Thought Experiment: Split America in two (1 Viewer)

[Jon]

Lets play a little game. What would happen if America was split in two, right down the middle? In the West you have only Democrats, in the East only Republicans. There is a minefield in the middle keeping either side apart. Maybe you have a few exchange points where trade could happen, but largely, each side keeps to their own.

What would happen?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Tunnels would happen. Americans don't like barriers. Walls throughout history have been shown to be permeable.

(Which is why, though I support Trump generally, I was not a fan of the "Wall" project.)

 

[Jon]

Tunnels...

 

[Pat Hartman]

I've always looked forward to the day when the San Andreas fault ruptures and makes California an island unto itself. Unfortunately, refugees from California have already ruined Oregon and Washington and so we'd also need the San Juan fault to rupture at the same time to solve that problem..

each side keeps to their own.

Isn't that how Europe worked before the EU. People who lived near each other and thought alike were separate countries.

 

[Isaac]

My personal perspective, although typing this out I suddenly realize it "doesn't sound very good", but .... I actually think Americans in large part like walls. I'm not saying that's my feeling, just my observation of the country. We like our little separate areas...each state having its own "flavor" and being so beyond-proud of it that it's almost silly (i.e., anyone lived in Texas recently..I have, a couple years ago), the folks in the suburbs love their little areas, people who are more into living downtown and inner city tend to support their little areas, most people IMO live in their own bubble...and like it that way. Leaving it only occasionally, deemed as an adventure.

But it would be next to impossible to figure out where to draw the line, so broad based support for such a thing might never come to be.

We already kind of have this concept with our very different states, which tend to be nationalist [but on a state level] - minded.

 

[NauticalGent]

So where does that leave people like StereR and myself, the few who are a member/supporter of neither? Alaska or Hawaii?

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think it is just human nature to be "tribal". We like to be around people who look like us and think like us and talk like us and like the same food. Then we like to go on vacation to see how the other people live. It is amazing that America has made this melting pot concept work so well for so long. I think it was only because earlier waves of Immigrants actually wanted to assimilate. Now the left tells them to NOT assimilate. That's not working out so well for the country as a whole. As long as the left keeps pushing "diversity" and separating people into ever smaller groups, we are doomed as a country.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

IF you study anthropology and paleontology and other "way back" studies, you learn that Man is indirectly descended from reptiles. It is believed by some that "territoriality" emerged from the reptilian brain that protected its prime hunting grounds. Anyone (anything) else entering that territory would receive a hostile greeting. Even though from a different viewpoint, I am actually concurring with Pat. We are tribal because it is an inborn trait to protect those closest to us.

 

[Jon]

I had a rash the other day. Maybe they were scales?

 

[Pat Hartman]

My band of comfortable temperature range is so narrow, I KNOW that I am a reptile

 

[Isaac]

My band of comfortable temperature range is so narrow, I KNOW that I am a reptile

Me too. I often marvel that I ended up where I did. So I am from Wisconsin, and my wife is from Mexico. I sometimes joke that from two extreme opposite cultures and geographies, we "split the difference". But I am pretty sure, in 110 degree days (right now in Phoenix), that was not quite a fair split.

 

[Pat Hartman]

110 in Phoenix is actually almost tolerable. 90 in Connecticut is not.

 

[Isaac]

True. Even 80 in WI is miserable.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

New Orleans is 95-by-95 in summer. Which is 95 degrees F and 95% humidity. Even the gators look like they are sweating.

 

[Isaac]

Yikes .. I don't know how anyone can stand it. We visited Disneyworld in Orlando (in the winter, even) a couple years ago and I decided now that my Florida curiosity was satisfied I could definitely cross it off my list! Guess there are a lot of pros and cons to everywhere though.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I lived in Miami and the climate is much better than Orlando. As long as you're within a mile of so of the beach, there's almost always an on-shore breeze which keeps the temperature/humidity tolerable.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We swelter in the summer but the payoff is that for us, winter is OFTEN (not always) just shirt-sleeve weather. Our winters are beautiful. It snows in our area maybe once every seven years and even then it is spotty. When I was a kid back in the mid 1950s, we had snow that stayed on the ground for three days before it all melted and got yucky. We go for weeks at a time with out a freeze day even in January.