We are entering the stage where ideology and education about sustainability and living within carrying capacity will be augmented by the reality of identifiable consequences of our overshoot. External consequences like the peaking and decline of below ground energy and commodity resources, above ground environmental degradation of our climate, soils, fisheries and climate will have a profound effect on our culture.
2009 is the year when we start to feel it.
Joined: Sep 03, 2007 Posts: 642 Location: Sunny Virginia, USA
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:01 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
Cloud9 wrote:
If anything, politics as a process is getting cleaner. There are more eyes watching and the twenty four seven news channels never shut up. Nothing today holds a candle to the Hayes election or Boss Tweed or even the fact that the dead voted for President Kennedy.
You are quite correct but you missed one salient point. That point is the trust in the process which, if challenged, can be verified in a recount. E-voting without a paper trail provides no such verification and the media has no way of getting to that unless some mistake or consiracy is uncovered through other means.
The 24/7 news cycle is very important to our freedom as long as the news casters do not put their own unique spin on things, which I'm sad to say, they do in spades. Fox, CNN, et al are all culpable and fail to meet, IMHO, basic standards in journalistic integrity and thus endanger the people through mistakes and outright disinformation (as seen with the Iraqi war).
The news media is the first, best hope for keeping Americans free and together. Whether they are up to the challenge is in serious doubt, from where I sit.
As a side note, I was surprised to find out that the very large, old-fashioned lever machines we used to use did not have any form of paper trail. However, the ability to fool with a mechanical machine does not strike me as easily accomplished as you have to actually take one apart in order to make it do what you want. I'm surprised Michael Moore has not made a bid deal out of that. _________________ When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. -- Otto Harkaman, Space Viking
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1859 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:09 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
jlw61 wrote:
Again, this is not a healthcare thread
Then why'd you bring it up?
jlw61 wrote:
I've given you a link to another thread that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter.
What, you can't cut and paste? I'm supposed to go read what you had to say elsewhere, then respond here? Do us a favour; if you're going to argue here, present here.
As for the rest, are you only good at chasing us off-site to what other people say and nodding your head "me too, me too..."? So... what do YOU think? I don't mind if you want to quote a source, but why should I be bothered to roam through your links for hours when you can't be bothered to spend 15 minutes distilling your own thoughts down to a coherent statement, or even to quote yourself from elsewhere? You obviously had to go there to fetch the link; finish your work.
jlw61 wrote:
Yoiur friend has gotten in on the tail end of a "too good to be true" program. I hope she recovers nicely and lives to a ripe old age.
She has recovered, three times, as I said. My Dad's now currently in that program. It isn't too good to be true; it is true. You know why it's not too good to be true? Because we're not larding corporate profits on top of the cost of keeping people alive here, or elsewhere in the Western world, like you are. Too good to be true? Too good to be true is 43 million people in the US who can't afford health care coverage, and millions of others who can't afford to leave jobs they hate because their coverage would evaporate. There's plenty of money to look after the health of a society if you just refrain from pissing the gold into the mouths of military contractors and fighting needless wars to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. If you don't believe it and you want to convince yourself we don't have it because you don't, fine... the more fool you. But we do have it, and we wouldn't part with it; don't let rich, right-wing axe-grinders ever convince you otherwise. We work to solve the problems and deficiencies in it, not chuck it out and offer our throats to the HMOs.
Here are the facts. According to Nationmaster, the United States, by all means, spends an average of $4271 per person annually on health care; the highest in the world. Canada spends an average of only $1939, only the 14th highest in the world... but our infant mortality rate is lower, and we live on average over a year longer than you. Too good to be true? We spend half as much. Your system is too BAD to be true, that's all. Too GREEDY. Too BLOATED. Ours isn't great... it's decent. Yours is idiotic, and I can't understand why you can't wake up to that. Where are these armed masses you keep assuring us of who can pressure the government when you really need them?
jlw61 wrote:
I do not like eletronic voting or people who can not take the time to figure out a simple paper ballot.
So why are you tacitly endorsing the practice by purporting to tell us that they results of the 2004 presidential election are above reproach? As a nation, you have to live with those results... but you don't ever have to allow that manner of vote tallying every again.
jlw61 wrote:
Your failure to see the logic suprises me. I did not say the government is intentionally creating a force of people who would be willing to oppose it.
Did you, or did you not say that the people returning from the army constitute the backbone of an armed resistance?
jlw61 wrote:
The result is a byproduct of the situation.
Yeah, death is the "byproduct" of getting shot in the head. People are aware of that when they point the gun and squeeze the trigger. So why would a government you claim is doing everything it can to get guns out of the hands of the people be simultaneously doing everything it can to put guns INTO the hands of the people, and furthermore, train them in their effective use?
