Can the North secede from the Union?

[lehighguy]

I suppose it goes back to a states rights question. If the federal government has little/no power, then the states have no reason to secede.

People don't secede for stupid ass reasons. It's usually over something big. Which is why we aren't going to see it now.

[tylerdurden]

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this is an excellent scenario for libertarians, how would they handle the sucession of a state or two? their ideology would have some serious conflicts of interest me thinks.

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Such as? (NB I'm not a libertarian)

[Benman]

I'm from Texas, about as red of a state as they come. We take in far more federal highway dollars and medicaid dollars than we, as citizens, contribute in federal taxes. It's fairly clear cut that southern states, most of which are red, are net gainers in the federal tax/spend structure.

[tylerdurden]

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It's fairly clear cut that southern states, most of which are red, are net gainers in the federal tax/spend structure.

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Are red state legislators simply better than blue state legislators at bringing home the pork?

[Benman]

You're right. I live in the south, and we'd never let you go. We believe that government can never be too small, so we don't tax and pay for any of our services ourselves. We're happy to take your medicade and highway funds, since they're essentially free! It's a very nice way of being philisophically conservative without having to pay the piper.

[CORed]

I don't particularly care for the idea of splitting the country in two (or more. Once you start, it could be hard to stop). However, the question of whether the constitution gives states the right to secede has never been settled legally. When the southern states tried it in 1861, Lincoln did not ask for a Supreme Court ruling; he mobilized the troops and, after four years and lots of people killed, the southern states were brought forcibly back into the United States. The good news was that slavery got abolished when it was all over. This raises the question: If the "blue" states (or some other group of states) seceded, would the federal government just say, OK, seek legal remedies, or follow the precedent set by Lincoln and send the tanks rolling? I really don't want to find out.

[tylerdurden]

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he mobilized the troops and, after four years and lots of people killed, the southern states were brought forcibly back into the United States. The good news was that slavery got abolished when it was all over.

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What a deal! Slavery ended peacefully just about everywhere else in the world, but some people actually believe a huge bloody war was *required* to end it here.

[CORed]

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What a deal! Slavery ended peacefully just about everywhere else in the world, but some people actually believe a huge bloody war was *required* to end it here.

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Well, I think that slavery would have eventually died out here without the civil war, if for no other reason than that it didn't really make sense economically. However, at the time of the Civil War, the south was clearly willing to go to war to keep it. A lot of people forget that Lincoln did not run as an abolitionist; he actually only wanted to prohibit further expansion of slavery into the West. The states that seceded found even this to be unacceptable. The net result was that slavery was probably abolished earlier than it would have been had the southern states not seceded. Would it have been better had Lincoln not gone to war against the Confederacy? I don't know. It was a brutal, bloody war. Maybe it would have been better to let the U.S split, but there's no way of knowing what would have happened had we gone that route. Also, even though slavery ended after the war, the segregation of the post-reconstruction South wasn't all that much of an improvement. Would African-Americans have been better off if slavery had been allowed to die a natural death? Again, it's almost impossible to say.

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The irony of Democrats complaining about the blue states "supporting" the poorer red states is priceless. Hypocrisy knowns no bounds for some people.

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Somewhat ironically, I think (altough better economists than I can come refute me) that, if we assume red states are actually just clientele-welfare states, suckling at the breast of the higher-tax paying blue states, we could use the implications of such an assumption to make an argument for a flax tax model that appeals to blue state voters. So while conservatives may bristle at the notion that some red states are tantamount to leeches, they could possibly use such an argument as a spring-board to justify flat tax policies --> and more importantly, find political backing for such models in blue-state areas.

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Where does your food come from? Oh. You don't say.

[SheetWise]

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Where does your food come from? Oh. You don't say.


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We can't get them on that one -- CA feeds the world.
Where does their oil come from?
Where does their electricity come from?