic sweep and subsequent impeachment, expect even greater threats of violence. The Resistance and rabid anti-Trumpers have lost confidence in the constitutional framework of elections, and they've flouted the tradition by which the opposition allows the in-power party to present its case to the court of public opinion.

Instead, like the French revolutionaries’ Committee on Public Safety, the unhinged anti-Trumpists assume that they have lost public opinion, given their venom and crudity, and are growing desperate as every legal and paralegal means of removing Trump is nearing exhaustion. Robert Mueller is the last chance, a sort of Watergate or Abu Ghraib that could gin up enough furor to drive down Trump’s poll favorability to the twenties and thereby reduce his person to a demonic force deserving of whatever it gets....
The danger to the country this time around is that the Left has so destroyed the old protocols of the opposition party that it will be hard to resurrect them when progressives return to power.
We are entering revolutionary times. The law is no longer equally applied. The media are the ministry of truth. The Democratic party is a revolutionary force. And it is all getting scary.

I think most people can agree that "Political norms are being tossed by the wayside." Progressives and virulent anti-Trumpers will say that Trump's responsible for most of this. They then use that as an excuse to themselves toss political norms by the wayside -- does anyone still maintain the fiction that the media is not an overt political agitator any more?

Well, if almost all political norms are being discarded, why keep the main one that keeps everyone trapped in this unhealthy, unhappy toxic failed marriage-on-paper-only?

One last point: Just imagining these things and contemplating them is no grounds for the inevitable shrieking about Badthought.

In the sixties and seventies, there were a group of scientists called the "Nuclear Use Theorists." It was their job to game out what would happen in an actual nuclear war.

They had to plot out expected casualties and such. Best counter-measures, risk of nonaction over a believed but not absolutely known Russian first strike versus risk of acting without absolute knowledge, etc.

Whether it was best to deploy nukes counter-force (against Soviet nukes and troops) or if terror of using them counter-value -- that is, against population centers -- would be, terrible as that idea is, the best way to dissuade nuclear aggression in the first place.

All sorts of things too awful to contemplate -- except that someone did have to contemplate them.

The fact that they were actually thinking about what would happen in a nuclear war -- and what our best response to a Soviet missile attack would be -- was hardly evidence that they actively sought a nuclear holocaust.

As bad as all possible outcomes might be in a nuclear war, there were scenarios which were less bad than others, and the nuclear use theorists (who I think were just branded that so that wags could call them "NUTs") were the people charged with thinking about the unthinkable.

I'm not even talking about war here -- but I do think it's useful to start thinking about the unthinkable, and considering the possibility of the "impossible," that a peaceful national divorce might be in everyone's best interests -- especially the children's.

I'm open, of course, to explanations as to why it wouldn't be.

But I'd like to get past the part where people just start jumping up and down screaming "But that's unthinkable! Why that's impossible!"

People who claim that everything they don't like is unthinkable are really just saying they don't like thinking very much, and would prefer straight-line projections involving nigh-unchanging circumstances so that they aren't forced into that whole bother of thinking at all.

These things aren't "unthinkable." They're being thought about. That right there is all the evidence any non-idiot should need to dismiss the claim that they're "unthinkable."

Whether a national divorce is advisable is of course open to debate -- but the claim that it's "unthinkable" is just something thick-witted people say to impose their own defect of imagination on people smarter than they are.

Posted by: Ace of Spades at 06:33 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 My God, it's full of italics!

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 24, 2018 06:28 PM (IqV8l)

2 First?

Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 24, 2018 06:28 PM (xQfPr)

3 Nope

Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 24, 2018 06:28 PM (xQfPr)

4 Lean in.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:29 PM (qJtVm)

5 The Left has built this situation to take over.

They aren't going to let half (or more) of the country escape their grasp.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at April 24, 2018 06:30 PM (oVJmc)

6 I'm going to count number of attempts at pithy and clever comments about the missing closing tag.

Posted by: Clifford Skridlow at April 24, 2018 06:31 PM (C1NyB)

7 Its better when it leans to the right.

Posted by: Stormy Daniels at April 24, 2018 06:31 PM (pAx+1)

8 2!

Posted by: Clifford Skridlow at April 24, 2018 06:31 PM (C1NyB)

9 Jim "Comey is a great man and patriot" Geraghty is slowly catching on that some of us think it is time to rt company?

That means the movement is doomed.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (SzZnW)

10 Been tried once, hundreds of thousands died, next time it won't be so few.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (aC6Sd)

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (SzZnW)

12 Barreltime!!!

Posted by: Shopgirl at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (53ahq)

13 Fixed?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (SzZnW)

14 We're gonna need bigger closed tags.

Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (Tyii7)

15 What's unthinkable is this invasion of Italicans!

Posted by: The Italicans at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (2LCG7)

16 Ewok-6 to the Barrel

Ewok-6 to the Barrel

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (SzZnW)

17 Although splitting might be the easy way out, I think it would be a lot more fun to kill a whole bunch of leftists and burn down a few of their cities. Then lets see how much fight is in them - if they put up a credible defense, maybe then we can talk a peaceful split. But they've got to earn the respect that would get them that much of a concession.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2018 06:33 PM (k1TUh)

18 Would be for California going peacefully if they take all the illegals and Leftists.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 06:33 PM (aC6Sd)

19 Oh look at fancy sven stopping the invasion

Posted by: The Italicans at April 24, 2018 06:33 PM (2LCG7)

20 This raises the eternal question: is Ace Italican?

Posted by: Surfperch at April 24, 2018 06:33 PM (TqxwF)

21 Not unrelated... Comey has now lawyered up, I see.

Posted by: Anonymous7 at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (5aqWh)

22 5 Posted by: Mr. Peebles at April 24, 2018 06:30 PM (oVJmc),

The left will treat us worse than they allowed the US Military to treat Muslim terrorists, but when the chips are down they cannot stop our leaving, they can only increase the amount of time we spend getting there from here.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (SzZnW)

23 Five. Not one yet that is funny.

Posted by: Clifford Skridlow at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (C1NyB)

24 >Someone's failure of imagination to contemplate a possibility as possible is no argument at all against its possibility, just as the religious faith that Trump can't win, I don't know why, but he just can't was no talisman of protection against that very event.

Sounds like normalcy bias.

Posted by: flounderbot, rebel, vulgarian, deplorabot, winner at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (Dp6qK)

25 [/sven]

Posted by: The Italicans at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (2LCG7)

26 Slanty.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (89T5c)

27 21 Posted by: Anonymous7 at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (5aqWh)

A lot less self-referential Bible quotes this afternoon no?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:35 PM (SzZnW)

28 the average news-watching human being would witness (indirectly, through media reports) something like thirty "impossible" events in his lifetime.

-
Hell, I saw 30 impossible things during Obozo's first term.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 24, 2018 06:35 PM (+y/Ru)

29 25 Posted by: The Italicans at April 24, 2018 06:34 PM (2LCG7)

If there is one thing we snow eaters understand it is borders.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:35 PM (SzZnW)

30 So the italic jokes are in. Is the right spot for the "TLDR, how did he like the movie?"

Posted by: Underdog at April 24, 2018 06:35 PM (RGKj+)

31 It's really more of a black swan event that our very different 13 colonies decided to join together as a nation.

It's equally amazing that we made it through the civil war intact.

I wonder if a commercial push into space would be a unifying "westward ho" or if it would splinter us into different interests?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:35 PM (qJtVm)

32 Actually I am not scared of this scenario per se. I am still at an age when I can still fight and protect my family. What scares me, is that this conflagration starts when I am too old to fight to protect my family.

Posted by: Archer at April 24, 2018 06:36 PM (gbWkA)

33 BHussein started this

ride in the backseat
jobs are not coming back
bitter clinger
I won

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 06:36 PM (JFO2v)

34 I hear Brian Dennehy is being cast as the Deep State!

Posted by: andycanuck at April 24, 2018 06:36 PM (VBKy9)

35 We may be living in devolutionary times.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 24, 2018 06:36 PM (IqV8l)

36 17 Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2018 06:33 PM (k1TUh)

The leftoids will import as many 3d worlders as it takes....

We will likely not get to leave peacefully and it will suck, but we will leave one way or the other.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:36 PM (SzZnW)

37 17 Although splitting might be the easy way out, I think it would be a lot more fun to kill a whole bunch of leftists and burn down a few of their cities.

You are a racist. Leftist burn their own cities.

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 06:37 PM (JFO2v)

38 All the people talking about a "national divorce" on peaceful terms seem to think that the Left wants a peaceful split. Does anyone seriously think a division of territory wouldn't be immediately followed by Leftists attempting subversion and conquest on the orders of their new 'homeland'? Does anyone believe that the Democratic party will meekly divvy up the strategic weapons--"one for you, one for me, one for you, one for me"?

Ain't gonna happen.

Man, these italics make comments 50% gayer.

Posted by: Monty James at April 24, 2018 06:37 PM (gKOMX)

39 I'm all in favor of a national divorce. Also Military tribunals and physical removal any country but ours.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 06:37 PM (J567a)

40 Fear not fellow morons. I hear Kanye West has gone Trump and that he will use his soulful music along with his ho-wife of a thousand dongs to heal the nation and bring us back together

Posted by: Nationalist Pikachu at April 24, 2018 06:37 PM (t7aa8)

41 "Someone's failure of imagination to contemplate a possibility as possible is no argument at all against its possibility" - ace

The fact this statement must be typed out and supported as a serious counter-argument reveals how we've reached, at the very least, Idiocracy Level Purple. You don't want to go full Idiocracy Blue - but we're almost there.

Posted by: MSTisdale at April 24, 2018 06:38 PM (8OSRr)

42 I'm suddenly reminded of the scene in Terry Pratchett's book "Guards, Guards" in which a few of the protagonists debate whether a particular shot is "a million to one", and therefore guaranteed to work, or only something like 600,000 to one, which means it'll never work.

Posted by: junior at April 24, 2018 06:38 PM (PzKK9)

43
Hard to imagine a president with approval rating around 50% being subjected to this level of abuse.

It's a coup. An ineffective one, but still a coup attempt.

Posted by: Forgot My Nic at April 24, 2018 06:39 PM (LOgQ4)

44 Once the high and mighty left leadership is indicted, convicted, jailed and the billions in funding drys up the majority of the left's fellow travelers will shrug and get on with life outside the bubble.

The remaining few true believers will be like "Charlie's girls" awaiting the great day their holy leaders are released and otherwise shaving their heads, carving the "circle D" in their foreheads, and sitting in drum circles outside the Supermax.

Posted by: geoffb at April 24, 2018 06:39 PM (zOpu5)

45 Who gets stuck with all the debt?
And don't let them have Lake Tahoe or any water from the Colorado river.

Posted by: A at April 24, 2018 06:40 PM (aIDPx)

46 It's equally amazing that we made it through the civil war intact. "

We didn't exactly get through it "intact". We killed the 300,000 men in the South who most wanted to split, and we burned down their half of the country. That's how we got through it.

It could happen again - all it ever takes is the will to do it.

If we're going to talk about the unthinkable, then talk about the unthinkable.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2018 06:40 PM (k1TUh)

47 37 Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 06:37 PM (JFO2v)

They do, of course my ancestor helped Sherman do some "redecorating" in Georgia.

It's like this you create a traffic desert, stopping the traffic without killing the driver ideally....

you cut their urban infrastructure, like water and electricity....

You sit back and watch the fun.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (SzZnW)

48 John Burns was 69 years old when he shoulder his musket and fought at Gettysburg defending his country.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (aC6Sd)

49 To use the term National Divorce as euphemism for Civil War is just disingenuous.

Posted by: BluesFish at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (tjH7w)

50 Glad my ancestors saved all that Confederate money!

Posted by: Comrade Hrothgar at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (n9EOP)

51 The two big lessons of the last American Civil War.

1) Don't fight wars in your homeland. We kept this up for over 100 years but people are forgetting this.

2) Wars ALWAYS cost more then the people who are pushing for them predict.

If the United States breaks up it will not be peaceful, it will not be a no fault divorce.

Civil War would be an unmitigated disaster on a continental scale if we are very lucky and more likely the war would go global.

You think our rivals and enemies would not pick sides?

Posted by: Big V at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (ZvLtE)

52 If there is going to be a war, I'm not moving. I was born in Seattle and am a believer in the Constitution. And God, too. The left hates me and people like me.

Many Leftists that have moved in around here seem to be squishy on the Bill of Rights.

I have no problem following General Mattis and his advice. Wanna see my smile?

Now, it is their move. Think carefully, Leftists.

Posted by: LeftCoast Dawg at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (UsCnO)

53 A lot less self-referential Bible quotes this afternoon no?
Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:35 PM (SzZnW)

How about Torah quotes. Can we get some good Torah quotes. Especially those about Jesus.

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (JFO2v)

54 Regarding splitting the country, if it happens, I think it should be done not by state popular sovereignty but by county popular sovereignty. That way Denver County, Boulder County, Garfield County (Aspen), and San Miguel County (Telluride) can go full moonbat and leave us normies alone.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (+y/Ru)

55 NO SPLIT.

Eject the America haters!

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (hMwEB)

56 A National Divorce won't make the left hate us any less, but it will make it harder for them to control us.

Posted by: Surfperch at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (TqxwF)

57 I pray often for the U.S. As an outside observer the course of events is troubling at minimum.

Posted by: Northernlurker but call me Teem. at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (nBr1j)

58 The 'National Divorce' or secession along the lines of what was attempted in the 1860's is NOT what is on the minds of the progressive left/opposition party.

What they want is what Bill Ayers laid out for them back in the 1960's-1970's, which is they take over everything and send the rest of us to the camps.

They were so close to having it all, and they made the mistake of having the Drunken Bollard as their candidate instead of Grandpa Bernie Bolshievek. We didn't win, so much as they lost. And they know it, which is why they are becoming more deranged by the day.

These are scary times.

Posted by: Boots at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (EBwPV)

59 Insidiously and incrementally, we are in the process of normalizing violence against the elected president of the United States. If all this fails to delegitimize Trump, fails to destroy his health

"destroy his health" as in 'I keel you!'

There are people openly calling for 'someone to kill him'. I have seen it, I have reported it....just words, I guess. Until it is not just words. Facebook allows such language.

Posted by: Cicero Boom chicka boom Kaboom! Kid, at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (Pvsoz)

60 Fear not fellow morons. I hear Kanye West has gone Trump and that he will use his soulful music along with his ho-wife of a thousand dongs to heal the nation and bring us back together

Well, shit. If that's what it takes...

Posted by: Jewells45 at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (dUJdY)

61 You sit back and watch the fun.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (SzZnW)

I don't think fun is the right word!

Posted by: Comrade Hrothgar at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (n9EOP)

62 A correction: The division has not just been attempted before, it was accomplished. The war was not one of unification (though that was a poorly produced by-product) and neither would a present-day conflict. A war, like the last, would be the result of hostile actions taken by one side toward another, those the result of failure of diplomacy or of success of deceit.
To cleave part of the nation away from other parts might be emotionally satisfying for discussion but the practical effects would be near impossible to sustain. Do you want to live next door to another squalid and desolate third-world nation? A better option is to let the failing states fail and learn the hard lessons necessary for survival.
Any other choices, besides killing them all and burning the nests?

Posted by: Dan Patterson at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (ln5wD)

63 Not unthinkable. Inevitable.

Posted by: maddogg at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (ZOlfu)

64 Oh don't get me wrong. I can pull a trigger fine, just don't ask me to do any long marches. ; - D

Posted by: Archer at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (gbWkA)

65 49 Posted by: BluesFish at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (tjH7w)

"National Divorce" is by far the more desirable outcome, and does have historical precedent.

Holland and Belgium split peacefully, the Catholics had no desire to be ruled by Protestants and the Protestants the Catholics.

Why should communists get to rule republicans or vice versa?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (SzZnW)

66 I'm still sketchy on these horrible crimes of which Trump is guilty. The economy is crawling out of its slump and he has a number of diplomatic successes.

How are people's lives worse under his administration?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (qJtVm)

67 "42 I'm suddenly reminded of the scene in Terry Pratchett's book "Guards, Guards" in which a few of the protagonists debate whether a particular shot is "a million to one", and therefore guaranteed to work, or only something like 600,000 to one, which means it'll never work.
Posted by: junior"

So was I.

I don't think that we're gonna get anything like a peaceful separation for one reason: The left is all about imposing their will on all of us, they're not gonna just let us go.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, they are gaslighting us 24/365 at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (Mbmmf)

68 I'm suddenly reminded of the scene in Terry Pratchett's book "Guards, Guards" in which a few of the protagonists debate whether a particular shot is "a million to one", and therefore guaranteed to work, or only something like 600,000 to one, which means it'll never work.

And end up deliberately making the shot harder, just to be sure, IIRC.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (bZ7mE)

69 We will likely not get to leave peacefully and it will suck, but we will leave one way or the other."

We've grown soft and forgotten the lesson of every great war of the past - there is always one guaranteed way to live peacefully; you simply have to kill everyone who doesn't want to let you do it. As Sherman said, War is Hell, and the sooner they know it is Hell, the sooner this is over. If you're going to fight for real, you go for max casualties as quickly as possible. That's the harsh logic of War.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (k1TUh)

70 What a great post. Thank you.

The country won't divide in the sense of two groups coming to some understanding of division. And the Left doesn't want to divide or secede. The Left wants total control over everything and everybody, but if we do divide it will be because they have made a division ineluctable.

