The Second American Civil War

What a bizarre fantasy.

To start with, if the US did break up, I'm pretty sure the west coast states would ally with each other rather than fight each other.

And people returning to their home states? How would that work exactly? I was born in Washington but grew up in Oregon, went to grad school in Utah and Texas, and since then have lived in Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. My husband was born in Kansas, grew up in Oklahoma, went to college in Texas, went to grad school in Oregon and since then has lived in Washington and Tennessee. What exactly is our "home state"?

And Alaska being safe because they're so far from the rest of the States? You don't think they'd get hungry, up there? With a population that mostly doesn't know how to live off the land and sea, and no growing season to speak of?

If the US broke up I'm thinking we'd have economic problems that would make it hard to fight each other with modern armies and weapons. To start with, soldiers like to get paid. And they like the money they're paid in to be worth something. People need to eat, but only so much, and some states have way too much of some things and others way to little. A rifle requires parts that may be made in many different states, and gearing up to build one is not a minor deal--not to mention that some states have iron and some don't, some have copper and some don't, and so on.

Willing suspension of disbelief is fine but I need the author to work with me a bit more here.

I'm pretty sure it was written as a "military science" kind of thing.
Very little to do with reality.

Yes, Washington and Oregon teaming up with Idaho and the high plains?? I don't care that it makes a pretty square on the map, it doesn't reflect realities on the ground. And one suspects this young author has no experience with supply-chain issues. But the Donner Pass was a nice touch.

(Did you see the links at the bottom? I want to go back and read about storming the Cinderella Castle.)

Interesting piece. Not how I see it shaking out, but fascinating.

Have to agree with Cat, anybody west of the Cascades between about Prince Georges and San Luis Obispo are more or less of like mind and would refuse to fight each other... CASCADIA!!!! (see flag)

And, yeah, without *somebody* to import from, Alaska reverts to the Inuit...

I figure, Cascadia, Hollywood, Texas (which would probably end up being much of Flyoveria), the CSA (those two being loosely allied), New England, New York City, and the Chicago Machine. But back in eigenspace? If anyone is likely to actually Do It, it would be Texas, and I figure they'll settle down once somebody pops'em up'side the head with the reality of *just how much trouble* it is to roll your own... border patrol, passport issuance, lack of preferred trade status, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera (/king-of-siam)...

Yeah, if the west coast could join Canada
or maybe include BC...
In any case, one cannot plausibly suppose
that Seattle and San Diego would have much to argue about.

Anyway, so far as I know,
everyone talking about secession thinks the supreme court is wrong.
They resent federal interference with their "rights";
Their right to prohibit abortion,
their right to exclude queers from equal protection of the law,
their right to--well, you get the idea.

None of them have imagined a monetary system
without US dollars,
none of them have considered the vagaries
(let alone vulagarities!)
of securing domestic tranquility,
and none of them yet realize that if their state seceded,
they would, within a few years,
urge their county to secede from the state.
Assuming their state could contiue to exist and retain autonomy,
although I'm sure it could not.
Without the US Army, FBI and DEA,
Texas would be eaten alive overnight.

I know for sure that if Texas secedes, Austin is seceding from Texas. And taking all that hi-zootium they make there with them.

I think you're right. I don't think they can keep their borders on their own, nor keep up their infrastructure without federal bucks.

Hawaii might be in no danger from California or Japan,
but what about North Korea?

And without the US to protect it,
how long would the Alaska pipeline remain Alaskan?

I'm sure Putin would be happy to restore Alaska to its original owners.

I'd suggest that part of the scenario is that California and Washington separated makes for a more interesting alternate history than a united West coast which settles in for the duration and cracks stuff on its own. Same for "well, why doesn't New York join Canada and take New England with it?"

That said, like everyone else in the USA, I've wondered whether we might be so large that we're administratively unwieldy. I hate feeling like my country's destiny is continuously determined by the same philosophies and people I grew up with, and I can only imagine that they hate feeling like their country's destiny is continuously determined by mooching irresponsible blasphemous hedonists like myself. Puerto Rico's about to become a state; maybe we can change organically without actual civil war.

I guess I'm not like everyone else in the USA.
Adminstration is much less unweildly now
than it was when the President had to send a telegram
to Council Bluffs and a series of horsemen had to take it to Sacramento.

That article is warporn, pure and simple. Look at the language -- I've seen similar phrasings in "after the Revolution/Conquest" books. (A friend of ours inherited a whole pile of that toxic crap, and we took it off her hands and dumped it in the recycle bin.) Whoever wrote that did so for himself and other guys like him to jerk off to.

America is definitely too large to hold together without modern technology. I think there's a good case to be made that we almost didn't hold together -- that the cross-country rail and telegraph lines were completed just barely in time to keep us from breaking in half East/West.

There are some advantages to the idea of having 5 or 6 smaller independent countries in a space this large; for one thing, it would probably cut way back on the amount of provincialism when the nearest other country was only an hour or two away. And I would certainly have no objection to jettisoning the whole South, which is both socially and financially nothing but a drag on the country -- even though that would put me personally in a position of financial hardship, since I'd have to move. (Admittedly, there's quite a bit of "be careful what you ask for, assholes" in this opinion.)

Damn...