The point? They're not. The gun laws aren't about stifling consent, as you lamented, but curtailing access to firearms in the furtherance of felonies. Their efficacy is questionable, but the intent is clear enough.
jlw61 wrote:
A situation created by what I would call criminal activity. Oh, you missed that also...
No, you missed it, because it contradicts the first point of your thesis and supports my own assertion above.
jlw61 wrote:
Again, you are ignoring the part where I said...
Yeah, I keep "ignoring" the parts where you keep telling me how much you agree with me in principle before you turn around and tell me I'm wrong. Forgive me if I don't spend my time arguing the points where we're supposedly in accord. I tend to focus on the points with which I take issue in a debate.
jlw61 wrote:
I think they did wrong and that the law needs to be challenged and struck down.
Good, me too (there, happy now?)... I know, you said that. But my point, though, is how did they get to BE "law" in the first place? How is it that the committees overlooked the Constitution, how is it that the Congress and the President overrode it, how is it that the courts enforced it? It's nice they're considering stuffing all that toothpaste back in the tube after all these years, but how did it come to get squeezed out? This is habeas corpus we're talking about; something with roots in the Magna Carta, not some new and uncharted legal territory.
jlw61 wrote:
take your conspiritorial clap trap elsewhere because I don't have the time to be called a liar along with everything else.
You seem to have plenty of time to respond; if I'm keeping you from anything, hey, off you go. _________________
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1859 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:29 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
coyote wrote:
I can't testify what the voting experience was like in other states, but here in California the voting machine I used clearly recorded my entries on a physical ticker tape that was visible through a window on the machine... I'm still bent out of shape about the Florida vote thing, and I'm amazed that Americans must spend billions supporting this vile insurance industry instead of simply providing for ourselves - but this thing about the voting machines sounds like conspiracy theory stuff to me. I don't think it's an issue.
But it is an issue, though, like it or not. People raised it as an issue. People feel the election was stolen; it's common knowledge and gets joked about on national television. Is this healthy for a democracy? Regardless of whether or not the 2004 election was stolen, it is a common perception that it was, and partly because there's no way to prove it, one way or the other, because no record exists. Well, no complete record. And in a close election, that was crucial.
Most countries have an arm's length electoral body at the national level that oversees elections; enrolls the voter lists, sets national standards, unifies the voting process coast to coast, and counts and legally certifies the ballots and makes them available to the courts for recounts. This doesn't exist in the United States. Even the election of the president, a federal office and the only one for which everyone votes together, is handled by a mishmash of hundreds, thousands of state and county authorities, with different ideas about who belongs on the rolls, how the ballot is constituted and who is and isn't on it, how they're to be indicated and counted or disqualified... it's incredible. It's literally incredible. If I could recommend just one constitutional amendment for the United States, it would be the abolition of the Electoral College in favour of direct election of the president, and a federal agency, answerable to a congressional committee, to oversee the elections of all federal offices. _________________
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1883 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:51 pm Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
jlw61 wrote:
Then California is a very lucky state. Here in the great state of Virginia, paper trails are not required and the local officials in charge of the process have openly scoffed at the idea. This raises my hackles to no small degree and this is one really important ingredient to the recipe that could cause the break up of America.
Hmm... in that case I'll have to withdraw my argument. But in any case, it's a problem that is fixable.
I see a pretty long timeline for any breakup, and see it as a possibility in that frame. It's a bit cliche to compare the the hegemony of the United States with the Roman Empire, but I find it relevant. During the Pax Romana, the Roman military machine must have seemed unstoppable. In 150 A.D. it surely would have been laughable and unthinkable to a Roman citizen that the great empire could ever fall. Nevertheless, barely 100 years later the Empire was on the verge of collapse, and had split into three parts.
Obviously I realize things are very different for us. We are far more a united people than the various subjects of the Roman Empire could have been. But the center has a way of not holding, even for the monolith. Maybe especially for the monolith. The Roman Empire suffered from a crisis of maintenance and resources. In light of peak oil, it's not too farfetched to believe we may suffer the same. Things may look quite different 100 years from now. Or eventually. Nothing lasts forever. I won't see it happen - but that doesn't make it less fun to speculate. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Joined: Sep 03, 2007 Posts: 642 Location: Sunny Virginia, USA
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:04 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
coyote wrote:
jlw61 wrote:
Then California is a very lucky state. Here in the great state of Virginia, paper trails are not required and the local officials in charge of the process have openly scoffed at the idea. This raises my hackles to no small degree and this is one really important ingredient to the recipe that could cause the break up of America.