As for VDH, he is not quite correct that the Left has "lost confidence" in the Constitutional framework. They simply despise and discredit it when it doesn't go in their favor. If it does go in their favor at some point again (President Kamala Harris?), they will declare it sound and immediately condemn us, "the other," and our critiques of their power as unconstitutional and intolerable, and revive and re-impose the Obama precedent of abuse of power and persecution of opponents.

There is no living with the Left under an expectation of sanity or decency.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (H8QX8)

71 61 Posted by: Comrade Hrothgar at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (n9EOP)

I'd have a smile like enzyte bob, logistics is the way you win wars, starvation, and dehydration are Logistics' lieutenants.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (SzZnW)

72 Mind-bogglingly destructive and simplistic.

MOST people aren't so much violently divided as they are apathetic or just preoccupied with their own and their families lives. The number of radicals is small.

Radicals have been allowed to gather too much power. This is a problem.

The solution to the problem is not to create, on our doorstep, a far-left nuclear power most of whose citizens are just trying to survive the same as everyone else and simply don't know enough or have the resources to avoid being stranded in that place.

The solution is to work hard to bring people who aren't interested in the process into the process (and perhaps more importantly teaching them to have power over their own lives) and to work hard to take back power from radicals and immediately devolve power from the institutions they've built up (and perhaps more importantly teaching people the danger of these concentrations of power).

You can't separate yourself from either human stupidity or bad fortune. You can harden yourself against it, and help others do the same.

But hard work is hard work.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (FDnQi)

73 60
Fear not fellow morons. I hear Kanye West has gone Trump and that he
will use his soulful music along with his ho-wife of a thousand dongs to
heal the nation and bring us back together

Well, shit. If that's what it takes...

Posted by: Jewells45 at April 24, 2018 06:43 PM (dUJdY)
He was either on new drugs or off his usual ones; its hard to tell with him.

Posted by: IC at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (a0IVu)

74 It won't be peaceful. Even if the left agrees to the divorce, they'll be back with a huge imported army from Africa and South America to extermite us armed with Chinese weapons. This is like the civil war in spain where the Spanish army had a choice between extermining the Marxists now before they got into total power or waiting to be exterminated by the Marxists once they got total power.

Posted by: BomberCommand at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (dpOO+)

75 52 If there is going to be a war, I'm not moving. I was born in Seattle and am a believer in the Constitution. And God, too. The left hates me and people like me.

Many Leftists that have moved in around here seem to be squishy on the Bill of Rights.
I have no problem following General Mattis and his advice. Wanna see my smile?
Now, it is their move. Think carefully, Leftists.
Posted by: LeftCoast Dawg at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (UsCnO)
Review and payday rule
Every annual review (even if self employed) bug a gun.
Every payday buy a box a shells.

TADA

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (JFO2v)

76 The country is divided, and I blame Obama.
Before Obama the differences were more of an unfocused feeling.

It was Obama who deliberately, consciously, maliciously divided the country by skin color, social status, economic status, and political ideology. Obama and the democrats did this deliberately.

I don't see any way to reconcile our differences now that the democrat party has made it public policy to enforce differences by race, class, and ideology.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse - Not Woke atall at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (roQNm)

77 >Well, if almost all political norms are being discarded, why keep the main one that keeps everyone trapped in this unhealthy, unhappy toxic failed marriage-on-paper-only?

Because many before us have fought and died, or given lesser sacrifices to preserve the union, and they/we are not about to throw it all away because some spoiled ahistorical, ideologically-programmed children are agitating for a fight on behalf of wretched, soulless, empty husk of a human who didn't get her turn.

THEY. GET. NOTHING!

Posted by: flounderbot, rebel, vulgarian, deplorabot, winner at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (Dp6qK)

78 I see nothing wrong with succeeding.

Posted by: Dr Spank at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (4e+hS)

79 Good post, ace.

Huh. I was just reading those quotes in a post at Instapundit.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (sdi6R)

80 53 Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 06:42 PM (JFO2v)

And now, I'd like to make a topical quote from the Koran on the situation of public integrity:

"........."

//Diamond Jim Comey

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:46 PM (SzZnW)

81 To use the term National Divorce as euphemism for Civil War is just disingenuous.
Posted by: BluesFish

Not in the slightest.

Nations can and have separated without war.

Czechoslovakia reformed into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 0.0 deaths as a result.

Sweden and Norway separated without a shot.

What history books have you ever read?

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 06:46 PM (LNPd9)

82 What happens will not be a divorce.

There are not clear lines of demarcation that are geographically negotiable. The divide runs through families even. It'll be like nothing you can imagine.

Posted by: Simplemind at April 24, 2018 06:46 PM (ZuGkg)

83 How are people's lives worse under his administration?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (qJtVm)

Reporters have been insulted by his babboon-mouth, and that's obviously worse than reporters being jailed and killed in Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Asia.

Because BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:47 PM (FDnQi)

84 Lex Luther option.

Posted by: MAGA at April 24, 2018 06:47 PM (LnOh3)

85 Much of this division is being accomplished with the funding Obama provided to the Left.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at April 24, 2018 06:47 PM (oVJmc)

86 the majority of the left's fellow travelers will shrug and get on with life outside the bubble

The huge flaw in that theory is that they have absolutely no clue how to do that.

Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April 24, 2018 06:47 PM (Tyii7)

87 74
This is like the civil war in spain where the Spanish army had a choice between extermining the Marxists now before they got into total power or waiting to be exterminated by the Marxists once they got total power.
Posted by: BomberCommand at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (dpOO+)

Hence the Pinochet helicopter meme.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 06:47 PM (sdi6R)

88 I was a sage...

Posted by: zombie Haggard at April 24, 2018 06:47 PM (C5oX6)

89 72 Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:44 PM (FDnQi)

The Democrats strike you as being either deferential to or willing to work within Constitutional order and classical American civic virtue do they?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (SzZnW)

90 I look at the misbehaving "splitters" who think all of their problems will disappear when they can be rid of the majority who voted for Trump. Like adolescents who long to be free of parental or majority limits they "think" everything will be ducky. Their is no understanding or even acknowledment of cause and effect, cost/benefit, etc and they will just do anything they please. Who is going to bail them out? Pay for it all? China? Mexico? It is child-like and ignorant in the extreme. And that is how they should be treated. They will just run away from home. With dad's credit card.

Posted by: Lester at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (LfJIn)

91 Not many people know that the Summer of 1861 was filled with commissions as to how to negotiate an amicable split; there were several plans, some involved modifying the Constitution to have 4 regions with 4 Presidents, some just allowing for an amicable split. Almost happened, but the negotiators in Washington kept deadlocking, and the people out in the field got impatient and eventually started shooting. And once the shooting started, all hell broke loose very quickly.

that is how I imagine it will go again. We'll try for an amicable split, but it won't work. And when it doesn't work we'll see who really wants to fight for what they have and who wants to surrender.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (k1TUh)

92 We're going to need an imperial fuckton of helicopters.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (89T5c)

93 Every empire in history has dissolved at some point. Rome, China, Britain, the USSR. As surely as the sun sets, America will come apart, it is a question of when.

The only way to keep the states together would be to diminish Washington's power to explicit Constitutional limits. That is not acceptable to our political class.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (jn7FC)

94 Really truly I don't fear a open civil war, but could see Leftists do single attacks ( bombing was their favorite in the 60's) terrorism if things don't go their way. They have no need as they are on the top with judges and high profile states and the media.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (aC6Sd)

95
Honestly, I doubt that a National Divorce will happen. Mainly because the left wants all of us unpeople from Jesusland to DIE. In their minds, it'll be a lot easier to kill us all if we're all still in the same country, with the commies in control of the bureaucracy.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (eXA4G)

96 Cali secedes, leftists relocate there, later demand a right to return.

Posted by: davidt at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (djCea)

97 Let them have Haiti.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (J567a)

98 82 Posted by: Simplemind at April 24, 2018 06:46 PM (ZuGkg)

Most states have cities they have to siege, and yeah families will split.

I'll have to attack my in-laws.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (SzZnW)

99 This country is a pressure vessel with no relief valve. Sad to say but the violence is already happening. It will get worse and the longer it goes on before the explosion, the worse it will be when it happens.

Other nations will take sides and they won't take ours. There is a decent chance that we would lose any armed conflict.

I dearly wish that all this wasn't true but wishing won't make it so.

Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (xQfPr)

100 95 Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (eXA4G)

Agreed, what the left wants for the right is so AWESOME they want us disarmed.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (SzZnW)

101 Their is no understanding or even acknowledment of cause and effect, cost/benefit, etc and they will just do anything they please. Who is going to bail them out? Pay for it all? China?
---
Yes. I would not put it past the coastal elites to lease territory to the ChiComs.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (qJtVm)

102 99 Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (xQfPr)

If everything you type is correct then it means our RoE is a lot more streamlined.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (SzZnW)

103 It would be one thing if the left and right agreed on outcome, but disagreed on the way to get there, but we are so far past believing in the same outcome that a divorce is inevitable.

Posted by: Chase at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (RbV5J)

104 It's inevitable.

The totalitarian left will see to it.

Posted by: Cloyd Freud, Unemployed at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (398bZ)

105 well, I hope it happens soon. The "USA is a nation of these immigrants we just gathered at the voter booth by dangling first world welfare in front of third world goat herders" ultimate stated goal is to make us a multicultural place like brazil or south africa...which is terrifying.

sorry, you can go live in a high crime, low trust hellhole while pretending to love diversity while hiding behind deep levels of security.

I'll chose the rational choice of a homogeneous society.

Posted by: Kuhyt at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (Kuhyt)

106 He was either on new drugs or off his usual ones; its hard to tell with him.
Posted by: IC
-----------

He's tasted the vitriol of the Left. The only question is whether it will serve to strengthen his resolve, or, submit to peer pressure and go wobbly.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (5OO3x)

107 In the national divorce, make sure the Socialists get custody of the DACAs

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (jn7FC)

108 In a national divorce, who gets the chilllllllruuuunnn?

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at April 24, 2018 06:51 PM (oVJmc)

109 He's tasted the vitriol of the Left. The only
question is whether it will serve to strengthen his resolve, or, submit
to peer pressure and go wobbly.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (5OO3x)
If that is the case, I hope the good Lord grants him strength.

Posted by: IC at April 24, 2018 06:51 PM (a0IVu)

110 The Democrats strike you as being either deferential to or willing to work within Constitutional order and classical American civic virtue do they?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (SzZnW)

So you think they'll make peaceful and non-interventionist nuclear-armed neighbors?

Though from a very long view it would be amusing if the American Right created the second Soviet Union (or Third if you count China as insufficiently distinct).

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:51 PM (FDnQi)

111 The Left is top heavy, no grass roots know-how or leadership. Take out the top 10,000 leftists in the country and they're finished.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (k1TUh)

112 They get the debt, we get the nukes.

Posted by: Dr Spank at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (4e+hS)

113 One problem that I haven't seen addressed is what happens after we peacefully-split-up/exterminate-the Leftist-scum. The Right is not monolithic - even Teh Horde has some very deep divisions in worldview and philosophy of government. Right now they are papered over because of a common enemy, but what happens when that enemy is no longer a threat and a precedent has been set?

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (bZ7mE)

114 101 Their is no understanding or even acknowledment of cause and effect, cost/benefit, etc and they will just do anything they please. Who is going to bail them out? Pay for it all? China?
---
Yes. I would not put it past the coastal elites to lease territory to the ChiComs.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (qJtVm)

They'll have to since the dot coms will go belly up.

Posted by: WinLinBSDAdmin at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (vgwv+)

115 100 95 Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 24, 2018 06:48 PM (eXA4G)

Agreed, what the left wants for the right is so AWESOME they want us disarmed.
Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (SzZnW)

As I like to say, "What would the left like to do that they can't do now, but could if we were disarmed?"

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (sdi6R)

116 @53
Christ himself put the kibosh on Comey's self-referential Bible quoting when Jimmy Drama came to the verses where the Lord angrily proclaimed "Woe unto you lawyers, Pharisees, hypocrites!...

Posted by: Anonymous7 at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (5aqWh)

117 Does anyone seriously think a division of territory wouldn't be immediately followed by Leftists attempting subversion and conquest on the orders of their new 'homeland'?

Screw that. My taxes went to all 'territory'. They get nothing. Push the bastards back across the Rio Grande.

Posted by: Cicero Boom chicka boom Kaboom! Kid, at April 24, 2018 06:52 PM (Pvsoz)

118 Did NeverTrumper Geraghty ever get around to looking in the mirror in the hunt for the culprit(s)?

Posted by: Steve Earle Song Ideas at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (PvCxa)

119 No split. Overrun and conquer while taking no prisoners.

Posted by: Under Fire at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (r9UYA)

120 How will they recruit sufficient numbers for a military?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (qJtVm)

121 The only question is whether it will serve to strengthen his resolve, or, submit to peer pressure and go wobbly.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 06:50 PM (5OO3x)

I'll put my money on wobbly.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (H8QX8)

122 The biggest threat right now is that the main communication platforms of twitter, google and facebook are deplatforming conservatives.

It's time to regulate them as utilities and public accommodations.

At the end of the day, a gay can bake his own cake and take his own picture but conservatives cannot easily build a pervasive, ubiquitous, monopolistic communications platform.

But the problem is that the GOP doesn't much mind this sort of ghettoizing.

Posted by: Kreplach at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (UfMVm)

123 The left is all about imposing their will on all of us, they're not gonna just let us go.

I once proposed to my less-moonbat SIL that I would be okay with her having every policy she wants. No restrictions on abortion, no restriction on drugs, whatever. All I asked in return was that she not ask me to pay for it. That was a bridge too far for her and that was 15 years ago.

Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (xQfPr)

124
I don't see any way to reconcile our differences now that the democrat party has made it public policy to enforce differences by race, class, and ideology.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse - Not Woke atall at April 24, 2018 06:45 PM (roQNm)

Yes, tough to get around this important point. Until the Leftist Globalist press turns around their messaging, it will only get worse.

The press in the last 10 -15 years has become a stain on our country, not an asset that reports facts.

Posted by: LeftCoast Dawg at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (UsCnO)

125 110 Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:51 PM (FDnQi)

I think their economic system is doomed or their enviro fetish will be killed Mero.

The Soviet Bloc was the most polluted real estate on the planet.

American Marxists believe in Santa Claus the real ones learned better.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (SzZnW)

126 How come nobody has ever asked the repulsive Hillary, or Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi or Maxine whatshername of Robert Mueller if they are in favor of a civil war? There actions seem to indicate they are. Why have they never been asked about it?

Posted by: Northernlurker but call me Teem. at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (nBr1j)

127 Honestly, I doubt that a National Divorce will happen. Mainly because the left wants all of us unpeople from Jesusland to DIE. In their minds, it'll be a lot easier to kill us all if we're all still in the same country, with the commies in control of the bureaucracy.
Posted by: IllTemperedCur

They won't have to kill us. Sillycon Valley will just marginalize us to the point where they have people at all stations of governance that can further marginalize anyone who dissents from the socialist future mega-state.

Think of any part of your life that interacts with a large online enterprises; banking, taxes, electricity, email - what's to stop a multi-pronged, decentralized effort to marginalize conservatives ?

Not much.

The only question is how long they can keep up the semblance of control before the whole thing turns into a soviet clusterfuck of a ruin.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (LNPd9)

128 When there is a significant number of people who are hostile to the very idea of an American identity coupled with a rapacious, unaccountable bureaucracy, the republic as we have known it is in mortal danger.

Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (B3NHb)

129 Is your country your people , your government or your home?

Posted by: xnycpeasant at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (Iz401)

130 What history books have you ever read?

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 06:46 PM (LNPd9)

---Suggesting that I am ignorant and not well read gains you little.

Posted by: BluesFish at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (tjH7w)

131 Really good rendition of US anthem by R.C. school choir at Jays-Sox game in Toronto -- players respectful.

Then bug me by singing the bilingual version of "Oh, Canada". Grrrr.

Posted by: andycanuck at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (VBKy9)

132 Honestly, I doubt that a National Divorce will happen. Mainly because the left wants all of us unpeople from Jesusland to DIE. In their minds, it'll be a lot easier to kill us all if we're all still in the same country, with the commies in control of the bureaucracy.
Posted by: IllTemperedCur
--------------

It won't happen, because it isn't necessary. The long march is paying dividends, and the pace is picking up. The number of those committed to retaining American values (or even remember them) is dwindling. See Red states flipping Blue.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (c/EDo)

133 Great post, ace. Scary.

I have trouble picturing how America would split geographically. That failure of imagination that you mention. It's hard to picture how it would look on a map.

Posted by: Max Power at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (q177U)

134 http://bit.ly/2JmZeIp
=====
Clintonista & swamp creature Greg Craig Leaves Skadden Arps | The Daily Caller

Posted by: Sorry/ Not Sorry at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (y3aQB)

135 113 politics as usual, if they can get away with it.

Posted by: sumdumchief at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (C5oX6)

136 Someone's failure of imagination to contemplate a possibility as possible is no argument at all against its possibility,

Every if-then needs an else, else what happens if not.

