Balkanization/Civil War II/American Decline

I give the example of one lone individual moving to prove a point in a very simple way. But actual fragmentation of a region into smaller countries is infinitely more difficult and might even involve things we don’t like.

Right.

I’ll say the assumption that it cannot ever be considered is dangerous and can function as the foundation for moving too far in dangerous directions that eventually force it to happen.

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I don’t agree with the idea of having the US Balkanize, mostly because it downgrades an incredibly powerful country into a litany of relatively powerless countries.

I agree much more with the idea of redistributing power back to individual states though… you know, a small federal govt and larger state governments (I’m sure i’ve heard of this somewhere before). This would allow for people to move to states whose policies align more with their own values, and to have centralized hubs of people with beliefs that wouldn’t be hell bent on uprooting the system.

We all have relatively similar goals and values, despite what media and politics portray; go talk to your neighbor, or literally anyone you may not align with politically about anything.

  • Do you hate that person when you talk to them?
  • Do you recognize you might hold some different values but that doesn’t make them a fundamentally different person?
  • Does talking with them make you want to move?
  • Are they as insane as the media portrays their whole party to be?

Answer: Probably not

Chances are, you might even like this person who has different values from you, and you can appreciate their opinion because it allows you to reconsider your own opinions by properly defending them.

I believe people calling for balkanization are ignoring the large impact that social media has on the opinions each side has of the other. We hear about teachers pushing LGBT agenda stuff on very young kids and lose our shit. We hear protesters saying “abortion is murdur” outside a Planned Parenthood clinic and lose our shit. But neither of these groups make up the majority of either party, and neither party is willing to forsake that group of voters by calling them out on their bullshit - all because of tribalization.
I agree with balkanization when people have a “reasonable hate” for their neighbor, as in true - fundamental differences which can never be reconciled… if your neighbor needs to sacrifice a virgin to ensure the sun comes up in the morning, this qualifies as ‘beyond reconcile’. But if we turn down the semantics, virtue signalling, and overall bullshit that serves no purpose but to own the other side, I think we’d come to realize that we have a lot more in common with most people with different political leanings than us. I don’t think this qualifies as “hatred” anymore.


Most liberals aren’t on board with pushing LGBT stuff onto children.
Most conservatives aren’t on board with fringe conspiracy theories.
NEITHER want the government to tell them what the can and cannot do with their bodies.
BOTH just fail to realize that it’s never okay, regardless of which party is whittling away your rights.

We don’t hate the other side, we hate the other tribe. So let’s dismantle the ‘tribes’ and find out how little we actually hate each other. That’s why I don’t agree with balkanizing the US.

Maybe I’m just young and naiively optimistic, but I would really like to believe that people aren’t actually fucking insane. Or maybe I just realize most of the bullshit we see from both parties is just a means to further the popularity contest which feeds on hate, and that this ‘game’ only makes The People lose in the end.
If we cut the bullshit, I don’t think we’d be so fucking hateful towards each other.
This shit doesn’t happen in small towns… I wonder why that is…?

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I think this makes more sense than trying to divide into separate countries.

A lot of conservative states have liberal cities, a lot of liberal states have conservative rural areas (I’d dare say all of them). In general most rural areas are conservative, most cities are liberal. The city folk in Texas probably would be upset if they get annexed to conservative land, and the conservative people in rural Minnesota would be pissed if they got annexed to liberal land.

I think if this happened, a lot of city people in conservative land would move to cities in liberal land, and a lot of rural people in liberal land would move to rural areas in conservative land.

I’d argue that every state where a party has a supermajority operates under the guise of “equity” and good intentions. Those good intentions serves the supermajority and generally ignores the minority. Whether you think those policies are good or bad depends on your PoV.

This feeds into my belief though- any group that sufficiently homogenizes itself will eventually just find reasons to splinter within itself. It’s human nature imo. It’s what I think having a culture/mindset that focuses on differences inevitably leads to.

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We can’t divide. Just look at how weak Canada being a separate country has made us both. And the disagreements-don’t get me started. We both have to be thankful everyday that doesn’t devolve into a war between us.

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People are unlikely to turn down the semantics, virtue signaling and overall bullshit unless they personally see a cost for it.

Talking up balcanization can do that.

There’s been a mechanism of a big game of chicken at play for a while now. Government shutdowns for example, but that’s not a big enough cliff. It can be helpful to have people discussing the cliff that’s big enough that nobody wants to play chicken with

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“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gun-fighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things that kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both.”[5]

One person’s analysis:

But to be fair, I don’t think even Heinlein envisioned the actual current reality of Idiocracy-level IQ coupled with gun density (e.g, Chicago or Florida).