Hmm... in that case I'll have to withdraw my argument. But in any case, it's a problem that is fixable.
I see a pretty long timeline for any breakup, and see it as a possibility in that frame. It's a bit cliche to compare the the hegemony of the United States with the Roman Empire, but I find it relevant. During the Pax Romana, the Roman military machine must have seemed unstoppable. In 150 A.D. it surely would have been laughable and unthinkable to a Roman citizen that the great empire could ever fall. Nevertheless, barely 100 years later the Empire was on the verge of collapse, and had split into three parts.
Obviously I realize things are very different for us. We are far more a united people than the various subjects of the Roman Empire could have been. But the center has a way of not holding, even for the monolith. Maybe especially for the monolith. The Roman Empire suffered from a crisis of maintenance and resources. In light of peak oil, it's not too farfetched to believe we may suffer the same. Things may look quite different 100 years from now. Or eventually. Nothing lasts forever. I won't see it happen - but that doesn't make it less fun to speculate.
Another big difference is communiction. It has been argued that communication is the glue that binds a government's control over an area. With fast, efficient communications the cohesion created with commerce, news and law will keep a people thinking as one.
Roads where the lifeline of Roman commerce and communications and when they could no longer maintain those roads or the safe passage along them, the empire was doomed. _________________ When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. -- Otto Harkaman, Space Viking
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1859 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:57 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
jlw61 wrote:
Another big difference is communiction. It has been argued that communication is the glue that binds a government's control over an area. With fast, efficient communications the cohesion created with commerce, news and law will keep a people thinking as one.
Roads where the lifeline of Roman commerce and communications and when they could no longer maintain those roads or the safe passage along them, the empire was doomed.
Yeah, but don't go crazy with that. The US has been its current size, more or less, since the 1840s, or the 1860s if you want to count Alaska. Railroad and telegraph communications sufficed to maintain the US as a cohesive polity. Even before that, I read recently that it was two weeks after his election that George Washington was actually aware he'd been elected. But even with limitations like that in the 1780s, the US managed to gel as a nation and conduct the business of one. Communications are crucial, but in all but a few cases (like invasion), so long as the lines of communication are secure, their speed is more a matter of convenience. _________________
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:29 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
The United States is an idea. The Declaration of Independence sets goals. The Bill of Rights sets limits. These ideas are engrained in the public mind. The goals will never be attained and the limits will always be exceeded by specific governments. When the excesses get too great the individual transgressors will be brought to task and the social compass will again point towards the center.
These goals and limits are not about the way things are, but are about the way things ought to be. It’s kind of like telling the truth, a good idea in most circumstances.
Virtue as an example may be attained by a few through a life time of effort expended in its acquisition. A goal like virtue is something you strive for. It is a bright line that is impossible for most of us to attain. Most of us will slog along dealing with our day to day contingencies as best we can.
We are surrounded by great oceans that will keep the Russians and the Chinese from simply just walking in a taking over. The federal government will always be with us because we need nuclear submarines and strategic air command to prevent Normandy style invasions.
What we have to guard ourselves against is legislation prompted by public panic.
A good example of this thinking can be found in gun laws of the last century. Silencers are severely restricted. Cross bows are not. Machine guns are severely restricted. Gatling guns are not. The bore diameter of rifles is severely restricted. Civil War cannons can be ordered through the mail. The laws were placebos offered to a panicked public that provided the illusion of safety.
People delude themselves into thinking they can legislate their way to safety and security. Then, a guy like Tim McVeigh shows up one day with a truck load of fertilizer!
Most people are either too busy or too lazy to think. They want simple solutions to complex problems. We want to resist the Hawley Smoot Tariffs. We don’t want to imprison too many bankers. If we let natural selection select in the business world, this mess will sort out. The bones of one business winds up being the framework of a new business. If we create artificial life supports for inefficiency we end up being drug down by a decaying system.
Left alone, cheap energy was going to turn the entire country into one great strip mall full of box stores and fast food joints. That trend may reverse. With it creeping federalism may decline. We may find ourselves with more freedom rather than less.
Joined: Mar 26, 2007 Posts: 30 Location: L.A.'s suburban wasteland
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:57 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
I agree about the eventual fracturing of the U.S.A. I even agree the it will be primarily along cultural lines. My only contention with the original posts is the conflicting ideology of these two statements:
GeneralGreen wrote:
The point is not that one race or religion is better or worse than any other.
Immigrants by the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions are swarming over the land, diluting and destroying the Anglo-Saxon culture that established the country and
made it great.
The first fits my personal opinion. The second does not.