Posted by: DaveA at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (FhXTo)

137 What else seems to be happening is the left is instituting a mirror universe "fairness doctrine"

So instead of insisting for equal time they are insisting with the ample use of violence on no time at all for conservatives.

Posted by: Kreplach at April 24, 2018 06:56 PM (UfMVm)

138 I suppose someone has already mentioned the Scott Adams video on Trump and Kanye.

It's totally upbeat - he says there's been a shift toward the positive, a Golden Age. However, he starts it all with getting out of your mental prison - saying that, similar to this post, it's about breaking out of the mental prison that says "That can't happen."

Posted by: Denver EPA Agent at April 24, 2018 06:56 PM (W+vEI)

139 How will they recruit sufficient numbers for a military?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (qJtVm)
---------------------------------------------

As we all know here at AoSHq, there wasn't any Russian Collusion in 2016 to elect Pres Trump.

But there has always been collusion between the commies here at home and the commies in Russia/everywhere else. And if a civil war breaks out in the US, the commies here will be sipping lattes while our enemies abroad come over here and destroy us. They'll destroy the whole damn country, but the idiots on the left think they will somehow still be in charge calling the shots.

Posted by: Boots at April 24, 2018 06:56 PM (EBwPV)

140 I think their economic system is doomed or their enviro fetish will be killed Mero.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:54 PM (SzZnW)

And this has what to do with what

The far left say whatever they think benefits them at the moment. Shocking.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:56 PM (FDnQi)

141 It's hard to picture how it would look on a map.
Posted by: Max Power at April 24, 2018 06:55 PM (q177U)
---
Behold the Clinton Archipelago:

https://www.inverse.com/article/25635-map-remakes-us-trumpland-clinton-archipelago

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:57 PM (qJtVm)

142 They won't have to kill us. Sillycon Valley will just marginalize us to the point where they have people at all stations of governance that can further marginalize anyone who dissents from the socialist future mega-state.
--------------

We would never do that, we're not evil !

Posted by: Goolag, Twatter, Faceblob, Bob at NSA at April 24, 2018 06:58 PM (c/EDo)

143 Pàrtaidh sgaradh nàiseanta, rinn sinn feuchainn ach cha do dh'èist duine

Posted by: IRA at April 24, 2018 06:58 PM (bUjCl)

144 Every leftist entity in the country will be appealing to China to come to their aid and come they will.

Posted by: Ben Had at April 24, 2018 06:58 PM (lV4ho)

145 ---Suggesting that I am ignorant and not well read gains you little.
Posted by: BluesFish

Ask me if I care what you think, guy who is wrong and can't admit it.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 06:58 PM (LNPd9)

146 I'm at work now, and can't have fun here, but I'll be back later on the ONT. I have a question about something somewhat related to all of this...

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (AzW6q)

147 140 Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 06:56 PM (FDnQi)

It has to do with everything, the left lives in the Kingdom of Candyland where everything can be free if we just take all the stuff of the guy who makes a buck more than me a year.

Reality says otherwise, the hardest paymasters in the world are technocrat Marxists.

Donkey will implode if we split, the collectivists always do.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (SzZnW)

148 99 This country is a pressure vessel with no relief valve. Sad to say but the violence is already happening. It will get worse and the longer it goes on before the explosion, the worse it will be when it happens.

Other nations will take sides and they won't take ours. There is a decent chance that we would lose any armed conflict.

I dearly wish that all this wasn't true but wishing won't make it so.

Posted by: Laughing in Texas at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (xQfPr)

1. The relief valve is a judicious but expeditious application of law and order. Round up the agitators and their financiers, RICO the lot - the predicate crimes are legion - and this shit ends tomorrow.

With no money backing these agitators, they are just loons standing on the street corner with sandwich boards.

2. Break up the media empires as a threat to national security. They participate in the illegal leaking of national security information as if it is some sort of joke. Time to pay the piper.

3. Whirled Domination.

Posted by: flounderbot, rebel, vulgarian, deplorabot, winner at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (Dp6qK)

149 122 The biggest threat right now is that the main communication platforms of twitter, google and facebook are deplatforming conservatives.

It's time to regulate them as utilities and public accommodations.
Posted by: Kreplach at April 24, 2018 06:53 PM (UfMVm)

I agree. If we can't find the will to confront the Left's rather overt attempts to strangle us within the system, what's the point of talking about secession. We'll just be going gently into the totalitarian night.

Posted by: Dan Smoot's Apprentice at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (H8QX8)

150
One other thing to keep in mind is that if America splits, the world goes up in flames. With no America to economically or militarily smack around every piss-ant shithole country on the planet that gets froggy, virtually every one of them will go to guns to try to get what they want from their neighbors.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (eXA4G)

151 I think everyone would be a lot happier if there was a national divorce, but something major would have to happen first like an economic collapse. I don't see a scenario where everything is going great and we just make a rational decision to start splitting the country.

Of course we have federalism that should have diffused most of this, but liberals decided that was getting in their way too much.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (lKmt3)

152 "Was there anything like the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting,
when President Obama spoke of the need to debate our differences "in a
way that heals, not a way that wounds"?"

Leaving aside Giffords - among others - was shot by a Bush-hating athiest nut, whereas the violence against Republicans is strictly motivated by politics.

Careful what you wish for, leftist thugs.
You just might get it.

Posted by: Bea Arthur's Dick at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (jWe5r)

153 Agus an uairsin dh'fheuch iad ri ar marbhadh!

Posted by: IRA at April 24, 2018 07:00 PM (bUjCl)

154 Since the YUGE debt and dubious currency would likely explode for ALL the pieces of USA and everybodies wealth depends on those fictions there is a very strong dis-incentive.

Posted by: DaveA at April 24, 2018 07:00 PM (FhXTo)

155 >120 How will they recruit sufficient numbers for a military?

They'll import them from the same places they import their voters. They won't fight well, but 100 million of them armed with cheap chinese guns will overwhelm us.

Posted by: BomberCommand at April 24, 2018 07:00 PM (dpOO+)

156 We have geographic hinderances in a break up. As A. Lincoln stated, we have no good geographic boundaries. We have mountain ranges and rivers and deserts but all have been and can be passed.

Likewise, the haters often live alongside those they hate. There are only a few totally solid blue and totally solid red areas.

When the war comes, if it comes, it will be bloody and personal. It won't be armies and tanks, though there might be some of each featured.

I'll be slander and unemployment and thought control. We're there now.

Next will be handguns at close range, bottles filled with with soap and gasoline thrown at houses and bars with the exits boarded up, ambushes and assaults in the streets.

That's the next stop.

A peaceful divorce will delay this, not prevent it.

What would prevent it?

Leaders that slap the fervent haters down and disempower them. There is no one on the Democratic ticket that can do that. No one they respect enough to obey. I doubt even Macho Camacho or The Rock could do it.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:00 PM (xJa6I)

157 Have to say, the recent zealousness regarding disarming citizens - to the point that they openly say, "Yes, we will pry them from your cold, dead hands. That's preferable." - is unnerving.

They're openly wishing death on political foes.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 24, 2018 07:00 PM (W+vEI)

158 Also, I suspect that when the Pledge of Allegiance went from being mandatory to optional to omitted, all this trouble began building up.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (xJa6I)

159 The people saying "it absolutely can't happen" were absolutely just wishing what they said was true, not thinking rationally.

In the general election the worst odds put Trump at 20-30% or so, which every poker player knows is someone that will occur fairly often, even if you would bet against it happening. Occasionally your opponent will make his flush draw, and if you bet everything against that ever happening, you're going to experience some pain.

And yet thousands of people had complete meltdowns because they became so invested in pretending that the reasonably possible was completely impossible.

Posted by: Sjg at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (gDSJf)

160 Also buy guns and ammo.

If you need suggestions as to what or where, there are experts and also idiots like me around to help.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (xJa6I)

161 you cut their urban infrastructure, like water and electricity....

You sit back and watch the fun.
Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (SzZnW)

like Flint

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (JFO2v)

162 Generally formal on-paper-only fictions do not last very long. Marriages-on-paper-only do not last too much longer after one party begins strongly questioning why a fictitious marriage should be maintained as a polite fiction.

This is about me, isn't it?

Posted by: Bill Clinton at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (CoKlX)

163 I suppose someone has already mentioned the Scott Adams video on Trump and Kanye.

It's totally upbeat - he says there's been a shift toward the positive, a Golden Age. However, he starts it all with getting out of your mental prison - saying that, similar to this post, it's about breaking out of the mental prison that says "That can't happen."

-
Incidentally, Ace, Scott Adam's rant might make a good post topic.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UEHrndvoefw

It's about 22 minutes.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (+y/Ru)

164 Also get a dog.

Because dogs are awesome.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (xJa6I)

165 It's totally upbeat - he says there's been a shift toward the positive, a Golden Age. However, he starts it all with getting out of your mental prison - saying that, similar to this post, it's about breaking out of the mental prison that says "That can't happen."

Posted by: Denver EPA Agent at April 24, 2018 06:56 PM (W+vEI)

There is an opportunity to peel off a center-left coalition against postmodernist neo-marxist ethno-anti-nationalists.

The people likely to lead it are like Eric Weinstein and Jonathan Haidt - in other words, not like you guys, but enough *unlike* the domineering far-left to be on your side against them.

It won't solve all our problems, but with some *hard work* it could stop and reverse the advances of the whackjobs confiscating garden shears, murdering disabled babies and ignore mass rapes in the UK.

I don't know how many people are waking up, but it's a notable trend, that needs to be encouraged.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (FDnQi)

166 Stop feeding and watering Marxists.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (J567a)

167 141 Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 06:57 PM (qJtVm)

Yup, FM 3-24 says they lose....it'll take time and ruthlessness but we own the food and we own the water, add in their aversion to self-electrical generation and the war would be over in depending on how the interdiction of ground transport went 9-36 months.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:02 PM (SzZnW)

168 If we go through with a split we should:

a) only split of the smallest area necessary for the sake of national security

And

b) take away citizenship of people in the 'divorced' areas so they can't vote in our elections.

Posted by: Surfperch at April 24, 2018 07:02 PM (TqxwF)

169 111 That has always been the case, Russia Bolsheviks were the minority but a very vocal minority.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 07:02 PM (aC6Sd)

170 161 Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (JFO2v)

They've already done prelim work in Detroit metro, and other major cities...

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:02 PM (SzZnW)

171 1) Democrats decided to leave the country last time.
2) Many of us can tell you that the collapse of the Soviet Union was just as unthinkable. It felt like the Berlin wall had always been there (and it had been for our lifetime).
3) The West Coast is already behaving like they are not part of the country. They are using different laws from the rest of us and allowing behavior that would be unacceptable for most of the country. They also feel free to use the judiciary to overturn the will of the people.
4) There is no way we should give them a square inch of the country without a fight.

Posted by: notsothoreau at April 24, 2018 07:03 PM (5HBd1)

172 The point of a republican form of government is to act as a relief valve on tensions. California wants to be cray cray and Texas wants to have no zoning laws? Fine! Go for it!

It's the destruction of republicanism (small r) that is bringing the faults to the forefront. There is nowhere to be left alone. Bake me a cake, bitch.

I despair, I despair.

Posted by: alexthechick - Ragebunny. Hopping all around. at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (dEQP3)

173 I'm certainly willing to consider the possibility of a separation. Some kinds might be survivable. But should California choose some form of going its own way, should New York join, and Illinois (read Chicago) follow suit, I think the problem of "severability" would be insoluble. What becomes of out-staters, those away from the Deep Blue cities who want no part of the new People's Republic? For that matter, what happens to certain City neighborhoods and collar counties that are staunchly Blue? Under what circumstances could they retain their citizenship in the "traditional" United States? There is no binding geographic argument to "weld" Quincy Illinois to Rahm's Chicago. In fact, there is only enmity. Would they be compelled to relocate to continue as Americans? How and to where? And what might become of their assets, especially if holdings were seized/taxed as property due a new state, desperate for resources? It's not hard to imagine an "exit tax" if nothing else. Illinois is close enough to that as it stands.

How could these things be prevented, channeled, or controlled?

Posted by: Frankns at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (MEbkQ)

174 145
---Suggesting that I am ignorant and not well read gains you little.

Posted by: BluesFish

Ask me if I care what you think, guy who is wrong and can't admit it.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 06:58 PM (LNPd9)

---Well then, allow me to acknowledge and praise your superior intellect.

Posted by: BluesFish at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (tjH7w)

175 >>I don't know how many people are waking up, but it's a notable trend, that needs to be encouraged.

The popularity of Jordan Peterson is a good thing.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (W+vEI)

176 Yes - that will be an interesting conversation. Hopefully the folks with the "we got all the guns so we can't lose" and "the military is on our side" will remain silent. Commies learn real quick at killing and the military is lousy with leftists.

Posted by: Muns at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (fO+6C)

177 S S S

Posted by: Ben Had at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (lV4ho)

178 we are not special.

these issues and or the degree of disagreement are not new.

thinking that destroying the country is reasonable or likely is silly.

treating the idea seriously gives it currency and increases its likelihood.

we are not even having a serious debate because the media is deliberately seeking to quash on half of the debate.

there is more consensus than is suggested by the media, which is how we got Trump.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (MTjB1)

179 Stop feeding and watering Marxists.

-
Stop feeding and watering Maxine Waters. She's obviously brain dead.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (+y/Ru)

180 Whether a national divorce is advisable is of course open to debate

Those bitches just need a little ECT.

Posted by: DaveA at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (FhXTo)

181 you cut their urban infrastructure, like water and electricity....

You sit back and watch the fun.
Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (SzZnW)

With just in time inventory, transport is the key.

Posted by: flounderbot, rebel, vulgarian, deplorabot, winner at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (Dp6qK)

182 that a peaceful national divorce might be in everyone's best interests -- especially the children's.

Yes Yes Yes a thousand times Yes!

Posted by: MAC SOG and nothing will happen at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (czkHE)

183 The classic example of an event that shouldn't have happened, but did, was Gavrilo Princep and his gang of total retards slaying Mr and Mrs Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

His crew fucked up the job every way possible, down to the cyanide pills they took which didn't work. And then Franz, avoiding (successfully) the A Team, took a detour and ran into Gavrilo. Who squeezed off two lucky shots.

Not so lucky for the rest of us . . .

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (6FqZa)

184 Bake me a cake, bitch.
---
This should be the motto on our new Gadsden flag.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (qJtVm)

185 It's worth noting that America's Civil War was an anomaly, with organized armies facing off in pitched battles.

Almost every other civil war in history has literally been neighbor vs. neighbor. Civil War 2.0 will resemble that a lot more than 1.0.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:06 PM (sdi6R)

186 OT, Macron and his wife are late...grr..watching the WH livestream and nothing is happening.

Posted by: IC at April 24, 2018 07:06 PM (a0IVu)

187 Yes, but then I'm reminded by the county by county map of the last presidential election. A lot of red counties. Very very few blue counties.

Posted by: Archer at April 24, 2018 07:06 PM (gbWkA)

188 176 Posted by: Muns at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (fO+6C)

It'll be a race to see who wins the "race to learn" first....

Communists on self-discipline and killing, or republicans on ruthlessness and amorality.

My money is on the right.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:06 PM (SzZnW)

189 you cut their urban infrastructure, like water and electricity....

You sit back and watch the fun.
Posted by: sven10077 at April

the lines are not as clear cut as they were in the civil war. lots of purple places.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:06 PM (MTjB1)

190 It's the only hope without vast bloodshed, but I wouldn't bet a dime on it happening. What will likely happen is that we reach a point where our maps and official documents say the same as they do now, but for all practical purposes large parts of the country will no longer be ruled by DC, in any sense. (That's already happening, if you haven't noticed.) Eventually perception will catch up with reality, but it'll take a while, just as it took a long time for people in Gaul to recognize that Rome was gone for good.

Posted by: George LeS at April 24, 2018 07:06 PM (/ki+X)

191 I am in favor buying up some unoccupied islands and shipping all the lefties there. We will set them up with a livable infrastructure and defense system, after that we will have no ties with them.

Posted by: thathalfrican - OG LoG - Broke Minds Think Alike at April 24, 2018 07:07 PM (IYHxL)

192 The point of a republican form of government is to act as a relief valve on tensions. California wants to be cray cray and Texas wants to have no zoning laws? Fine! Go for it!

It's the destruction of republicanism (small r) that is bringing the faults to the forefront. There is nowhere to be left alone. Bake me a cake, bitch.

I despair, I despair.

-
The judicial tyranny has to go and I don't see how that's going to happen.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 24, 2018 07:07 PM (+y/Ru)

193 One other thing to keep in mind is that if America splits, the world goes up in flames. With no America to economically or militarily smack around every piss-ant shithole country on the planet that gets froggy, virtually every one of them will go to guns to try to get what they want from their neighbors.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at April 24, 2018 06:59 PM (eXA4G)

You understate the matter. The economic ropes holding everyone up are all tied down here. They get cut and everybody crashes.

Some people think it's funny to light someone else's house on fire, until the fire spreads back to their own house.

