I think if Texas pulled the trigger on secession, there’d be a few states that joined up with them, I don’t know that it’d be the entire US against just one state. If they seriously went for it, it’d probably be because they thought they had enough strength in numbers.
Unfortunately for them though, Republican-leaning states tend to have lower populations and wouldn’t really be able to provide much help. Florida I guess has a big population too, but not sure how helpful they’d be either with their demographics.
On the plus side though, we could potentially clear out alot of these MAGA idiots in office, assuming we actually started punishing people for insurrection.
The larger the state, the more internal resistance there will be. Not everyone in Texas or Florida will want to secede, and everybody can buy a gun. It’s one thing to gather some pride boys and meal team six larpers in the town square and march around for a bit, but it’s an entirely other thing to defend territory when you’re outnumbered, outgunned, and half the population is against you.
Oklahoma and Arkansas might be up for it, but there’s no way secessionists hold Miami or Austin.
Not just that, but the economic powerhouses are almost exclusively cities run by Democrats. Even deep red states have Democrats as mayors of their big cities. Texas would have a hard time funding a war if they were trying to do it on the backs of porcupines.
Nah, as someone who lives in Oklahoma, about half the younger generation has a functioning nervous system that would prevent that from happening. If we seriously tried to go any more red, there would be violence in the streets.
All their national guards will be federalized and fall in line the second they are told their lifelong benefits will be revoked if they disobey an order to remain in place.
Most of them are under 25s that joined for free healthcare and education they couldnt afford on their own. A fraction of a percentage are willing to fight and die in the name of a state, let alone one they dont live in 😂
Hi, I was an under 25 that needed Healthcare, and wanted a formal education.
I personally am of the belief that one has a duty to disobey any illegal order, and since this fits the bill,a sizeable number would disobey on that premise alone.
But I also know that’s not likely what does it, but benefits and pay.
I personally know several people who honestly think that “THREE PERCENT!” of the population could honestly stand against their parent country in modern day. And of course, they hold that belief purely from their “only 3% fought the British” and think that a colonial territory in 1776 would somehow translate to home country rebellion in 2024.
Could they do damage and be a nuisance, and create generational issues? Absolutely. Succeed and establish themselves as a respected sovereign nation, or conquer the federal government? Anyone who honestly thinks that’s feasible without the federal government saying “eh, whatever I don’t really care” is fooling themselves.
My time in the navy was more than enough to convince me that no state could ever pull that off, just on Naval power alone. Largest navy, 2nd largest air force, marines technically part of it (don’t ever tell them that unless you have their favorite flavor of crayon as an apology) and since the federal government knows literally every single thing about their off/Def capabilities are, it would be over before my hot chocolate gets cold.
Republican states are all running in the red and I don’t mean the political red. They’re constantly getting financially bailed out by everyone else. It’s gross.
They don’t have a military. The National Guard units would come under the command of the President of the US, and any units in rebellion would know they’re facing courts martial for crimes that would be career limiting in that the penalties could include anything from life in prison to execution. It’s literally treason by the legal definition.
Even if any significant number of troops were to choose to violate the law, modern war isn’t about riflemen. There’s a massive infrastructure required to keep tanks and planes running, not to mention things like carrier battle groups. Northrop and Raytheon aren’t going to be forfeiting USG contracts to sell missile systems to Ohio.
Only the president has the nuclear codes, so nuclear blackmail can’t work either.
There isn’t going to be another civil war. Too much has changed between then and now in terms of military and economic organization. This is just Texas whacking off yet again, as they did under Obama and Bill Clinton.
The very real risks we’re facing are the election of Donald Trump - this is the biggest threat - and far right domestic terrorism. The former is an existential threat to the United States and should be treated as such. The latter is a law enforcement issue and should be treated as such. I suspect the Proud Boys are infiltrated all to hell as are the other major organizations, but there’s the potential for a significant amount of harm being done on a larger than 9/11 scale, although it’d be drawn out.
modern war isn’t about riflemen. There’s a massive infrastructure required to keep tanks and planes running, not to mention things like carrier battle groups.
The problem is that they don’t need to ‘win’ to get what they want; they just need to be enough of a nuisance to get concessions from the government. And both Ukraine and Gaza are showing us how effectively a bunch of people with rifles, drones and RPGs can frustrate an army. Sure, a lot of them will die, but I worry that it might be a sacrifice their leaders are willing to make if that means they get to hurt a lot of innocent people.
I need to fly from NJ to California in a few months. Economy tickets are around $275. I’d like a bit of extra legroom for the long flight, so I check out Economy plus. Economy plus tickets are $800. What in the actual fuck is this? It’s not first class. I get no added benefits other than a few inches of extra leg room.
Buy 2 seats, 1 behind the other, for $550 then walk in there with a toolbox and yeet that seat out through the emergency door onto the tarmac. You get more than a few inches and it only cost twice as much.
When I worked at a computer store (basically the store from viva l dirt league) a lady came in and kept trying to order a jizz of RAM. We had a great time getting her to say it repeatedly.
I mean, it’s unavoidable. Everyone draws their own line in the sand based on what they think is “right” and “wrong”, using whatever best tools and ideas are available to them, picked from the avalanche of options.
The line will not stay put from generation to generation, that’s not a reasonable thing to ask for. If we go back 50 years when tv was king, it’s not like all the tv shows were equally good, or stayed good.
So, it’s kinda just on us to seek out and pick the right things to support, and be prepared in case those change too. It’s kinda the whole reason I’m personally here on the Fediverse. I mean, back in the stone age our ancestors had to do the same things, its not like their environments always just stayed perfect. If something changes and you don’t want to starve to death, you gotta just do something. Can’t just wish it away.