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1859 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:14 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
The US might "break up", but I doubt it. Frankly, I think it will simply eventually be superseded by a world government of which it willingly becomes a part, and at that point regional governments will be less important.
If the US did break up, I think it would probably be along the lines of liberal and conservative philosophies of life. The results of the Civil War if the South had won, or if no such war had been fought after the southern states seceded. Less than a break-up, though, and more of a condominium... shared money, shared military, right of mobility, but otherwise you live your way, we'll live ours kind of thing. Canada might even be amenable to an American union along loose lines like that. _________________
Joined: May 27, 2008 Posts: 81 Location: middle of the USA
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:12 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
I'm surprised nobody has really gone into the hispanic issue. Californian and Texas are no longer majority white. I think they still have white pluralities, but just barely.
Only recently have a few of the less timid analysts polled hispanics and found that most of them do not consider themselves "American" when asked to pick from a list. Hispanic or Mexican are much more popular choices. There is a movement within the Mexican community to reconquer the American southwest (the "Reconquista")
I couldn't tell you how big a percentage of Hispanic Americans would buy into the reconquista movement, but I would bet a large majority of Mexican citizens (at least 10% of which are in the US currently) would like to see it.
There is a very good chance the American southwest will secede (possibly with the help of the Mexican army). The US, laden in white guilt, may let it go.
Other than that, I see no other divisions of the US being likely.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13876 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:38 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
Daphne64 wrote:
There is a very good chance the American southwest will secede (possibly with the help of the Mexican army). The US, laden in white guilt, may let it go.
Why would they secede? What good would it do them? Would they become part of Mexico, a country in worse economic shape than the US? Would they become their own country? Who would they trade with?
I personally don't see folks going to this kind of effort for no benefit. Folks come to the US to better their situation. Why would they want to crap up their chances by seceding? It makes no sense.
I'm not able to work myself up to worrying about it much, and I live in Texas. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: May 27, 2008 Posts: 81 Location: middle of the USA
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:07 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
Ludi wrote:
Why would they secede? What good would it do them? Would they become part of Mexico, a country in worse economic shape than the US? Would they become their own country? Who would they trade with?
I think it's mostly a matter of pride. Mexico has held a grudge against the US for the land appropriated in the mid 1800s.
I think some in the movement would want the land to become part of Mexico, some see it as it's own country (Aztlan).
I don't know what will happen. Perhaps some of the more level headed Hispanics will stop and realize that whites pay the great majority of taxes in the American southwest and own and run the businesses, therefore generating jobs. I doubt it, because:
Hispanic US citizens are high school dropouts as often as not. The average illegal alien in the US has a 4th grade education. I understand about 1/4 of them are fully illiterate even in Spanish. Delving into the politically incorrect, mestizo and native Mexicans have an average IQ of 89. Very few of them are going to stop and think.
Look at the pattern in Rwanda and South Africa. As an example, the white farmers in Rwanda were forced off their farms because people in power wanted their land to give to cronies. No one influential was able to tell those in power that those farms were not going to be managed well without the whites.
It <might> happen similar to that in the US. There are still too many whites in that part of the country to say it is likely, IMO.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13876 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:16 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
I think it is extremely unlikely the US will give up a couple of the highest GDP states in the union. I don't think the Mexican army would stand much of a chance against the US army. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1883 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:24 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
jlw61 wrote:
Roads where the lifeline of Roman commerce and communications and when they could no longer maintain those roads or the safe passage along them, the empire was doomed.
This is a very interesting point, and one that I feel also has implications for the global economy and political organizations like the UN. For the first time in a while, the world is getting larger again - I wonder offhand if we could take our just-in-time global shipping network as a rough analog of the Roman roads. What kind of politically destabilizing forces will come back into play as the world continues to expand? If the U.S. is in danger of an eventual break up, then what is the global equivalent, and how much sooner might it happen? _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1883 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:37 am Post subject: Re: Why America will break apart-What Cheap energy has done.
Daphne64 wrote:
There is a very good chance the American southwest will secede (possibly with the help of the Mexican army). The US, laden in white guilt, may let it go.
Sorry Daphne, but I don't think there is a very good chance of that at all. White guilt will make our government and people decide let go of the union? The Mexican army will beat the U.S. military? I live in southern California, and I don't know anyone who wants us to join Mexico. You seem to be fascinated by the race angle, which I consider largely irrelevant, and which is leading you into some strange territory.
If the United States eventually breaks up, it will be because the United States government no longer has the influence or projection power to keep it together, and the different regions decide they'd be better going it alone. I'm certain this will be many decades in the future if it ever happens at all. If it does, I think the new political boundaries will be determined more by geography, inequities in resources availability, and ingrained political differences than anything else. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
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