If you don't even care about that, you basically have the personality of a mass shooter. You hate life and you're willing to wreck it for everyone to "show them" how angry you are that you aren't getting your way.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:07 PM (FDnQi)

194 181 Posted by: flounderbot, rebel, vulgarian, deplorabot, winner at April 24, 2018 07:05 PM (Dp6qK)

Yup, I can write you a thesis on the spider web holding a 74 aloft concerning just in time logistics in insurgency comrade.

I have a unique perspective on the realities of our nation's infrastructure that Kurt Schlichter enjoyed reading once upon a time.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:08 PM (SzZnW)

195 Speaking of breaking up the big information platforms:

There's a new anti-Facebook meme I just saw that's really effective. A
photograph of a private family scene is shown, such as a wedding day
picture, and photoshopped onto the body of one of the male guests just behind
the bride and groom is the head of... Zuckerberg.

Another shows a
woman in her dressing room before a mirror putting on her earrings (the
back of her head in the foreground) and the reflected image she sees in the mirror in front of her has the face of... Zuckerberg.

Each photo has the tagline "He's Everywhere You Are."

Oh the fun they could have with that ad campaign.

Posted by: Anonymous7 at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (5aqWh)

196 157 Have to say, the recent zealousness regarding disarming citizens - to the point that they openly say, "Yes, we will pry them from your cold, dead hands. That's preferable." - is unnerving.

They're openly wishing death on political foes.
Posted by: Lizzy at April 24, 2018 07:00 PM (W+vEI)

Good thing we still have guns, then.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (sdi6R)

197 I think the biggest barrier to a breakup, either peacefully or through war, is the progs do not live in contiguous states. The North and the South were easily divided by territory. The same is not true of the left and right today. The left has CA, NY, IL, etc. But, even within the lefty states, there is division. The left has Chicago, but downstate leans right. The real division is urban vs rural. The suburban being more divided, but still more right than left.

How do you separate those factions? The battle lines would look gerrymandered.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (pvjTE)

198 I am in favor buying up some unoccupied islands and shipping all the lefties there. We will set them up with a livable infrastructure and defense system, after that we will have no ties with them.

-
After we get them there, the route will be known as the Trail of Whine.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (+y/Ru)

199 193 Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:07 PM (FDnQi)

I hate tyranny more than I love comfort.

They will MAKE YOU bake a cake, and they will not extend gun companies credit to do business Mero.

The boot will NOT stop stamping, ever until we cut the leg off.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (SzZnW)

200 I saw the same thing during the Bush administration but instead of NeverTrumpers there were BushHaters on the Right and BDS on the Left. My imagination says we need to split in three.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (2DOZq)

201 A peaceful divorce is better than the alternative road we are on now. We are not even close to a road that keeps the nation together as a constitutional republic.

Also, because the left has chosen identity politics there is no way they could rule the country as a single nation. It is baked into the cake that the country would divide up.

Posted by: William Eaton at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (MuTTO)

202 I am in favor buying up some unoccupied islands and shipping all the lefties there. We will set them up with a livable infrastructure and defense system, after that we will have no ties with them.
Posted by: thathalfrican

Lot of empty, newly built Chinese cities like Ordos.

The biggest problem being that most Leftists are incapable of learning another language. but, meh - they are always asking to be treated like babies.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (LNPd9)

203 Almost every other civil war in history has literally been neighbor vs. neighbor.

There were some terribad riots in New York City during the Civil War. Also several Southern states were internally divided. Tennessee. The northern and southern fringes of Alabama/Mississippi.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (6FqZa)

204 197 Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (pvjTE)

Siege warfare and food as a weapon of war.

This is a lot more like the 30 years war than the ACW.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (SzZnW)

205 Stop feeding and watering Marxists.
Posted by: Monk
--------

STOP using the goolag.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (FJXGr)

206 May have been mentioned earlier, but two officers down in Dallas.

Scanner: https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/5318

Reports are one officer deceased, the other in critical condition.

Posted by: Bert G at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (yzxic)

207 @193

A little over a year ago, Larry Correia had a post about what happens if the US has Civil War 2.0. And his conclusion was similar - everyone, no matter where they are in the world, loses. And they lose massively.

Posted by: junior at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (PzKK9)

208 201 Posted by: William Eaton at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (MuTTO)

If/when the GOP implodes I will start backing la Raza and MeCHA to split the leftoid paradise.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (SzZnW)

209 Independent (or semi-independent) city-states as a solution. If it has a certain population and a water border they are fee to set their own policies, laws and justice systems. In exchange the citizens of these city-states cannot vote in Federal or state elections, have restricted travel in the hinterlands and certain other agreements.

Posted by: MAGA at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (LnOh3)

210 peaceful divorce is better than the alternative road we are on now. We are not even close to a road that keeps the nation together as a constitutional republic.

Also, because the left has chosen identity politics there is no way they could rule the country as a single nation. It is baked into the cake that the country would divide up.

Posted by: William Eaton at April

we have not even made a serious effort to counterbalance what the left is doing.

national divorce is about as desirable as personal divorce.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (MTjB1)

211 consider for a moment what actions might follow the election of President Kamala Harris .

There may not be split but there sure as hell will be some bigly re-education forced on The Deplorables and some censorship that may be hard to fathom in these halcyon Trump days.

Positive steps: Buy weed futures and Value Rite stocks.

Posted by: Redgrains at April 24, 2018 07:12 PM (WPxnj)

212 The opening salvo of frozen tater tots in this battle is going to be epic. PAINZZZ!

Posted by: Fritz at April 24, 2018 07:12 PM (J7XgW)

213 197 I think the biggest barrier to a breakup, either peacefully or through war, is the progs do not live in contiguous states. The North and the South were easily divided by territory. The same is not true of the left and right today. The left has CA, NY, IL, etc. But, even within the lefty states, there is division. The left has Chicago, but downstate leans right. The real division is urban vs rural. The suburban being more divided, but still more right than left.

How do you separate those factions? The battle lines would look gerrymandered.
Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (pvjTE)

Think ethnic cleansing like in Yugoslavia. Only based on ideology instead of who your parents were.

Ugly, ugly, ugly.

But either they'll be doing the cleansing or we will.

Unless someone ENFORCES a live and let live standard.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:12 PM (xJa6I)

214 The popularity of Jordan Peterson is a good thing.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 24, 2018 07:04 PM (W+vEI)

If we can establish private schools that teach resilience instead of fragility, we have a chance at reversing the Long March.

As Peterson has often said, you can't make your children safe by protecting them from every conceivable harm, but you can help them get stronger so they can deal with problems themselves.

Both from an instinct to overprotect and from a desire to see the world through a lens of victims and oppressors, schools have taught children to be fragile.

Countering that pulls the rug out from under the hysterical far left.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:13 PM (FDnQi)

215 I fear that there will be no change without very real sacrifice.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 07:13 PM (FJXGr)

216 The American union was based in Christian belief that our rights are granted by God and I believe that our union as Americans was protected by God. I pray that he will continue to shine his blessings on our country but I fear that we have turned away from him. God is our only hope. I pray that the great breakup is mostly peaceful and that the United States of America will remain the last best hope of humanity. I fear it will not.

Posted by: USNtakim prfoundly deplorable! at April 24, 2018 07:13 PM (0OmEj)

217 Whoa.

Much like ChuckCW on the Abolishing the 2nd A.

Let's go there.

Let's have the discussion.

But it won't. We can't even talk about 39 week abortions.

Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (If3tB)

218 It's nice out and no one is shooting at me yet.

So I'm going to take the dog out.

Be strong, be cool, crew.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (xJa6I)

219 I think civil war will be here in 20 years. The next time the left gets power I think they will go full socialist/communist and the right will have to start the fight after unsuccessfully petitioning for constitutional rights to be restored.

Posted by: bossybarb at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (7czoZ)

220 omg. check out Melania's gown..livestream at cspan

Posted by: IC at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (a0IVu)

221 In almost every collapse of civil order, killings skyrocket. Grudge killings. Because who will punish you?

For us, strengthen relationships with your friends and co-belligerents. Have each other's back.

The Left in particular should fear this.

And as always, have a plan B. And OPSEC, OPSEC, OPSEC.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (hyuyC)

222 There wete draft riots in most majpr northern cities during the ACW ( thats the usual designation)

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (aC6Sd)

223 203
There were some terribad riots in New York City during the Civil War. Also several Southern states were internally divided. Tennessee. The northern and southern fringes of Alabama/Mississippi.
Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (6FqZa)

Also South Carolina in the American Revolution was practically a civil war.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:14 PM (sdi6R)

224 As Vince Vaughn said in "Clay Pigeons":

Some people just need-NEED-killing.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (EoRCO)

225 This all could have been prevented right in our very own schools. We turned a blind eye to what was going with educational indoctrination. The panic button was hit after it was far too late.

Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (Tyii7)

226 Any split would require the agreement of the leaders of both factions ( assume by political party) followed by a five to eight year transition period. During this time assets , debt , treaties, etc would be addressed . Also during this time , companies and people would make their location decisions .

My dream is to be on the ground floor as a relocation broker.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (2DOZq)

227 well, even if we did split along contiguous lines, red America will no longer have direct access to the pacific and we will not and hawaii will not be coming with us either.

there is lots of stuff in california, washington, and oregon, that is useful and we would lose it. same with new york and its financial power.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (MTjB1)

228 There is a decent chance that we would lose any armed conflict.

People with ICBM's don't lose wars they're willing to fight.

Posted by: DaveA at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (FhXTo)

229 One problem with all this "national divorce" horseshit is the implicit assumption that once cleaved in half the bloodsucking progressives will keep to themselves leaving the rest of us in peace.

They fucking won't and everyone goddamn well knows it.

The progressive fuckwad left are "internationalist" and will just spread themselves like a fucking virus. Every group ya it's quislings like the GOPe and it wouldn't be long before some cocksucking shrill cuny waft in Real America came along demanding her safe spaces and some faggot panty sniffing white Knight backs her up and the same shit happens and it's just keeps going.

It's not possible to take ur ball and go home. There is no "safe space". This shit either gets confronted head on or we're all fucking doomed.

Posted by: Robert, mildly annoyed at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (ayUOl)

230 we have not even made a serious effort to counterbalance what the left is doing.

national divorce is about as desirable as personal divorce.
Posted by: yankeefifth
-----------

This is true. It is the slow boil, and no one is reacting. They probably won't.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (c/EDo)

231 The Left would never do a peaceful divorce.
They get off on forcing everyone to do what they want. Live and let live is no longer in their vocabulary, not after 8 years of Obama forcing nuns to buy birth control, etc.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (W+vEI)

232 Before I finish reading, let me offer an idea that everyone seems to overlook --

What if we divided the country into 50 STATES, and limit the federal powers to FEW and ENUMERATED?

Crazy, huh.

Posted by: Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest at April 24, 2018 07:16 PM (LWu6U)

233 223 203
There were some terribad riots in New York City during the Civil War. Also several Southern states were internally divided. Tennessee. The northern and southern fringes of Alabama/Mississippi.
Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 24, 2018 07:10 PM (6FqZa)

Whatcha talkin bout Willis?

Posted by: West Virginia at April 24, 2018 07:16 PM (2DOZq)

234 I think the biggest barrier to a breakup, either peacefully or through war, is the progs do not live in contiguous states. The North and the South were easily divided by territory. The same is not true of the left and right today. The left has CA, NY, IL, etc. But, even within the lefty states, there is division. The left has Chicago, but downstate leans right. The real division is urban vs rural. The suburban being more divided, but still more right than left.

How do you separate those factions? The battle lines would look gerrymandered.
Posted by: Anon Y. Mous

_____________

There would have to be zones formed where people vote with their feet which side they want to be on.

So if you're say a Trump voter and live in Los Angeles, you're probably going to have to leave or adapt to the new country.

But geographically, 99% of the "problem" is located in about 1% of the land mass. The problem as you pointed out is the areas are not all in one spot.

I still say though, 7 out of 10 problems would be solved if California broke off and did their own thing. There's where most of the lunacy comes from.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:16 PM (lKmt3)

235 NaCly Dog- + 1,000

Posted by: Ben Had at April 24, 2018 07:16 PM (lV4ho)

236 229 Posted by: Robert, mildly annoyed at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (ayUOl)

Belgium and Holland have peacefully coexisted for a long time.

If the left runs their economy as well as I am counting on they implode in 45 years anyway and we start buying their land.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:17 PM (SzZnW)

237 People with ICBM's don't lose wars they're willing to fight.
Posted by: DaveA at April

who says we would have them?

besides, the middle of a civil war would be the ideal time for the russian and chicom militaries to ally and nuke us.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:17 PM (MTjB1)

238 If we break up it will be the stupidest, laziest thing we've ever done, and it shames all the people who have fought, died and shed blood for this country.

It would be an act of idiotic proportions.

No matter how bad you think it is now, it would be 1000 times worse, and you wouldn't have good coffee, butter, or sugar to get through it.

As far as the word "unthinkable", I disagree with ace's criticism of the word, and that the guy is saying we are all idiots. The guy was not using it in that context. But ace is sick, and thus probably surly, and I'm tired and don't want no arguments. So I'll leave it there, for now. Don't taze me bro.

Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (xE5n0)

239 >>> I'm still sketchy on these horrible crimes of which Trump is guilty.

Trump is a New Yorker (default a lib) who loves American and Americans more than the other (who he actually has no malice for).

Those are the crimes they hate him for.

If they take down Trump they better be ready for the next iteration who will still Americans more than the other, but absolutely hate traitors. The whole lot of 'them' lack the imagination and realism to realize this.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (Eu5eZ)

240 230 Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (c/EDo)

Right around the time they start "cold dead handsing" your neighbors we'll know.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (SzZnW)

241 160 Also buy guns and ammo.

If you need suggestions as to what or where, there are experts and also idiots like me around to help.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at April 24, 2018 07:01 PM (xJa6I)

And food. Freeze dried food is a great option.

Try going camping for the weekend as a way to sample the reality of what will be the new norm.

Find out what stuff you forgot and make a list of it, like an axe or knife or frying pan. Fire starter, TP, a container for water. Simple stuff.

Most importantly however, is to link up now with like-minded people so you know who you can count on before the cray-cray starts.

Posted by: LeftCoast Dawg at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (UsCnO)

242 227 well, even if we did split along contiguous lines, red America will no longer have direct access to the pacific and we will not and hawaii will not be coming with us either.

there is lots of stuff in california, washington, and oregon, that is useful and we would lose it. same with new york and its financial power.
Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:15 PM (MTjB1)

You are dividing using state borders . That's not a requirement.

Posted by: West Virginia at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (2DOZq)

243 There would have to be zones formed where people vote with their feet which side they want to be on.

So if you're say a Trump voter and live in Los Angeles, you're probably going to have to leave or adapt to the new country.

But geographically, 99% of the "problem" is located in about 1% of the land mass. The problem as you pointed out is the areas are not all in one spot.

I still say though, 7 out of 10 problems would be solved if California broke off and did their own thing. There's where most of the lunacy comes from.
Posted by: Maritime at April

so, those people are going to want to forfeit their houses and businesses and become refugees in the other country?

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (MTjB1)

244 national divorce is about as desirable as personal divorce.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (MTjB1)

++++

That's true. What's also true is that a marriage can turn into open warfare. At that point, as damaging as it may be, divorce is a better solution than being trapped in a no-win battle.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (pvjTE)

245 >>I think civil war will be here in 20 years. The next time the left gets power I think they will go full socialist/communist and the right will have to start the fight after unsuccessfully petitioning for constitutional rights to be restored.

In this morning's JJ post there's a link about guaranteed employment that the Dems are pushing. This links to an article about the Democrat platform, and yes, it is going for all the stuff they've previously been doing quietly, incrementally. And yes, Soros is behind it as this is based on Center for American Progress policy ides.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (W+vEI)

246 So NYC, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Miami, Houston could all gain independence or some measure thereof in exchange for withdrawing participation in the Federal and state electoral process.

Posted by: MAGA at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (LnOh3)

247 Having been through a divorce, I think the divorce metaphor is particularly apt. Right now America's at the in-between stage when both spouses have mentally checked out of the marriage, but nobody's gone to a divorce lawyer yet because they're both still too intimidated by the thought of all the paperwork, legal fees, support payments, etc. Eventually, though, things reach the point where this ceases to be a stumbling block for one or both parties.

I don't think there's any question at this point that the U.S. is going to formally split; the only question is what the precipitating event will be. Right now we're being held together purely by inertia. Now, inertia is very powerful, but it isn't an unstoppable force, and eventually it will collide with an immovable object.

There is an alternative, but far less likely scenario: I've seen couples who were on the brink of divorce brought together by tragedy, and go on to have long and happy marriages. I know that's counterintuitive -- tragedies probably drive couples apart more than they bring them together -- but it does happen. I suppose some huge, unexpected calamity could bring Americans back together again, but I wouldn't count on it.

Posted by: Ex-liberal at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (R1mDg)

248 we break up it will be the stupidest, laziest thing we've ever done, and it shames all the people who have fought, died and shed blood for this country.

It would be an act of idiotic proportions.

No matter how bad you think it is now, it would be 1000 times worse, and you wouldn't have good coffee, butter, or sugar to get through it.

As far as the word "unthinkable", I disagree with ace's criticism of the word, and that the guy is saying we are all idiots. The guy was not using it in that context. But ace is sick, and thus probably surly, and I'm tired and don't want no arguments. So I'll leave it there, for now. Don't taze me bro.
Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April

don't make me agree with you.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (MTjB1)

249 The boot will NOT stop stamping, ever until we cut the leg off.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (SzZnW)

You can't cut stupidity off by giving it a nuclear-armed country on your doorstep.