I heard a newspaper opinion piece in the radio here in German that clearly didn’t know the difference between genocide and holocaust. I mean, c’mon, read a book before you publish a newspaper!
There were lots of genocides in our history, but only one Holocaust and there always will be one Holocaust, even in future history, where more genocides are bound to happen, sadly.
I am German, though raised mostly in Brazil, Colombia and the USA. The Holocaust is still THE genocide in recent history. “The Nazis” is a beloved trope in the media, in order to unmistakably portray pure evil, never able to redeem itself.
Being raised in different countries, made me create very little nationalistic feelings for any country. But still, i feel the weight of what was done in WW2 … How could we do this, especially the apathy in the population. Come on, from a certain point, everybody must have known, what Hitler’s plan was.
We all know this, but there is no answer as to how this could happen, since Germans are not like this. How could we be ok with this and, as records show, proudly stand by it? It’s something looming in the background of germany’s daily life.
Nobody wants something like this to happen again, but the uncertainty of how it was possible in past, makes it really difficult to even deal with this.
This surely will change as fine passes by and future generations won’t have the Holocaust as something that happened to their parents generation.
To publicly say that Israel is going bad things, specially genocide, is something no german will be able to do easily.
The commitment given to Israel by Germany and also the USA, was a noble and only correct action in the past, but to be real, became a fucking mindmelting Problem now.
If this would be happening 200 years from now? Germany and USA would be going into this, without the much too recent WW2 baggage.
Why does it appear what your saying is, the novelty and or uniqueness of the tragedy of the Holocaust is and for some short time will be, the awfullest and worst loss of human life in recent history? Where do you get the audacity to make a claim like that, do you realty think without asking others throughout the world you can even begin to make such a claim? It’s because you’re german and feel really bad and learned from your mistakes and of course are sorry and this gives you a keen insight over others who are not part of a culture or society where genocide is even on the table?
I for one cannot accept it prima facie. Why would my proximity and knowledge of awful terrible events be the demarcator between whether it is or is not the worst?? Why is the convenience of checks notes it happening within the lifetimes of my immediate ancestors a useful metric besides convenience?
It’s this disgusting platitudes and preposition of “having a keen insight” also called smugness or knowing better or speaking platitudes which foments the stage and discussion for such idealistic rhetoric, devoid of trivial empirical claims, which increases the preponderance of having your voice and others like it anywhere near the centre of the stage; where, what do ya know, it’s been for the last century-and-a-half.
Let others from cultures who have no genocide on their hands speak, you and your ilk have been tolerated and have said more than enough. You’re given an inch and take a mile.
What idiot thinks anyone wants “stuff for free.” What the fuck do you think taxes are? We aren’t expecting people to shit houses out of their asses. We’re expecting our government WHICH WE PAY to provide us with basic dignity
Also, I’m not sure why you think the government owes every citizen a house.
I’m not arguing against social safety nets, but straight up paying for housing for every citizen is how you end up with everyone living in shoebox apartments.
I’m sure that you haven’t even considered the numbers at all on this. If you think the current taxes will pay for it, you’re mistaken.
Even if we took the entire military budget, that would be less than $2,500 per citizen per year.
“it took me three seconds to come up with a BAD implementation, which not a single person in this thread asked for, which doesn’t work! Therefore ALL implementations are bad! Ha!”
There’s a huge gulf between what this comic says (essentially housing, a basic human necessity) should be free, and what you’re attacking (everything is free). One of those is ABSOLUTELY doable. We live in a world of gross excess, if we stop arguing over how to kill people more efficiently, stop worrying about printing more money, we could give people a small home. Of course someone still has to pay/work for it, no one’s stupid lol.
Even if it’s a “shoebox apartment” it’s better than streets. It’s one of the basic requirements for life. And who’s to say that provided home has to be your only option?
Honestly, even if we replaced current employment with a 10-year indentured servitude contract with a guaranteed 1000 sq. ft. home and free utilities and maintenance for the rest of your life, that’d still be better than what we have now in a lot of ways.
People only like the system we’re in because it provides the illusion of choice, not actual choices.
So far the people advocating for communism ITT are not even sly about shifting goalposts with the wind.
Specifically OP, OP responded to a comment about free housing being unrealistic with “single income families should be allowed to exist” followed by something else that wasn’t relevant to free housing being unrealistic.
At this point I just think they’re big communism shills. (I shouldn’t have to say this is a joke, but I know that I do.)
They’re just children who expect everything to be hand fed to them by the government and have no sense of nuance. They look at the utopia that communism promises without realizing that humans are selfish and greedy animals, so it’ll never work.
These people are a good example of why echo chambers are a bad thing. They don’t stop to think about why their beliefs might be wrong.
Also if humans were naturally greedy it would make sense for 99 percent of humanity to overthrow the 1 percent and distribute the benefits of society more equally.
There’s an entire corpus of books and documents critiquing the current system and on how a society based on mutual aid would work. None of them “expect everything to be provided for free”.
Considering you cant name a book, i doubt it. I’m currently reading The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato and Yurugu by Marimba Ani. I cant recommend both of them enough. Its about culture as much as it is about economics.
If one is a student if economics, naming a book on economics to confirm your bonafides is as low a bar to jump over as humanly possible. Books aren’t cringe, you are just basic.
I mean, no. I’m not going to go dig up the syllabus for my econ classes just to prove a point.
You clearly don’t understand economics if you think paying for housing for 335,000,000 citizens is even remotely feasible without a major tax increases on everyone.
Communism is a nice thought experiment, but it’ll never actually work because humans are awful.
I am not aware of a way to have coercion free society. But I am very sure we can massively reduce the amount of coercion necessary to keep our current society running well.
I mean, I get what you’re saying, but the Internet Archive has limited resources as it is and doesn’t appreciate being used as a CDN. They’ve said as much themselves on various occasions
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