Is it Time for Two America's?

Maybe there should be several America's. Maybe one for each region, because what is true in one place just isn't true in others. Too many cultural divides. It's not good for the country as a whole. Culture shock should not exist in the same country.

Can't we all just get along??

A message from rodney king & reginald denny
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_10VT5d6kAk
www.youtube.com...

One America is more than enough to tolerate thank you very much.

reply to post by greencmp

greencmp
Yeah well, those crazy Germans, I wouldn't listen to advice from them, ever.

Yeah, it's not like "those crazy Germans" are known for a good portion of pragmatism or anything.

greencmp
We have to remember that the rest of the world has a deep hatred of us and would like nothing better than for us to suffer.

Germans do not have a "deep hatred" for your people, in fact quite the opposite.
Disdain for your current POTUS and his admin., maybe yes, but no hatred for your people.

greencmp
Thanks guys, we can handle our own affairs and this, as it turns out, is exactly how we roll.

Clearly.

I find the thread and many of the responses about a divided America interesting. Interesting, because if you go back and look at the original idea of what the constitutional republic was suppose to be, it was just that, a united yet divided country; united for common defense and trade and divided on the individual laws and governance of each state of the republic. In essence it was a brilliant idea in that it allowed for a free market if you will of politics.

See originally the federal government was extremely limited in scope and power. They only had three jobs to do; one defend the shores and borders, two regulate interstate and international commerce and three coin and regulate the common currency. All other laws of governance over the people was left up to the individual states.

If we still had the constitutional republic as intended many of the issues that the op and others see as dividing problems in the nation would actually fix themselves. For instance a dividing issue is gay marriage, in the constitutional republic, it would be left solely up to the states. Therefore you could have states that go their own way on the issue for or against based on the majority vote of the state and if people in the state didn't like the way the vote went, they could move to another state where the majority agrees with them. And really all the dividing issues would be solved in that original system, the same way; drugs, welfare programs, abortion etc.

The real problem is we lost that brilliant system of divided yet united government, after the civil war. That is when states rights were abolished and the federal government began handing down laws that effected all the people of the republic equally regardless of the makeup and beliefs of the individual states. Now people can argue whether it was necessary due to slavery and segregation issues for that to have happened, but regardless of whether it should have or not, it had the disastrous side effect of destroying the original self regulating system of the constitutional republic and is one of the main reasons so many people find themselves out of touch and at odds with their government and it's edicts.

Really we don't need two Americas, we just need to remove the idea of federalist democracy, strip back the federal governments powers to the original three, reinstate states rights, reestablish the constitutional republic and then get out of the way and let the free market of voters decide the laws they wish to have in their individual states. Then if they find they are out of touch politically with the majority of voters in their state they can move to a state more in line with their ideology. Problem solved.

Just my opinion though.

The problem is that liberals don't believe in liberty and conservatives don't believe in conservation. Confused yet? We all should be at least up to the point where we realize these labels are meaningless when applied to Democrats or Republicans. All they are is different arms of the same beast, kind of like the stern father and protective mother who treat you differently but in the end neither will let you borrow the car.
I think the concept of true freedom died with the Civil War. When it became mandatory to participate in the Federal experiment the idea of choice went out the window.

ColCurious
reply to post by greencmp

 

greencmp
Yeah well, those crazy Germans, I wouldn't listen to advice from them, ever.

Yeah, it's not like "those crazy Germans" are known for a good portion of pragmatism or anything.

greencmp
We have to remember that the rest of the world has a deep hatred of us and would like nothing better than for us to suffer.

Germans do not have a "deep hatred" for your people, in fact quite the opposite.
Disdain for your current POTUS and his admin., maybe yes, but no hatred for your people.

greencmp
Thanks guys, we can handle our own affairs and this, as it turns out, is exactly how we roll.

Clearly.

I wish I could believe that, I have many friends who are not Americans and they do not hate me personally (I would consider you one of them).

However, they do hate most Americans, I know this only because they told me. There hasn't been a President that has been popular outside of the US (not they need to be) since Reagan.

That resentment is based upon a perceived undeservedness of our station in the world as well as a variety of slights both intentional and accidental. We have been very lucky, historically speaking, and that alone is cause for some ill will. It doesn't help that we have been able to retain our national government relatively intact for the longest period of any country on earth at this time. Everybody loves to hate the establishment.

German pragmatism is a gift to the world but, German government has never derived policies from the best ideas of German philosophers.