And no, you don't get to dictate the terms of that separation, you're a commenter on social media (blogs are social media).

You cut it off by cutting off its support, and since it's support is ignorant and fragile people, you educate (for real and not the BS we have now) and inculcate resilience in as many people as you can.

But that's hard work, let's just ask for an implausible magic boundary change that no one will agree to as the solution.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is simple, obvious, and wrong.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:20 PM (FDnQi)

250 Geraghty got demoted out of the headline?

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:20 PM (pvjTE)

251 197
The real division is urban vs rural. The suburban being more divided, but still more right than left.

How do you separate those factions? The battle lines would look gerrymandered.
Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:09 PM (pvjTE)

That's why I say that the purple suburbs will be the front lines. There is simply no way to divide them by geography.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:20 PM (sdi6R)

252 Kamala Harris as President would be much like Jerry Brown as Govenor.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse - Not Woke atall at April 24, 2018 07:21 PM (roQNm)

253 There is an alternative, but far less likely scenario: I've seen couples who were on the brink of divorce brought together by tragedy, and go on to have long and happy marriages. I know that's counterintuitive -- tragedies probably drive couples apart more than they bring them together -- but it does happen. I suppose some huge, unexpected calamity could bring Americans back together again, but I wouldn't count on it.
Posted by: Ex-liberal at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (R1mDg)

We have this covered.

Posted by: The Global Deep State at April 24, 2018 07:21 PM (J567a)

254 Friendlies and enemies are all mixed.

There are no lines.

Posted by: dDan at April 24, 2018 07:21 PM (hwYmz)

255 There will be no National Divorce.

There will be a Totalitarian State.

There is no place to hide from Surveillance.

Those who fight back will be crushed.

Eventually a Major Disaster will be used as a pretext... probably a nuke.

Posted by: davidt at April 24, 2018 07:21 PM (djCea)

256 This is my problem with the national divorce talk.

I think it is possible, and I think it addresses a problem, but the wrong one. It is like cutting off your dick because of syphilis. Sure, CA is like a syphilitic genitalia, and we would be better to wack it off like Elaina Bobbit, but it will not cure the disease.

The disease is too much centralized power and control. I do not know how to fix that, but I fear focusing on divorce is just a diversion and will solve nothing, even if it is possible.

Posted by: Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest at April 24, 2018 07:21 PM (LWu6U)

257 There is an alternative, but far less likely scenario: I've seen couples who were on the brink of divorce brought together by tragedy, and go on to have long and happy marriages. I know that's counterintuitive -- tragedies probably drive couples apart more than they bring them together -- but it does happen. I suppose some huge, unexpected calamity could bring Americans back together again, but I wouldn't count on it.
Posted by: Ex-liberal at April 24, 2018 07:19 PM (R1mDg)

And the distain for paying lawyers...

Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:21 PM (If3tB)

258 If the country splits apart, I can just imagine China and Russia trying to militarily seize our nuckear forces to prevent rogue revolutionaries from using weapons. They will want to protect the children.

In other words, prepare to be invaded.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, Vigilence Committee supporter at April 24, 2018 07:22 PM (rBnYq)

259 238 Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 07:18 PM (xE5n0)

Yeah I know my family's war dead here for this nation was predicated on the Federal Government being able to force me to buy Sandy Fluke hoo hoo pills, or contra-constitutional disarmament....

No, I think the left wants The People's Republic of America and I want the United States....

of course let's reflect on that "UnitedStates"

United "as in existing structures joining one another in Union"
States "as in we predate the Republic and our own entities"

If a vote was ever taken nationally like a Constitutional Convention to declare the civil service our masters I missed it.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:22 PM (SzZnW)

260 The country has already split a couple of different ways. Very little unites the two main groups of people in the country. All that remains is the legal political and geographical separation.

This final event could make the mass exodus from British India look tame by comparison.

Posted by: WarEagle82 at April 24, 2018 07:22 PM (xUc0d)

261 "Here's my plan. We win, they lose."

-Ronald Reagan

A breakdown, a split in society, is thinkable because it's already happening.

The Left/Deep State/Globalists have to be crushed. There will be no peaceful coexistence after a splt. The Confederacy could no coexist with the North. Pushing the Japanese back to their home islands in WW2 was not enough. It couldn't be left that way because then it would not be over.

There will be no coexistence after a split. There has to be a winner. One winner.

I have read that one theory of how to repair a decayed organization is effectively start a new organization, and cannibalize what people and assets can be salvaged from the old organization. No reform. Gutting of the old for what can be used.

Posted by: Semi-Literate Thug at April 24, 2018 07:23 PM (xl7E9)

262 http://www.thediplomad.com
Lewis is taking a calmer approach, buy popcorn
He's always a good short read.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 07:23 PM (aC6Sd)

263 we have not even made a serious effort to counterbalance what the left is doing.

national divorce is about as desirable as personal divorce.
Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (MTjB1)

Thank you. We haven't even made a half-serious effort. I would launch into how we could, but last time I did that it was not popular, so I promised I'd zip it from now on. So I can't launch into it. *zipping it*

Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 07:23 PM (xE5n0)

264 A "friend" of my wife's texted her a picture of a present she bought for our adopted daughter - the John Oliver book about the gay bunny, the book meant to ruin the prospects of a book written by Mike Pence's daughter, also about a bunny.

My wife tells me this, and I'm sad to say that I'm not shocked. There's nothing like indoctrinating the babies - who were meant to be aborted - with hateful crap about where you should want to put your genitalia if you wanna be thought of as cool enough to get on HBO regularly.

It seems that there's a new some one or some family every week that I have to tell my wife will no longer be allowed inside my home because of their poisonous politics. These people are just insufferably awful and can't be tolerated. We've always been the polite ones, not them, so I find no shame in declaring that I'm well past trying to live peacefully with them.

These are not my wishes, they are theirs.

There can be no other resolution to this than a shooting war. It's coming like winter, the winter of our Republic.

Posted by: Matt Foley at April 24, 2018 07:23 PM (vluM2)

265 An excellent point Mark Steyn makes is that the illusion of permanence is very powerful. Imagine telling somebody in 1910 that the German, Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires would all be gone by the end of the decade.

By my own observation, the parallels between modern America and the fall of Rome are pretty uncanny, but the good news is the Eastern half of the empire survived for another thousand years.

Posted by: Biggs Darklighter at April 24, 2018 07:24 PM (Er9Tf)

266 There is no chance.

We've had this war before. Republicans won last time, too.

Want to see Trump on fire(in a good way)? Have a liberal area secede from the Union. The military would rapidly rally to the federal government, Democrats would dissolve into a million factions, and Trump Democrats (working class, they are a thing) would overwhelm the college kid and yuppie fraction of the country.

Posted by: Sherwin Amiran at April 24, 2018 07:24 PM (TDVlm)

267 And we're so abused, and we're so confused
It's easy to believe that someone's gonna light the fuse
Can't happen here, can't happen here
All that you fear they're telling you, can't happen here

Posted by: Rainbow at April 24, 2018 07:24 PM (JXYo5)

268 I wrote a letter to Kyle Kashuv and was going to enclose the latest revision of my redacted FBI complaint. I see from the earlier post I have to rewrite the letter.

Since he says that they attempted to intimidate him I will be filing federal felony charges against the people involved.

18 U.S. Code 241 specifically makes that a major federal felony.

"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person
in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the
free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by
the Constitution..."

Posted by: An Observation at April 24, 2018 07:24 PM (ltGLk)

269 post-divorce short version:

the right-wing america is larger in area and smaller in population. it's mostly white christians in the center of the country, so it's relatively homogeneous. it's also relatively poorer. its politics is primarily divided between libertarian-types and social conservative-types. the united states constitution is kept pretty much intact, except maybe the income tax amendment and the voting age at 18 amendment being removed.

the left-wing america is confined mostly to the coasts, so it's actually split into two separate parts. it's very urban and very diverse. whites are a minority. large portions of the united states constitution are scrapped or seriously amended (like the first and second amendments...), and other parts are added - fundamental rights to free healthcare, a living wage, etc. its politics is primarily divided between bernie-style old-school socialists and identity-politics-obsessed cultural marxists.

think of the left-wing america as the UK/Sweden, and the right-wing america as poland/hungary. right-wing america is less affluent (at least at first...), but safer and has more stable politics.

Posted by: zucked at April 24, 2018 07:25 PM (KL5Ns)

270 the likelihood of the right starting a civil war or responding in a coordinated way to dictatorial oppression from the left is pure fantasy.

how would we even negotiate a split? who would we send to negotiate for us?

when people are not willing to do the simple easy stuff they are not likely to do the big hard stuff.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:25 PM (MTjB1)

271 The 2A and presence of many guns in civilian hands should, per an analysis similar to MAD that ace references above, lead to a greater likelihood of a peaceful solution, not less likely.

I'm sure both sides would want to get some licks in, and it may not be fun to be the minority on the wrong side of the line when it gets drawn, but if it comes to it a divide ought to be do-able without another Killing Fields.

Posted by: TexasDan at April 24, 2018 07:25 PM (yL25O)

272 A little over a year ago, Larry Correia had a post about what happens if the US has Civil War 2.0. And his conclusion was similar - everyone, no matter where they are in the world, loses. And they lose massively.

Posted by: junior at April 24, 2018 07:11 PM (PzKK9)

Of all the civil wars in history, there are about three where anyone ended up better of than where they started. We lucked the f*** out once.

I don't think you can wargame this one into a win, if you take it seriously.

A lot of things around the world have been getting better and no one gives a crap. We have a weird mental complex that causes most humans most of the time to obsess on the negative.

Oh, we have problems, we just keep making a lot of them better and better and none of it counts. More people have clean water and power than 20 years ago, huge numbers. People are finding ways to work and earn money in huge numbers. The effing Saudis of all people are arresting terror funders and making googly eyes at Israel.

We need to spend some energy shoring up the good stuff and focus on being strong enough to weather the future. Not let some grungy radicals push us into giving up our territory or blowing up our territory.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:26 PM (FDnQi)

273 Our country is broke both culturally and economically. We either have a controlled landing or things will get ugly by 2030.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 07:26 PM (J567a)

274 "The trouble is, history is always running, 24/7/365.24.."

So history takes a break for one quarter of one percent of the days in a year????

Bazinga!!!

Posted by: Sheldon Lee Cooper at April 24, 2018 07:26 PM (l2max)

275 Those who say that the United States cannot break up only because it hasn't happened before

Well ... it did happen once before.

What really could never happen in America is that an Indonesian, America-hating retard would hold the largest campaign rally in American history ... in a foreign country, for a bunch of fuzzy foreigners, financed in part by a foreign government and then actually be elected to the Presidency, a job for which he was ineligible, to begin with. THAT could never happen in America.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at April 24, 2018 07:27 PM (8gDQu)

276 so, those people are going to want to forfeit their houses and businesses and become refugees in the other country?
Posted by: yankeefifth

______________

It's up to them like it is now. Just like living in California vs Texas.

I'm not saying this is ideal, but if a peaceful splitting up occurs, people could obviously sell their homes or land and move elsewhere, assuming this "new" country honors private property rights. Or try living there.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:27 PM (lKmt3)

277 If we keep having things like Kyle Kashuv being detained by armed thugs because his father took him to a firing range, the chances of civil war increase significantly.

Posted by: The ARC of History at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (Mrl1e)

278 excellent point Mark Steyn makes is that the illusion of permanence is very powerful. Imagine telling somebody in 1910 that the German, Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires would all be gone by the end of the decade.

By my own observation, the parallels between modern America and the fall of Rome are pretty uncanny, but the good news is the Eastern half of the empire survived for another thousand years.
Posted by: Biggs Darklighter at April

the problem on this thread is the belief that the disunity is the new permanent state and the failure to imagine how bad the divorce would be.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (MTjB1)

279 when people are not willing to do the simple easy stuff they are not likely to do the big hard stuff.
Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:25 PM (MTjB1)

Like delete Facebook accounts?

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (J567a)

280 No, hey we're not at war! Now give us your guns, or we'll take them forcefully if we have to, you filthy, cousin-humpin' mouth-breather.

Posted by: Fritz at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (J7XgW)

281 One in a million shot, Doc.

Posted by: that guy at the ER at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (yQpMk)

282 I wrote a letter to Kyle Kashuv and was going to enclose the latest revision of my redacted FBI complaint. I see from the earlier post I have to rewrite the letter.

Since he says that they attempted to intimidate him I will be filing federal felony charges against the people involved.

18 U.S. Code 241 specifically makes that a major federal felony.

"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person
in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the
free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by
the Constitution..."
Posted by: An Observation at April 24, 2018 07:24 PM (ltGLk)

Good for an observation.

Can we sing on to that thing that Levin always talks about? Drawing a blank.

Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (If3tB)

283 This final event could make the mass exodus from British India look tame by comparison.
Posted by: WarEagle82 at April 24, 2018 07:22 PM (xUc0d)

I was thinking more along the lines of the Asians fleeing Uganda in 1972.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 24, 2018 07:29 PM (EoRCO)

284 272 Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:26 PM (FDnQi)

Things are getting better in most of the world?

That's funny I see Jihadists able to kill with impunity in western civ, I see Europe blowing its brains out demographically along with Japan, and I see the international communist left running the table in the culture wars everywhere English is spoken.

Need I go on?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:29 PM (SzZnW)

285 we can't even agree on the desirability of boycott or implement and effective one against a sporting goods store or a manufacturer of high-end coolers and we are going to negotiate a split or go to war? good luck.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:30 PM (MTjB1)

286 Nazi Germany didn't become Nazi overnight. It happened incrementally while everyone poo poo'd the idea that Hitler would achieve power. All the 'smart' people were on board with Hitler, and he leveraged the media and industry to gain his stranglehold.

To think that something like that couldn't happen here is absurd, and the revelation of the activities of the 'deep state' damn sure ought to send shivers up your spine.

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at April 24, 2018 07:30 PM (qeI0f)

287 and the failure to imagine how bad the divorce would be.

--

I don't expect to live through it.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse - Not Woke atall at April 24, 2018 07:30 PM (roQNm)

288 I would point out that the left, and Vichy right, are already far beyond thoughts of America splitting. They are working towards the end of the very concept of the nation-state, itself.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at April 24, 2018 07:30 PM (8gDQu)

289 So NYC, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Miami, Houston could all gain independence or some measure thereof in exchange for withdrawing participation in the Federal and state electoral process.

Posted by: MAGA <<<

Give them independence then isolate them.

Posted by: gNewt at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (3q554)

290 when people are not willing to do the simple easy stuff they are not likely to do the big hard stuff.
Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:25 PM (MTjB1)

Like delete Facebook accounts?
Posted by: Monk at April

yep. or quit paying hollywood to make movies about values you disagree with.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (MTjB1)

291 Imagine telling somebody in 1910 that the German, Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires would all be gone by the end of the decade.

I took a vacation trip to Croatia a few years ago, and noted that in the last century or so, the place that we were staying at had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Communist Yugoslavia, and independent Croatia.

The US has been more stable than that, but that can change.

Posted by: The ARC of History at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (Mrl1e)

292 Actually, it's a failure of imagination on the part of those who think that secession from the United States is possible.

They fail to imagine what could happen if a portion of the United States attempted to secede from the Union.

Why they fail to imagine this is not a mystery. Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" cannot imagine a scenario wherein secession faces massive public opposition both inside and outside the areas attempting to secede, and immense public pressure on the government, both the federal government and the government(s) of the seceding area(s) to halt the secession.

Which is what would actually happen, with the failure of secession following thereafter. Most likely shortly thereafter. This is something that Ace simply cannot imagine, so it is an impossibility to him.

Just because Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" would blithely say good riddance to 'progressive' areas of the country doesn't mean that most people or even most conservatives would do the same. They would not.

Secession itself would be the crisis. The Union, which is not something people would readily abandon no matter how much Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" thinks people would readily abandon it, would not be readily abandoned.

This is a Pauline Kael moment for Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" and the others who think that there is "very little" that "unites the two main groups of people in the country" and that these "two main groups" are not interested in living with each other.

Actually, we are talking about two very small groups, the Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" group and the 'progressive' group. Not "main groups." The "main groups" of the country have no interest in secession and would actively, if necessarily violently, oppose secession.

Get over it. Not going to happen. Sorry your lack of imagination can't conceive that.

Posted by: deepelemblues at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (iwWHZ)

293 Fifteen or twenty five years ago, it appeared that Canada might be on the verge of dissolution and there was a question of which provinces might seek to join the United States and which might and might not be allowed to join.

Ironically, soon we might be asking which US states might seek to join the Canadian Federation and which might and might not be allowed to join.

Before Obama, or maybe before the 2nd Bush-43 term, I would have laughed if someone told me I would feel the way I feel now. Not only do I think a violent political split is possible but I now believe it highly probable!

That doesn't mean I think it is a good thing, but the left doesn't want to be part of an actual Constitutional Republic such as we were at our founding.

Posted by: WarEagle82 at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (xUc0d)

294 278 Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:28 PM (MTjB1)

The left threw a tantrum undermining Bush for 8 years, then decided once Mocha Jesus was over "YAY UNITY", they are now throwing a fit again....