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Just look at Afghanistan, Somalia or Chicago.

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So, they’re immigrants, right?

Cost of rent has more than tripled in the last few years, and and the price of houses is getting ridiculous.
And those little traditional affordable restaurants and bakeries suddenly aren’t so affordable amymore.
But in all fairness this has been going for a while, partially due to tourism and the policies enacted after the 2008 crisis to atract these immigrants.

Now, some of these people actually have some roots here. Some can even speak the language.

But some don’t seem so keen on adopting a new culture.

This lady from San Diego we did house renovations for wanted one of our workers “removed” because she heard him (a white guy) greet another worker (black) with the “my nigga”.

I tried to explain that it was just a term of endearment used between buddies among the younger generations and the expression had no history (negative or otherwise) here, just something kids pick up from music and tv.

Nope, she wasn’t having that. And that young black worker, and even I, as POC, shouldn’t have to be sujected to that treatment.

Lol. Those kids are buddies, don’t care about each other’s colors and this crazy lady is bringing race into this, why?

Well no one is getting “removed” and that’s that.

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Sure, that’s definitely a reasonable ask. I’m sure you’d get a million different answers too. We can spend time speculating on what they may be, but brainstorming hypothetical responses to such a question doesn’t seem like the greatest use of time.

Now, would it be reasonable for a neighbor to demand another neighbor be removed from their residence, for whatever reason, rational or irrational, forcibly or not?

I think this is the more important question. If folks want to leave a place, there’s generally nothing stopping them from doing so. If those same folks want a place to themselves, and in order to fulfill that desire must remove others from that place, then we’re going to have an issue.

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Well, that depends.

An immigrant is supposed to denote some level of assimilation and adaptation to the country/place you move to.

An expat is literally just a foreigner who chooses to live in another country. By definition an expat doesn’t seek to assimilate into the local culture. They may enjoy it but there is no assimilation.

So I am sure there’s a mix of both- some who are serious about immigrating to Portugal, becoming Portuguese citizens and setting roots there, and others who just want to leave the U.S. and go somewhere that seems more attractive. Who know what they’ll do in the future.

It’s exactly as you write in your next post.

What I am pretty sure is that, in the long run, the locals who’ve been living in the areas these people are moving to will not be happy with just how much more expensive everything’s got. And it doesn’t matter whether these people are immigrants or expats as long as they are significantly wealthier than the average populace. As far as price is concerned, the issue is the discretionary spending they bring and the unintended impact it has on the area, not their physical presence and whether they intend to live there permanently.

What I find funny about your story is that I am willing to bet that the language used by your workers were adapted from U.S. culture. However, since you’re not actually in the U.S., the contentious debate over who gets to call one another “my nigga” was probably ignored because it’s not really relevant.

Now in the U.S. you’re probably considered a horrible racist if you use that phrase when you’re not a black person. Heck, just using the term itself can make you a target of severe criticism, regardless of context.

So that phrase has taken a life of its own and it connotates different things in different places.

Yes, history has shown this many times.

Many societal divorces were horrible. Czechoslovakia had a peaceful one.

Thank you for the explanation, I wasn’t aware of the distinction. I thought it was just some fancy term Americans used because they didn’t want to think of themselves as “immigrants” lol.

Absolutely.

Yes.
Thing is, especially up until recently, you’d hear these expressions in movies and music and adopt them without fully knowing it’s history or impact, and who gets or doesn’t get to say it.
Especially if one didn’t consume other types of American media (such as online forums).
You will not be exposed to those discussions if you have no American Facebook friends, for instance.

I mean, if a kid bought a rap album here, he’d sing along to the lyrics with no malice.
Shit, we covered Body Count’s “there goes the neighbourhood” back in highschool and our singer was this Ukrainian born kid, who, let’s be honest, didn’t look much like Ice T.
None of us was really aware that he’d get his ass kicked if he sang that in America.

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I vividly remember the first time I saw the video for that on Riki Rachtman’s Headbangers Ball in 1992.

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You’ll see young people of all races calling each other that word in the US.

Just a kickass track and not difficult to play.

Headbanger’s Ball, lol that’s a great name.

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It was on every Saturday. It was a show of all metal videos and interviews.

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I actually have seen it referenced. I’ve probably seen interviews from that show, and that Riky dude’s face is familiar.

I imagine there weren’t many outlets for metal then, so guys that liked Pantera and Sepultura would sit through Poison and Dokken videos to get to the good stuff and vice versa.
See? Sometimes compromise can be good. A show just about Thrash Metal wouln’t have happened.
(Trying to get your thread back on topic, sorry for the derail).

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