I agree that there are advocates of freedom all over the world but, no one would argue that America has stood for freedom at any time in nearly three decades. Even under Reagan, we expanded the federal government and individual liberty lost ground.

With the exception of South Korea, there isn't anyone else who approaches politics with such fervor as to appear to be a street fight at times and yet, in the end, we manage to resolve our differences and come out ahead.

I appreciate your personal support and sincerely hope that the German people can continue to offer moral support for the people of the United States, even if they harbor resentments of varying degrees of depth.

So the basic idea coming from the posts so far seem to be:

1. It's a good idea to split the country into 2 or more ideological parts.
2. It will never work due to logistics.
3. We should try to work it out and get along.
4. We should throw out the feds and go back to our original republic.

Number four brings us full circle to the multitude of other threads on ATS and seems the only viable option we'll ever have. Hope we can do it.

ETA Adding Sulaw's great idea to the list. Let's go with this one.

5. We just send all the d-bags to the South (America) and let them start over there.

reply to post by Bassago


I believe I have a solution... Follow me here... We have a North and South America....

States Rights, States Rights, States Rights
This used to be a main issue that some campaigns where
built on. Its where the Federal Government stayed out of the individual States bussiness unless the Supreme court needed to step in for what ever reason. That would give people lots of choices as to where they might want to live.
Keep the Federal govt out of the States, sort of like todays Colorado and Washington and their new voted in freedoms.

xstealth
should have let it happen the first time, and we wouldnt be in this mess now.

Liberals and Conservatives can't live together. One loves big government, one loves freedom.

One loves freedom, one loves liberty.

They just have different definitions of what encapsulates those words.

links234

xstealth
should have let it happen the first time, and we wouldnt be in this mess now.

Liberals and Conservatives can't live together. One loves big government, one loves freedom.

One loves freedom, one loves liberty.

They just have different definitions of what encapsulates those words.

Here is your chance, what is your definition of freedom and liberty?

reply to post by greencmp


I imagine it's somewhat different from yours. I'll give you a hint though; government isn't the threat.

reply to post by Bassago


The United States needs to be split into three separate countries.

One country for the Democrats, one for the Republicans, and one for the Libertarians.

I honestly do not want to be a member of a society with either Democrats or Republicans.

Both groups are becoming more authoritarian in their own ways.

The Democrats are hyper-progressives (soccer moms on too many anti-depressants) and feel they have the right to micromanage people's personal affairs.

And the Republicans want to force everyone to be Christian.

reply to post by links234


Government and corporations are equal threats.

Anyone who cannot see government as a necessary evil is insane.

reply to post by darkbake


Don't call yourself a progressive, trust me, read their philosophies. They are those people at your art college that you are railing against.

You sound more Libertarian, anyway.

links234
reply to post by greencmp

 

I imagine it's somewhat different from yours. I'll give you a hint though; government isn't the threat.

This would be the government that brought us:

Unlimited spying
Endless wars
Destruction of our manufacturing base
Politicians that do not represent their constituents
NDAA and the Patriot Act
and frankly too much more to list

That government?

As an outsider, id think should this fantasy ever actually come about, the very next week the Conservative America would be preparing to strike and start a war of liberation of its neighbour. Either that or it would become an odd sort of neo north korea.

Sure Democrats arent all that different in reality, better America directs its inbreed hostilities, 'freedoms' and veiled intolerance out to the rest of the world really. Better to endure em than see an entire country (even if it is America) literally collapse and vanish in yet another civil war... because lets face it, thats what would happen because so many simply wouldnt be satisfied with even a two country approach and they'd be at each others throats in months, if not weeks.

At least now you all have to tolerate each other since your still all fellow country men. Take that away and god or what ever help us all...

Exclusivity is never good option for social issues. It never fixes anything.

reply to post by Bassago


The government that's bought and paid for by increasingly wealthy corporations?

"I'll give you $200,000 to your re-election campaign if you make it impossible for my employees to unionize."

Better yet, "I made a million dollars last year, I'm going to run for office so I can make laws to make it easier for me to make more money!"

People are either blinded to the point of ignorance or have simply given up all together on their government.

links234
reply to post by Bassago

 

The government that's bought and paid for by increasingly wealthy corporations?

People are either blinded to the point of ignorance or have simply given up all together on their government.

Yep that's the government I'm talking about. We can add your point to the list along with the DHS, TSA, constitution free zones. The list is almost unending.

This government is a threat to the life and limb of practically everyone they encounter. Probably most have given up on any hope of changing such a corrupt organization the way it was originally designed to be changed. At the voting booth. Yeah that's working well.