I guess the left left "unity" in its other pants eh?

They are FAR more off the hook than we were with their Chicago Jesus....

I plan to do all in my power to be worse than they have been with their thus far 10 year temper tantrum at Presidential Power not wielded by a communist.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (SzZnW)

295 and the failure to imagine how bad the divorce would be.

--

I don't expect to live through it.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse - Not Woke atall at April 24, 2018 07:30 PM (roQNm)

I won't make it to it. despite all the talk, when the trough runs dry, that's when it starts. I say 2035. Glad I have only one kid.

Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (If3tB)

296 should we let the country split and lose everything gained since our founding the shame will be ours.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (MTjB1)

297 Thank you. We haven't even made a half-serious effort. I would launch into how we could, but last time I did that it was not popular, so I promised I'd zip it from now on. So I can't launch into it. *zipping it*
Posted by: prof disarray

______________

I'd honestly like to know other alternatives. I don't know what you do with 50 million plus people that are going to keep voting and believing a certain way besides each side having their own country.

I personally think if California left and did their own thing, a lot of stuff would fall into place rather quickly as I see that part of the country being the most "cancerous". If I was President and California formally seceded, no way would I send in troops to stop them. It would be a huge blessing, my guess is a few coastal cities would be blue and the rest would want to stay with the US.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (lKmt3)

298 Right on topic:

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7jgovyy

Posted by: Bicentennialguy at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (nILVB)

299 Posted by: zombie Haggard
----
Haggard the Horrible is dead?

Posted by: andycanuck at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (VBKy9)

300 I took a vacation trip to Croatia a few years ago, and noted that in the last century or so, the place that we were staying at had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Communist Yugoslavia, and independent Croatia.

The US has been more stable than that, but that can change.

Posted by: The ARC of History at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (Mrl1e)

France is already in its 5th republic ... and they have the temerity to still call the place "France". I think it was accepted galactic law that by the 4th republic you had to change the name of the place.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (8gDQu)

301 the problem on this thread is the belief that the disunity is the new permanent state

And you think otherwise?

Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (Tyii7)

302 I just wonder if there really are enough of the hardcore leftist assholes out there to bother with a divorce... perhaps more like just give them their own state, then send them to their room without any supper.....

Posted by: SSBN 656 (G) at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (5AVMW)

303 The left threw a tantrum undermining Bush for 8 years, then decided once Mocha Jesus was over "YAY UNITY", they are now throwing a fit again....

I guess the left left "unity" in its other pants eh?

They are FAR more off the hook than we were with their Chicago Jesus....

I plan to do all in my power to be worse than they have been with their thus far 10 year temper tantrum at Presidential Power not wielded by a communist.
Posted by: sven10077 at April

don't care what they do. I don't want to be like them or live in a place they would design, most other people don't either.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (MTjB1)

304 The progs are parasites. Who would feed them after.....

Posted by: PhilDirt at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (7PrjV)

305 THE LEFT WILL BE THE DIVORCED WIFE THAT NEVER WORKED, NEVER WANTS TO WORK, AND DEMANDS MORE ALIMONY THAN YOU MAKE.

Sorry, caps on but I'm not retyping.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (pw+jk)

306 "If a People (capitalization intended) no longer act in fact like a People, how long will they remain, formally, officially, a People?"

Like I told my wife when one of her brothers got divorced. When two people don't act like they're married t each other, it's only a matter of time until they aren't.

Posted by: Advo at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (By5RL)

307 the problem on this thread is the belief that the disunity is the new permanent state

And you think otherwise?
Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April

yep. first of all it is relatively new. second of all we have not made a serious effort to persuade anyone of our position.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (MTjB1)

308 >>>Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus"

I'm not sure what you mean, but you've peaked my interest.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (pvjTE)

309 Posted by: deepelemblues at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (iwWHZ)

You need to jump up and down, stomping your feet, after you write something like that.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (8gDQu)

310 288 I would point out that the left, and Vichy right, are already far beyond thoughts of America splitting. They are working towards the end of the very concept of the nation-state, itself.
Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at April 24, 2018 07:30 PM (8gDQu)

Exactly. Their objective is World Government, and blowing up nation-states is a feature, not a bug.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (sdi6R)

311 303 Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (MTjB1)

They've won the popular vote 4 of the last 5 elections champ.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:35 PM (SzZnW)

312 and the failure to imagine how bad the divorce would be.

It would be horrific.

Doesn't mean it can't happen.

Posted by: The ARC of History at April 24, 2018 07:35 PM (Mrl1e)

313 A New York 1 BD apartment full of ammo in Jesus land might have something to say about how the divorce goes. Well, times 150 million.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (pw+jk)

314 Sorry your lack of imagination can't conceive that.

Posted by: deepelemblues[/i

Sorry your lack of imagination thinks Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" is clever and bears lots of repetition.

Posted by: pep at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (LAe3v)

315 This reminds me of Global Warming / Climate change. The status quo is omnipotent.

Things are always going to change, like it or not. Somalia was something other than the shithole it is now and Iraq will be different 20 years from now as well.

Posted by: Ben Had at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (lV4ho)

316 What's so great about a united immoral Socialist America?

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (2DOZq)

317 Growing up in the Cold War it seemed impossible the status quo could change. Not just impossible, but unthinkable. The end of the Soviet Union was unimaginable, like contemplating the end of the universe.

Yet it happened. The daily news was happening so fast there was barly time to take tit all in. Then suddenly Cold War was over and the Soviet Union in the trash heap of history, just as Reagan predicted.

Yes things can change and very rapidly, and not necessarily for the better. The arc of history is not preset as the left would like it to be.

Posted by: Ripley at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (NbRJx)

318 I won't make it to it. despite all the talk, when the trough runs dry, that's when it starts. I say 2035. Glad I have only one kid.
Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (If3tB)

Yup....once the boomers die off and the Ponzi schemes we created run dry, it's Kaboom time.

Of course, I'll be dead by then. 2050 at the latest.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (EoRCO)

319 yep. first of all it is relatively new. second of all we have not made a serious effort to persuade anyone of our position.

Well, I certainly applaud your optimism. And that's not sarcasm.

Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (Tyii7)

320 Actually, we are talking about two very small groups, the Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" group and the 'progressive' group. Not "main groups." The "main groups" of the country have no interest in secession and would actively, if necessarily violently, oppose secession.

Get over it. Not going to happen. Sorry your lack of imagination can't conceive that.
Posted by: deepelemblues at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (iwWHZ)

The main groups won't actively and violently oppose ANYTHNG.

Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (If3tB)

321 310 Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (sdi6R)

Yup, and do note the "obliteration of the nation state" coincides with "Islam everywhere"...

I don't see a lot of pressure for enforced immigration into China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, or Africa but I see a lot of demand Europe and North America is for everybody.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (SzZnW)

322 Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (MTjB1)

They've won the popular vote 4 of the last 5 elections champ.
Posted by: sven10077 at April

was there a reasoned discussion of politics, the history of the country, the role and meaning of the Constitution, or simply a lot of shouting and emoting by the mfm?

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (MTjB1)

323 They've won the popular vote 4 of the last 5 elections champ.

Because of California. The operating assumption is that coastal California will not be part of the United States (not a voting part, at least) when the smoke clears.

Posted by: The ARC of History at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (Mrl1e)

324 Thank you. We haven't even made a half-serious effort. I would launch into how we could, but last time I did that it was not popular, so I promised I'd zip it from now on. So I can't launch into it. *zipping it*

Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 07:23 PM (xE5n0)

Oh, I will. Liberals change shit, conservatives bitch about it. On *very* rare occasions there's a law (tax bills) or litigation (various lawsuits agains gun laws) that make a difference, but the more time the right have been doing jack shit about problems the more angry the rhetoric is getting.

File lawsuits, start schools, win offices, write laws, teach kids, build businesses, build communities... or just bitch. That's always an option.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (FDnQi)

325 The established precedent, by force of Arms, is No.

Next question?

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (4tG7v)

326 I just wonder if there really are enough of the hardcore leftist assholes out there to bother with a divorce... perhaps more like just give them their own state, then send them to their room without any supper.....

Posted by: SSBN 656 (G)
--------------------------------------

The problem is that they are never satisfied.

Posted by: gNewt at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (3q554)

327 yep. first of all it is relatively new. second of all we have not made a serious effort to persuade anyone of our position.
Posted by: yankeefifth

__________

I think this goes beyond a marketing problem.

It's sort of like saying we shouldn't be at war with Islamic fanatics and instead should be trying harder to teach them Christianity.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (lKmt3)

328 When I was still an active duty intelligence officer and we watched the breakup of the Soviet Union, I told my colleagues there was no law, no rule that said that would not occur here.
It very definitely can happen here.

Posted by: Diogenes at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (sRR1j)

329 As far as CA secession goes; I'm not willing to cede this entire state for the sake of LA and SanFran.

Posted by: Eisenhorn at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (F6tBH)

330 What's so great about a united immoral Socialist America?

It will be simply mahvelous!

Posted by: Zombie Calugula at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (Tyii7)

331 Of all the civil wars in history, there are about three where anyone ended up better of than where they started.

You thinking of Augustan Rome perchance?

It had a good run, but they lucked out on the Roman Climate Optimum.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (6FqZa)

332 Well, I certainly applaud your optimism. And that's not sarcasm.
Posted by: That deplorable guy who always says... at April

well, thanks. have no intention of ceding anything permanently to those on the left that hate the country.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (MTjB1)

333 Here I am with all my hair and no lighter fluid in sight.

Posted by: grammie winger - the snow has melted! - at April 24, 2018 07:39 PM (lwiT4)

334 Changing of the sock.

Posted by: tbodie at April 24, 2018 07:39 PM (REkPr)

335 322 Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (MTjB1)

The lack of good classical American Civic Virtue tells you their "unity" is not in their other pants...

They have been throwing a tantrum since 1996.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:39 PM (SzZnW)

336 The Blue America would eventually need to seek protection from Red America.

Posted by: SFgoth at April 24, 2018 07:39 PM (dZ756)

337 Nood

Posted by: A dude in MI at April 24, 2018 07:39 PM (CDETr)

338 Posted by: deepelemblues at April 24, 2018 07:31 PM (iwWHZ)

You need to jump up and down, stomping your feet, after you write something like that.
Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair

Dude. If he jumped up and down he would just drop the roach clip .

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 24, 2018 07:39 PM (LNPd9)

339 292. I agree - no secession. Physical Removal.

Posted by: Your Decidedly Devious Uncle Palpatine at April 24, 2018 07:40 PM (fA1SL)

340 In Germany in the 1920-30s there were far stronger people than in the special snowflake era of today. The NAZIs were like 13-16% of the populace. The zealous and crazy can make the weak and happy move lots in the wrong direction. Hopefully some have learned from history.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable and Profoundly Unserious at April 24, 2018 07:40 PM (pw+jk)

341 Take the coastal area of California from LA up to the Bay area, add Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle into the mix, make them assume their share of the Federal debt (via a simple population calculation) and allow them to leave the US.

We'll even be generous and guarantee them the water that they need, just so long as they are tossed out. Then watch them try to make it work. Now that will be amusing to watch.

Posted by: Sasquatch the Original trans-Wookie at April 24, 2018 07:40 PM (xxG/v)

342 There will be no national divorce. Not because it's unthinkable but simply because the left wants submission, not separation.

What will happen is simple. They will push and push until they finally break down the will of normal people to refrain from fucking these children's lives up. And woe be upon them when that day comes because they have one hell of a boot stomping coming to them.

Quite simply, at some point, this country will descend into a prolonged bout of temporary insanity where once reserved people have had enough and once mouthy, pushy, psychotic idiots find out that daddy has his limits and mommy isn't going to stop him this time.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at April 24, 2018 07:40 PM (pUDQf)

343 It's sort of like saying we shouldn't be at war with
Islamic fanatics and instead should be trying harder to teach them
Christianity.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (lKmt3)
============================

I agree with the latter part of that. Seriously. I'm putting my money where my mouth is on that.

Posted by: grammie winger - the snow has melted! - at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (lwiT4)

344 323 Posted by: The ARC of History at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (Mrl1e)

When the left succeeds in making native born Americans a minority in their own nation I aim to use La Raza and Mexico to remove the American Southwest.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (SzZnW)

345 well, thanks. have no intention of ceding anything permanently to those on the left that hate the country.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (MTjB1)

Go get 'em champ.

I ain't fighting to keep people in the club that don't want to be here, and I don't want sticking around.

Cali wants to secede ? Well ... bye. Take Seattle and Portland with you.

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (fiGNd)

346 @297

Doubtful. California's big and obnoxious. And the 9th Circuit isn't helping. But the Federal Bureaucracy isn't based out of California. And that's just one example. There are plenty of problems in the US that aren't the fault of California.

Posted by: junior at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (PzKK9)

347 grammie, Stow that lighter.

Posted by: gNewt at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (3q554)

348 It would be horrific.

Doesn't mean it can't happen.
Posted by: The ARC of History at April

well, it does mean that we should find some other way to achieve our ends. wising for the national divorce makes about as much sense as the preppers that have a hard on the shtf so they can hole up in their buried conex bomb shelter.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (MTjB1)

349 Let's get California split into 3 states before the divorce, so the new Southern California can join the seceding states. We need access to the Pacific and the military bases in San Diego county.

Posted by: motionview at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (pYQR/)

350 343 Posted by: grammie winger - the snow has melted! - at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (lwiT4)

They need taught Xianity the same way they learned Islam at sword point.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (SzZnW)

351
The left threw a tantrum undermining Bush for 8 years, then decided once Mocha Jesus was over "YAY UNITY", they are now throwing a fit again....

I guess the left left "unity" in its other pants eh?

They are FAR more off the hook than we were with their Chicago Jesus....

I plan to do all in my power to be worse than they have been with their thus far 10 year temper tantrum at Presidential Power not wielded by a communist.
Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:32 PM (SzZnW)

Same with the "Facebook Scandal"
- Obama uses targeted marketing to drum up his votes all the Progs squeee "Ya! Us! So smart!"
- Trump uses the same technique four years later and it becomes a scandal meriting congessional investigations.

Had a touchy 'no politics' discussion with co-worker who was pointing out it was just targeted marketing (no issues there) with unknown rise in the news but 'no politics'. I said yeah, no politics, but the reason we are hearing about it is because dems call it a scandal to be outlawed when their enemies use it. You may have no interest in politics, but some politics is very interested in you.

Which kind of piss me off that these 'no politics' progs see nothing beyond their grasp. But as soon as anyone takes exception it is "why is everything about politics with you'?!

Posted by: Burnt Toast at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (Eu5eZ)

352 The lack of good classical American Civic Virtue tells you their "unity" is not in their other pants...

They have been throwing a tantrum since 1996.
Posted by: sven10077 at April

yep, and there was no serious pushback.

Posted by: yankeefifth at April 24, 2018 07:42 PM (MTjB1)

353 When I was still an active duty intelligence officer and we watched the breakup of the Soviet Union, I told my colleagues there was no law, no rule that said that would not occur here.
It very definitely can happen here.
Posted by: Diogenes

________

I think the big difference is, Communism really was a horrible system that was unworkable and people didn't have much to lose (except the .001% of Party members)

In the US, even with heated political rhetoric, life is pretty good and prosperous for a huge swath of people.

That's why I think a National Divorce would have to be proceeded by something like a currency collapse.

California leaving though voluntarily because they are so crazy would be a relief valve that would save the other 49 states.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:42 PM (lKmt3)

354 When one party can corrupt the election, then launch a soft coup using the federal police, the intelligence community apparatus and a 'special law' to destroy a sitting president's effectiveness . . .

There must be a reckoning, or there *will* be a breakup.

Posted by: MAGA Overlord of DOOM - Master of the Burning Pyres Stop the Witch Hunt at April 24, 2018 07:42 PM (urS61)

355 "The main groups won't actively and violently oppose ANYTHNG.
Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (If3tB)"

Just like they didn't in 1861, right? Lots of people were convinced that the South would peacefully leave the Union without trouble and if the federal government attempted to stop it, the people in the rump United States would stop it because they weren't interested in actively and violently opposing secession.

Oops.

"Sorry your lack of imagination thinks Ace "Secession is my Sarah Palin's uterus" is clever and bears lots of repetition.
Posted by: pep at April 24, 2018 07:36 PM (LAe3v)"

Sorry you're so ignorant of the people of the United States. Most people aren't faithless copperheads.

"You need to jump up and down, stomping your feet, after you write something like that.
Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at April 24, 2018 07:34 PM (8gDQu)"

The jumping up and down and stomping of feet will be done at the appropriate time, on the faces of the secessionists and those willing to let them secede. Just like last time.

Posted by: deepelemblues at April 24, 2018 07:43 PM (iwWHZ)

356 They need taught Xianity the same way they learned Islam at sword point.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (SzZnW)
================

Not how it works. At all.

Posted by: grammie winger - the snow has melted! - at April 24, 2018 07:43 PM (lwiT4)

357 329 As far as CA secession goes; I'm not willing to cede this entire state for the sake of LA and SanFran.

Posted by: Eisenhorn at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (F6tBH)

No reason we should. Remove the Marxists and send the illegals and their decendants home.

Posted by: BomberCommand at April 24, 2018 07:44 PM (dpOO+)

358 355. Good. Another vote for Removal.

Posted by: Your Decidedly Devious Uncle Palpatine at April 24, 2018 07:44 PM (fA1SL)

359 Right on topic:

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7jgovyy
Posted by: Bicentennialguy at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (nILVB)

Make it county by county and I am all for it.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at April 24, 2018 07:44 PM (Eu5eZ)

360 When one party can corrupt the election, then launch a soft coup using the federal police, the intelligence community apparatus and a 'special law' to destroy a sitting president's effectiveness . . .

There must be a reckoning, or there *will* be a breakup.

Posted by: MAGA Overlord of DOOM - Master of the Burning Pyres Stop the Witch Hunt at April 24, 2018 07:42 PM (urS61)

Pretty succinct.

Newsletter, perhaps?

Posted by: golfman at April 24, 2018 07:44 PM (If3tB)

361 I'm not saying this is ideal, but if a peaceful splitting up occurs, .......

That ain't gonna happen.

It is the Left that has made a concerted effort to ignore the rule of law and has also taken over most of the media to create a false illusion of what people actually want. What we see instead is the press telling us their glorious vision of what "should be".

If there is a divorce of any kind, the press will be taken out in force, very early.

And before we start the war, we should first recheck our corrupt voter rolls. Motor Voter laws have completely corrupted them.

Posted by: LeftCoast Dawg at April 24, 2018 07:44 PM (UsCnO)

362 In my lifetime I've seen prayer in school banned, babies killed on demand, non Americans with more rights than citizens, homosexual marriage legitimized by the SC over the will of the people, the 2nd Amendment successfully attacked , a politically correct military and a communist elected President. There is no curing what ails us. It's been one step forward and two steps back for a century now.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 24, 2018 07:45 PM (2DOZq)

363 We should put certain people under arrest pronto.
A lot of certain people.
Especially ones named Soros.

Posted by: navybrat, keeping a low profile at April 24, 2018 07:45 PM (w7KSn)

364 As far as CA secession goes; I'm not willing to cede this entire state for the sake of LA and SanFran.

Posted by: Eisenhorn at April 24, 2018 07:38 PM (F6tBH)

No reason we should. Remove the Marxists and send the illegals and their decendants home.
Posted by: BomberCommand

_____________

Exactly, if CA did actually secede, the "seceded" area would probably end up being LA, San Francisco, Oakland, etc with 90% of the land mass of CA not wanting any part of it and brokering some deal where they rejoin the US.

Posted by: Maritime at April 24, 2018 07:46 PM (lKmt3)

365 Right on topic:

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7jgovyy
Posted by: Bicentennialguy at April 24, 2018 07:33 PM (nILVB)

Make it county by county and I am all for it.
Posted by: Burnt Toast at April 24, 2018 07:44 PM (Eu5eZ)

Will never happen. How will we get paid???

Posted by: 9th Circus at April 24, 2018 07:46 PM (If3tB)

366 That's funny I see Jihadists able to kill with impunity in western civ, I see Europe blowing its brains out demographically along with Japan, and I see the international communist left running the table in the culture wars everywhere English is spoken.

Need I go on?

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:29 PM (SzZnW)

You only ever focus on the negative. It will eat you alive. Seriously, you're giving yourself an anxiety disorder.

The life of a typical person has improved dramatically over the last 60 years, and even in that time was a crapload better than the previous 60.

It is uneven, jerky progress, but it's progress. It has dangers. Trying to make a magic border agains those dangers will fail horribly. Making *your neighbors* stronger actually makes you stronger. And by that I mean teaching them to solve their problems.

Nobody wants to bother, it's way easier to think you can run away from it: you can't. Nobody can.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith at April 24, 2018 07:46 PM (FDnQi)

367 363. That's a funny way to spell helicopter rides.

Posted by: Your Decidedly Devious Uncle Palpatine at April 24, 2018 07:46 PM (fA1SL)

368 Even better: since the people involved in the intimidation of Kyle Kashuv apparently detained him to commit their felonious intimidation - that detainment constitutes a kidnapping and makes all of them eligible for a federal death sentence.

Posted by: An Observation at April 24, 2018 07:48 PM (ltGLk)

369 321
Yup, and do note the "obliteration of the nation state" coincides with "Islam everywhere"...

I don't see a lot of pressure for enforced immigration into China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, or Africa but I see a lot of demand Europe and North America is for everybody.
Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:37 PM (SzZnW)

The so-called "leaders" of the West are committing the greatest act of treason in human history, by handing Western Civilization over to Third World barbarians.

Lampposts are too good for them. Drawing and quartering is more appropriate.

Posted by: rickl at April 24, 2018 07:48 PM (sdi6R)

370 A "friend" of my wife's texted her a picture of a present she bought for our adopted daughter - the John Oliver book about the gay bunny, the book meant to ruin the prospects of a book written by Mike Pence's daughter, also about a bunny.

My wife tells me this, and I'm sad to say that I'm not shocked. There's nothing like indoctrinating the babies - who were meant to be aborted - with hateful crap about where you should want to put your genitalia if you wanna be thought of as cool enough to get on HBO regularly.

It seems that there's a new some one or some family every week that I have to tell my wife will no longer be allowed inside my home because of their poisonous politics. These people are just insufferably awful and can't be tolerated. We've always been the polite ones, not them, so I find no shame in declaring that I'm well past trying to live peacefully with them.

These are not my wishes, they are theirs.

There can be no other resolution to this than a shooting war. It's coming like winter, the winter of our Republic.

Posted by: Matt Foley at April 24, 2018 07:23 PM (vluM2)
********************

Matt, I can't blame you for feeling this way.
Your wife should give her a children's conservative book in return... and post it on Facebook.
Rush Revere books or "Why am I Conservative?"
There are plenty of great ones out there.

Posted by: redridinghood at April 24, 2018 07:49 PM (PvFoN)

371 I think the Chamber of Commerce will prevent a real separation because McDonald's and Boeing don't want to deal with the legal headache of splitting their companies into two new countries.

A strong federalism that allows each state to set many of its own laws is the most likely outcome, in my opinion.

Posted by: Make Katy Perry Stop Murdering Nuns! at April 24, 2018 07:50 PM (klu83)

372 Hell ... who am I kidding.

Some of the same people saying "Hell No ... California can't go" will be all in on "The Sovereign Republic of Texas" the next time the Democrats control Congress and the White House.

So where was all this sentiment when Catalonia voted to leave Spain ? Whenever any other people seek Independence from the State ?

Nah ... California ain't "your" land. Anymore than my house is "your" land.

They really wanna' go ? They oughta' have the right.

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 07:51 PM (fiGNd)

373 Been tried once, hundreds of thousands died, next time it won't be so few.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2018 06:32 PM (aC6Sd)

Yeah, but it will primarily effect women, children, and minorities disproportionately. And most of those will be poor and ugly. So, its a win-win situation!

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 24, 2018 07:51 PM (9BLnV)

374 I'll give Trump and his team 8 years to GITMO, military tribunals, build ten wall, and round up and deport ten invaders. Also the plan must be executed.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 07:52 PM (J567a)

375 I just want a state to secede in place. Most of our problems are because our states take the government's money. I want a state, or a collection of states, to reject Federal money and it's strings. Don't burn down the Federal Courthouse, just don't assist them with any enforcement. Convert the National Guard to a State Militia. Do nothing the Feds request unless the state wants to do it.

Posted by: Grump928(C) at April 24, 2018 07:54 PM (yQpMk)

376 Conservative children's book. Thump.

Posted by: Simplemind at April 24, 2018 07:54 PM (ZuGkg)

377 They need taught Xianity the same way they learned Islam at sword point.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (SzZnW)
================

Not how it works. At all.

Posted by: grammie winger - the snow has melted! - at April 24, 2018 07:43 PM (lwiT4)

Yes and no. I suspect that a really humiliating defeat for Islam on the battlefield might disillusion quite a number of Muslims. Shame culture and all that. Also, adoption of the policy "We are sending missionaries. You will leave them in peace. You do not have to listen to them, you can even argue with them, but if you harm a hair of their heads the vengeance we will take will make the ears of all who hear it tingle" would also work well.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 24, 2018 07:54 PM (bZ7mE)

378 the not ten.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 07:54 PM (J567a)

379 How many Divisions does Soros have?
Currently, I mean.
20-40, I'm guessin'.

Posted by: Burger Chef at April 24, 2018 07:55 PM (RuIsu)

380 That's a lot of words just to say "Maybe; I don't know."

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Free Sonobi With Purchase of Grumbling Gadgets at the Outrage Outlet! at April 24, 2018 07:55 PM (0QYMt)

381 Do nothing the Feds request unless the state wants to do it.
=====
Do nothing for me except guarantee my state employee pension plan.

Posted by: Governor moonbeam at April 24, 2018 07:56 PM (ZuGkg)

382 This is really just one scenario of how the nation splits (not whether, but how.) The alternative is that the left eventually wins again, as they surely will. Then they install their program. But as Rocky pointed out to Bullwinkle, "That trick NEVER works."

And we're right back to the nation coming apart.

One question in my mind is whether this was baked in the cake. To the extent we are, in fact, a "propositional nation" we have to face the problem of what happens when more and more people (native born, I mean) cease to accept the propositions. How can that be salvaged?

Posted by: George LeS at April 24, 2018 07:56 PM (/ki+X)

383 How can that be salvaged?

Posted by: George LeS at April 24, 2018 07:56 PM (/ki+X)

It can't. We either split ... or one side extincts the other.

The notion of staying out of each others politics, and engaging in mutual defense ... Federalism ... is gone. Gone on both sides.

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 07:58 PM (fiGNd)

384 I invite people contemplating a national divorce to consider the creation of Pakistan. What happened? Lots of Muslim Indians picked up their stuff and headed west. There was an incredible amount of violence but then after awhile there was Pakistan. This is really the only way a divorce could be pulled off: forced relocations. As people have pointed out already, the ideological divide is not linear now, but in pockets and archipelagos.

Are you really going to have 15 or 20 leftist city states surrounded by red country? It would be medieval Italy on a continental scale, and that went badly for everybody but the nobility and their mercenaries. There would have to be literally millions of people uprooted and forced, at gunpoint, into purely leftist state or else we get the city state nightmare. And it would be naive to think that the Mexicans/Chinese/Russians wouldn't happily interfere.

Yes, a national divorce is possible. No, it is not desirable. I think what we're going to get instead is a low-level insurrection for a long, long time, complete with our own home-grown revolutionary cadres. Shining Path Norte, if you like. But compared to the alternative it might be preferable.

Posted by: joncelli, nominal Lutheran at April 24, 2018 07:59 PM (1FhAQ)

385 *zip it*
*zip it*
*zip it*
*shut up*
*stay cool*

Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 07:59 PM (xE5n0)

386 " that a peaceful national divorce might be in everyone's best interests -- " Sorry friend, but you're nuts. A fracturing of the US would bring on feeding time at the zoo---with our great power competitors having us for dinner. The vacuum we would create, economically, politically, culturally, would convulse the planet. Think about it? Sure, why not. But only a total fool would not be terrified of the likely consequences of such a global reset.

Posted by: Winston at April 24, 2018 08:01 PM (t+ZPJ)

387 Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith

I'm doing what I can. I'm a local official now, and I see who the good guys are. I work to put good guys in office.

I need to push back more at the bad officials.
But it is uphill, for sure.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 24, 2018 08:03 PM (hyuyC)

388 You bet Winston. One flinch, and Canada gobbles us up. Assuming Mexico doesn't first. The Chinese ability to project power across the Pacific is well known as well. Let alone the Russians. Man - do they EVER lose when they decide to occupy somebody ?

Glad we got folks like you around. To talk us back from the brink.

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 08:04 PM (fiGNd)

389 prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel

If we meet at a MoMeet, and I buy you drinks, can you let the zipped up lave flow? I want to be around when that happens.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 24, 2018 08:04 PM (hyuyC)

390 Think about it? Sure, why not. But only a total
fool would not be terrified of the likely consequences of such a global
reset.

Posted by: Winston at April 24, 2018 08:01 PM (t+ZPJ)

Think of the opportunities to run around wearing a colander face mask.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Free Sonobi With Purchase of Grumbling Gadgets at the Outrage Outlet! at April 24, 2018 08:05 PM (0QYMt)

391 *zip it*
*zip it*
*zip it*
*shut up*
*stay cool*
Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 07:59 PM (xE5n0)

FFS, just say what you want to say already!!!!!!

Posted by: SSBN 656 (G) at April 24, 2018 08:06 PM (5AVMW)

392 Think of the opportunities to run around wearing a colander face mask.

Posted by: Mikey NTH - Free Sonobi With Purchase of Grumbling Gadgets at the Outrage Outlet! at April 24, 2018 08:05 PM (0QYMt)

Dude ... promise me you'll at least knock the shine down on that thing with a little Krylon Black first. OK ?

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 08:06 PM (fiGNd)

393 It's happening now. A substantial part of the country doesn't believe in or observe established law/tradition/democracy but expects others to maintain the fiction these still are viable and applies to them.

So imagination. Hmmm.

Best case scenario:

The Left and their evil GOP helpers fail to dislodge Trump after midterms, and he appoints two or three justices who support established law/tradition/democracy. Hunks of California, and maybe NYC/Chicago/Seattle/Portland attempt to become city-states and are brought to heel after a degree of violence. The areas remain under occupation with sporadic uprisings for ten or twenty years.

Worst case scenario:

Bosnia, with enclaves warring against enclaves, houses and apartments in flames, people dead and dying from violence, starvation and dehydration, and various foreign powers supporting different factions as happens now in Syria. More or less constant war until factions unite contiguous/near contiguous land masses and foreign powers agree on who goes where.

In either scenario, communications, financial transactions, and food and water supplies are disrupted and even in ostensibly defined factional enclaves there is internal strife and rampant criminality. Always possible would be another nuclear power would launch a first strike if it believed rebel elements had gained control of American nukes.

Again, the train has left the station. Any sane person would hope otherwise but to think otherwise almost is delusional.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at April 24, 2018 08:07 PM (Ne9GA)

394 185 It's worth noting that America's Civil War was an anomaly, with organized armies facing off in pitched battles.

The Civil Wars at the end of the Roman Republic had set battles with dozens of legions, in a political system where to lose mean death for the leadership.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 24, 2018 08:08 PM (3eV0J)

395 prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel

If we meet at a MoMeet, and I buy you drinks, can you let the zipped up lave flow? I want to be around when that happens.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 24, 2018 08:04 PM (hyuyC)

Well, if I had some drinks in me, it might happen. Like that scene from Indiana Jones when all the spirits come whipping outta the grail. You would have to duck and cover.

It's really just all the stuff I've said in the past, topped off by one big rant of disillusionment and a promise I would no longer post on that topic. So when I do get itchy fingers, and feel like I'm gonna launch, I type "zip it" to shut the portal.

Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 08:09 PM (xE5n0)

396 National divorce would split cities from rural. I mean even Dallas and Houston are liberal, in their slimy little downtown hearts.

Posted by: Jeanne del norte at April 24, 2018 08:09 PM (efMXe)

397 351 Posted by: Burnt Toast at April 24, 2018 07:41 PM (Eu5eZ)

That emperor Urkle X he was a genius to use F*c*book!

//D.I. Pshit-Moonbat Sub-Altern

"That Orange Toupee Weasel used Cambridge Analytical to steal the race!"

//Same Guy

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 08:11 PM (SzZnW)

398 356 Posted by: grammie winger - the snow has melted! - at April 24, 2018 07:43 PM (lwiT4)

Seemed to work great for the Big Mo in the region....ask the Copts how being super Godly worked for them.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 08:13 PM (SzZnW)

399 The real "odds" of Trump winning were "100% 'chance' Trump wins"

Why? Because he DID win, in an electoral landslide.

So all predictions to the contrary were Bad Science ... they failed to recognize that 11% approval of congress, or to factor in the disdain for Hillary The Greatest political Criminal in History.

The polls were fake ... LIES intended to sway people to vote for "the Winner". All their lies failed. Trump did not beat the odds ... He stayed strong on his message the was POPULAR.

Again, results show the "odds makers" were completely incompetent. They depended on the public being completely subservient to the conspiring MFM and Big Money which the public even now HATES.

Posted by: illiniwek at April 24, 2018 08:14 PM (bT8Z4)

400 they will never let us leave peacefully

Posted by: dw at April 24, 2018 08:15 PM (stPAM)

401 FFS, just say what you want to say already!!!!!!
Posted by: SSBN 656 (G) at April 24, 2018 08:06 PM (5AVMW)

Nope, I made a promise to the posters at Ace. Typing that just helps me keep it. Resolves the itchy fingers. It basically was just a call to arms and what we could do to change things. And I got frustrated and irritated, and people had had it with me posting it, so I promised to stop. But the urge remains. Typing zip it helps me not to type something else.

Posted by: prof disarray, gumdrop gorilla channel at April 24, 2018 08:15 PM (xE5n0)

402 This scenario is why I think it's not the worst idea to allow leftist states and cities to enforce unconstitutional gun bans.

Horde-leaning patriots will leave these cities and states for more south-eastern pastures.

The citizens of the leftist enclaves, on the other hand, will be left defenseless in the event of a messy breakup.

My dad once told me that the Japs or Chinese thought occupying the US to be an untenable goal because every hillbilly would be hiding behind a tree with a shotgun. I don't know if he had that quote down exactly right, but allowing the leftists to disarm themselves seems like a winning position for the United Red States of America.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger at April 24, 2018 08:17 PM (w9mM/)

403 Trump could make a deal. Trade Marxists for the white farmers in South Africa. That would get rid of some of them.

Posted by: Monk at April 24, 2018 08:18 PM (J567a)

404 My dad once told me that the Japs or Chinese thought occupying the US to be an untenable goal because every hillbilly would be hiding behind a tree with a shotgun.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger at April 24, 2018 08:17 PM (w9mM/)

Yamamoto ... a rifle behind every blade of grass.

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 08:19 PM (fiGNd)

405 I refuse to give the left coast to China, which is exactly what will happen if they are allowed to leave.

Rather, I would convert California to Territorial status and appoint a Territorial Governor and no state legislature.

Posted by: Great Reagan's Deplorable Ghost at April 24, 2018 08:25 PM (56GKt)

406 the problem is how to divide..the progressives are all major cities and the non progressives is everything else..no way to make a real border separation

Posted by: keith at April 24, 2018 08:27 PM (xswoj)

407 Oh, for another historical precedent for how a national divorce would actually go, think Hue during Tet, the retaking of Seoul in the Korean War, Fallujah, the siege of Berlin...how long would it take to subdue Chicago, or LA, or Seattle? Don't even get me started on NYC.

Posted by: joncelli, nominal Lutheran at April 24, 2018 08:31 PM (1FhAQ)

408 I refuse to give the left coast to China, which is exactly what will happen if they are allowed to leave.

Posted by: Great Reagan's Deplorable Ghost at April 24, 2018 08:25 PM (56GKt)

Well ... when they vote to leave ... go get 'em champ !!! The House of Scogg is going to sit this one out. But we'll sing you a song ...

"This land is your land - this land is ... apparently your land ...

... This land was made - for you and you."

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 08:32 PM (fiGNd)

409 how long would it take to subdue Chicago, or LA, or Seattle?

In one week they start to starve.

Posted by: Grump928(C) Retribution is my Sarah Palin's uterus at April 24, 2018 08:33 PM (yQpMk)

410 "407 Oh, for another historical precedent for how a national divorce would actually go, think Hue during Tet, the retaking of Seoul in the Korean War, Fallujah, the siege of Berlin...how long would it take to subdue Chicago, or LA, or Seattle? Don't even get me started on NYC."

Vicksburg.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at April 24, 2018 08:35 PM (Ne9GA)

411 409 Posted by: Grump928(C) Retribution is my Sarah Palin's uterus at April 24, 2018 08:33 PM (yQpMk)

One week is a riot when they get hungry and go cannibal....

remember they fancy themselves the most altruistic people....

so two to five weeks, it depends on whether you cut off their water.

Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 08:35 PM (SzZnW)

412 "409 how long would it take to subdue Chicago, or LA, or Seattle?

In one week they start to starve."

Two or three days without EBT and fires start.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at April 24, 2018 08:37 PM (Ne9GA)

413 We are no longer one nation, we are many nations on one piece of real estate. Of course America is going to fracture on ethnic, racial and cultural lines. This is actually the best case scenario, because if the country doesn't split up, the traditional American nation will be under the heel of the leftist coalition.

Posted by: Sparky at April 24, 2018 08:39 PM (DflMi)

414 33 BHussein started this

No, he turned it up to 11, but the lefty dissassociation with reality really started under Bush after Gore lost. All downhill from there. Bush Derangement Syndrome predates the Trump Derangement Ebola happening today.

Posted by: Janir at April 24, 2018 08:44 PM (7FTeO)

415 Geography complicates a national divorce. NY, (and all the NE states except MAYBE Maine and New Hampshire) CA, OR, WA, IL, MN, VA, CO, Hawaii and possibly New Mexico would lean towards becoming a Socialist States of America, with the rest wanting a constitutional republic. The discontinuity of the borders would seriously complicate things.

Others have already mentioned the problems of dividing up nukes, the military, and the national debt.

The other sinister aspect is inherent in the leftist behavioral penchant for needing masses of slaves to support the self-appointed commissariat. They cannot be overlords if they let all their slaves free.

Posted by: Pete at April 24, 2018 08:49 PM (jGHZf)

416 370- yep. I am writing a friend of 30 years standing because he goes off on a toot if anyone says anything nice about Trump. I'll see him at his funeral.

We have a cold civil war in our country and all it's gonna take is one more move to make it hot. I used to read history and not understand how brownshirts could just attack people on the street in broad daylight without consequence. Germany had the highest literacy rate in Europe. Now I understand. I used to read about judges and reporters getting murdered in Latin America...and now I wonder if that's next.

Posted by: vivi at April 24, 2018 08:51 PM (11H2y)

417 I think about this stuff a lot, mostly because my job puts me in constant contact with politics. I used to think a breakup was inevitable but not any more. However, there's going to be unpleasantness and I think there's about a 50-50 chance of significant violence and real death. But here's the thing -- if there's any violence it's going to come from the the other side, and if an actual breakup occurs, it's going to have to be our side that dictates the terms and makes it happen. I don't think the other side is capable of thinking through and planning anything realistic, something we would agree to.

A separate, independent state imagined by Leftists would be so weak it would invite enemies of the rest of us right next door. If they're not politically wiped out by the people they delusionally think are their friends -- the most likely outcome -- then there will be so many of them there it will be a colonial outpost for them and a threat to us. You see exactly this happening in Sweden and significant parts of France and the UK. Italy and Germany aren't quite as bad, but they're close. There's no reason it wouldn't happen in a breakaway Leftist state.

Naturally, we couldn't let such a weak neighbor establish itself right next to us. I hope they know that.

Posted by: Editor at April 24, 2018 09:26 PM (FdjhG)

418 32
Actually I am not scared of this scenario per se. I am still at an age
when I can still fight and protect my family. What scares me, is that
this conflagration starts when I am too old to fight to protect my
family.
Posted by: Archer at April 24, 2018 06:36 PM (gbWkA)

I know the feeling. At 72, stroked and cancer(d), it would be more of a forlorn hope for me.

Posted by: trainer at April 24, 2018 09:30 PM (7EbAY)

419 ScoggDog,

Don't insult me. You obviously favor letting the libs leave with a good deal of America's land and treasure.

I say let them bankrupt themselves and regress to territories. Like Detroit.

Posted by: Great Reagan's Deplorable Ghost at April 24, 2018 09:35 PM (56GKt)

420 If it all turned to crap in the urban areas, the residents would flee. They would hit anywhere within a tank of gas like a swarm of locusts.
If Chicago emptied they could get as far as Des Moines. Unless you live far away from an urban center, you have to be prepared for an onslaught.

Posted by: Firmly Grasping the Obvious at April 24, 2018 09:37 PM (XdD2Z)

421 Posted by: Great Reagan's Deplorable Ghost at April 24, 2018 09:35 PM (56GKt)

Insult you ? Hell - I made you a song !!!

Go get 'em Ghost !!! Don't let "them" take "your" land.

But don't forget ... "my" land ? It's mine. It's not part of this notion of collectivism. I'm not either.

I support California's plan. Hell - I support ANYBODY'S plan for Independence. Including my own, if it comes down to it.

Posted by: ScoggDog at April 24, 2018 09:43 PM (fiGNd)

422 I think the most peaceable and amicable of National Divorces would still involve a fair amount of fighting, and many states would end up having their borders redrawn.

For example, take Colorado. It's a pretty solid blue state, surrounded by red states on all but its southern border. It's only really a blue state because of the Denver-Boulder metro area. There are enough people there to compel the state to join this new People's Republic of America (which I'll refer to hereafter as the PRA), but then I think all those solid red counties along the borders of the state would opt to leave Colorado and become part of Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas or Oklahoma.

This would result in Denver, Aurora and Boulder (and some other surrounding towns) being a little pocket or two of the PRA surrounded by the US on all sides, cut off from any potential PRA support. They'd pretty much end up being under siege, and probably have to re-join the USA in the end. This re-joining might involve combat, or it might simply be a matter of them not having access to groceries and electricity and the internet for a few days and surrendering so they can eat and watch Netflix again.

Posted by: Prothonotary Warbler at April 24, 2018 09:47 PM (wSC8T)

423 Jonah Goldberg declared it had to be a Rubio Cruz ticket because so many people were against Cruz. Well that's what compromise is. If they had gotten Rubio to drop out, this is a 400 delegate swing from Trump to Cruz, 100 in Texas alone. Cruz was down by less than 100 delegates after Wisconsin.

Posted by: MikeN at April 24, 2018 11:12 PM (o/eHL)

424
I'm been telling people of the coming split as far back as 2007 when you could see Obama coming up the ranks to run for the Dem Primary.

But the first signs of the Leftist Madness I saw were the 2000 recounts in Florida. I did not understand it at the time, but by the end of the 2008 election, I knew then it will eventually come.

However, now the split between mainly the two parts of the country is ACCELERATING.

It's coming.

People laughed at me back in 2010'ish, but not anymore after the raw insanity of the Left's white-hot push to centralize more and more power.

Scenario: Somewhere at night in a suburban neighborhood, a brick crashes thru a window followed by a molotov cocktail. The flames grow, the family inside begins to come out of the house to avoid the flaming home, and the sounds of 5.56/.223 weapons go off as they are cut down trying to escape. Five minutes later in another part of town, assassination teams use the same tactics to take down the leader of a political party at the county level. By morning, roadblocks are now set up at all major roads leading into the mid-range city.

The Left needs to be convinced, that if they continue on this violent push to dominate the country, the other half of the country will snap and go to war if they have to to survive.

Those people or a good chunk is at that gathering in Atlanta. I don't think they understand the seriousness if they push for and trigger a civil war.

I would hope that both sides can agree to a peaceful divorce, and I thank Ace for bringing this up along with VDH and Kurt S. There is no excuse for this split to be violent but if one side insists on it being violent, and it appears that side is the Left, the Right will have to go to war but after giving a peaceful option at least a good go.

But unfortunately, I really suspect much of the movers and shakers of the Left really don't want a split, but they want total domination.

It's our job to persuade them otherwise.

Just because a bloody civil war is unthinkable, does not mean it can't happen.

Posted by: Sapwolf at April 25, 2018 12:32 AM (IDzNv)

425 "People's Republic of North America" Let me shorten that for you, its called California. California vs. The United States of America would be won by the US of A. The first day CA gets its water, electricity, gas, oil, and hardline telecom cut off. Wireless telecom would be jammed. All state and local highways would have craters blasted in them at the now national border to prevent travel. US Highways and Interstates would have checkpoints manned by Guardsmen who would let some in. Nobody with a criminal record, and everybody gets fingerprinted, photographed, and DNA swabbed. ANG patrols from the air. Oakland pillages and loots Pacific Heights, Compton pillages and loots Beverley Hills, and Mexico takes San Diego back. Some parts of northern CA, Bakersfield and the Inland Empire brandish just enough guns to keep bad actors out. Jerry Brown is either killed in the crossfire, arrested when he tries to flee to Las Vegas, or takes off to another country, never to be heard from again. Anyone representing CA in D.C. would find themselves in a federal pen till this is straightened out. Someone better than Brown declares himself Governor and sues for peace. With OPFOR dead or in jail and given the Darwin Award for their actions, the California Territory swings back to peace and prosperity. The best part is that CA knows this, and that's why it might not ever get quite that far.

Posted by: hurricane567 at April 25, 2018 12:55 AM (1xDcl)

426 As others have said, there are no clear lines off demarcation like there are when 2 married people split. Kids and property are minor complications by comparison.

Also, it only takes one resolute married person to peacefully end a marriage. Here, we need 2/3 Congress and 3/4 states to make that happen. Between nostalgic patriots, never Trump liberals and totalitarian leftists, you'll never get the numbers.

The left will keep pumping in third worlders and diluting our voting power until we're irrelevant, so they would never agree to a peaceful breakup anyway. Many of us thought we were already there, but I'm pretty confident that another Trump could not get elected 10-20 years from now.

Posted by: crrr6 (hotair refugee) at April 25, 2018 06:09 AM (f23HZ)

427 Just look at the red blue map. It is the cities which want to secede sooo let them. Let them become separate countries and leave them to their own devices. They can continue to believe that shuffling ones and zeros on computers creates something, and the rest of the country can get on very well once their toxic votes are purged from national politics. I would retain federal control of the ports, but let them have their little liberal paradise on earth and leave the rest of us alone.

Posted by: Old Guy at April 25, 2018 10:31 AM (lOGhE)

428 Ace:
Do you live in NYC still (or did I make that up)?
If there was a divorce, would you move? If so, where to?
I'm not trying to be a dick. I live in a 'coastal elite' city and am thinking about what I'd do. Mostly as a thought experiment.

Posted by: Rasputin at April 25, 2018 10:51 AM (bQs9N)

429 Don't confuse "unthinkable" with "impossible." The dissolution of the United States isn't unthinkable because it couldn't happen mechanically or politically. It is unthinkable because of the price we have paid to prevent it, and the ideal that makes it worth fighting for. Just as Lincoln was willing to kill to keep the United States whole, we should be willing to kill to fight for our country AS A COUNTRY.

Reductionist thinking about national divorce is childish. Don't participate. It is, at best, short-term thinking, and at least, treasonous. It is a cowardly device to "make the conflict go away." Americans are better than that. We face the problem.

Posted by: Immolate at April 25, 2018 11:47 AM (C4b9S)

430 Ace, I've read your thoughts on the potential national divorce for some time now. I've always found the concept interesting because it is so shocking to me... not that we could split, but that we could split without war.

In order for that to happen, POTUS would have to reach a conclusion opposite to Lincoln. Lincoln essentially decided that he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution against a domestic enemy and he wasn't going to let it go without a fight. When there wasn't enough public support for the war, he ginned some up at Sumpter. He obviously went to great lengths to keep the union together, and the results matter. The South was defeated and the union was kept whole.

How would a national divorce happen? I assume it would have to be a Democrat President but NO President will want their legacy to be the end of the United States, nor will they want to lose the power.

No, I believe it must come via war and defeat. I do think that is unlikely given the slow erosion of our Constitution and freedom. I think we will most likely all slowly surrender our rights and by the time anyone is willing to fight back in significant numbers, the Left will have well-established control over information, communications and intelligence gathering. I think our days are numbered unless we start publicly fighting now, or very soon. I really believe that the media, Hollywood, and a few school boards need to be imprisoned or worse to reverse this trend. We need PSA's explaining why nobody is guaranteed safety in a free land and that with freedom comes the right to offend.

If we don't seize the messaging soon, I'm afraid the US will end quietly, with just a few thousand arrests for thought crimes and hate speech.

Posted by: Robert at April 25, 2018 12:07 PM (2/bSx)

431 They have to have other people's money in order to function. if leaving the union renders them immediately bankrupt with no lenders than its really a non starter.

As far as the military goes, most of them won't follow lunatics who want to break up the republic. In fact, it was military intelligence that was key in exposing and getting the real dirt on the swamp and de-fanging the capacity of the media to get real leaks.

The left has to realize that if you are walking on a path and you turn around and no one is following you, you need to question why that is.

Posted by: akelm88 at April 25, 2018 02:12 PM (dNh/A)

432 Ain't gonna happen. There is no mechanism by which it could happen.

Secession could be attempted in the ante-bellum South because a dominant plurality of voters in some states believed that the election of Lincoln posed an existential threat. That is, they seriously feared slave uprisings, and thought that an anti-slavery President (and thus, Federal government, including Federal marshals and Attorneys and judges in slave states) would incite such uprisings. When one fears having one's throat cut in an insurrection by the slaves around one, who outnumber the whites in the area, one is driven to radical measures.

No one thinks that way today, except a handful of hyperventilating leftists.

In addition, the entire voting population in the South were pro-slavery. Lincoln got zero votes in eight states. There was no group opposing secession.

Whereas today, there are no 100% Left or Right states, or even regions. The only way for the two sides to separate would be a gigantic exchange of population - far worse than the parttion of India.

I do not say there cannot be violence, even a breakdown of civil order; but it will be a boiling stew, a battle for control of the nation, not a split.

Posted by: Rich Rostrom at April 26, 2018 02:19 AM (bT9ZN)

433 51 The two big lessons of the last American Civil War... Posted by: Big V at April 24, 2018 06:41 PM (ZvLtE)

99 This country is a pressure vessel with no relief valve... Posted by: sven10077 at April 24, 2018 06:49 PM (SzZnW)

I have to agree that things would not turn out well. Nations would take sides (and most western nations are aligned with the leftist faction, IMO). Others would take advantage and we'd have the world on fire.

Then there's the leftist's big advantage that would be foolish to overlook: organization.

https://jacobitemag.com/2017/06/14/political-violence-is-a-game-the-right-cant-win/

Posted by: batter at April 26, 2018 11:51 AM (SO7Xq)

434 magnificent issues altogether, you just won a logo new
reader. What may you suggest about your post that you made a
few days ago? Any positive?

Posted by: implanty, at May 22, 2018 12:31 AM (JFpjI)

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