If you live in the bible belt: Would you be happy to secede from the union?

No.

I lived there for nearly five years recently, and my family comes from the deep South on both sides. There is no single cause in the South. There is no movement for secession.

@Marina I didn’t think there was an active movement. It was just interesting that several people seemed happy to dump the south.

I say we dump Texas. Let’s give it back to Mexico. Texas needs the US much more than the US needs Texas. Let’s put a wall around it after they secede to make sure they stay where they belong. =) Then we can add Canada as our fiftieth state and we won’t have to change the stars on the flag that way.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Why do you hate TX? Or, are you being sarcastic?

Lol, I might have it wrong, but I have the impression that @evelyns_pet_zebra is Texan. He is definitely a southerner. Anyway, how can you hate a state that looks so cool on a map.

I’m sure some freethinking people will declare Austin a Free City, eagerly seceding from the Christian Republic of Texas.

@JLeslie, Texas is a drain on the overall national IQ, sort of like Alabama. Alabama is far enough south that no one pays any attention to it, though. We can keep Austin and give the rest of Texas away.

@oratio, thems’ fightin’ words~, I am a proud citizen of IL, the most corrupt state in the union, according to the head of the FBI. We gave you Baloneyovich and Obama, and you should be thankful. I lived in TX for eight months, and pretty much found it distasteful.

Right, Austin can stay like southeast Florida.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Oh, sorry there. My mistake. I will silently take any punishment.

I’d happily let them secede.

This all goes to show the deepening divide between left and right in this country. I think it is something to be very concerned about. If we no longer want to live together, then how can we govern ourselves together? Or maybe it’s an argument for less federal control. Still it’s kind of like ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing of the mind, if not physical. Although I’m sure plenty of people would never live in the South, or the North, or California, just because they think the people there are too far gone.

I don’t know much about the south, I just think they have such beautiful accents. From Texas, to Alabama. I particularly like the accent, as I understand it, that is spoken in northern Louisiana.

@daloon

People often choose to live with like-minded people, though. They want people they can relate to. Conservatives and liberals don’t relate on much, so it makes sense that they don’t want to live together. Even in relationships, those with opposing views are not often together.

I couldn’t live in the South or a super conservative area because it would be dangerous. I can’t live in a place where there are a significant amount of people who believe that who I am as a person is wrong by nature and I certainly wouldn’t feel free to be myself. This is not the just South; Eastern California isn’t much better.

A little off subject, but I got into it this weekend with a bunch of conservatives about health care and other things, and I gotta say, even when I was agreeing with them they kept lumping me back in with “Obama and liberals.” I did vote for Obama, and I do identify for the most part as a liberal, but I do not agree with EVERYTHING the loud liberals put out there, and I found it very offensive that they were not listening/hearing MY opinion. And just as another side not, a bunch of them were for getting rid of public schools altogether, and made it akin to Madrasahs in the middle east. That the government is brainwashing children to the liberal way of thinking. That was when I knew it was getting ridiculous.

@DominicX Case A, I guess.

I share your discomfort about living with people who are diametrically opposed to your beliefs. I choose to live in a neighborhood where almost everyone shares my political views. I feel very comfortable there, and I see no reason why I should have to live in a place that makes me feel like a non-citizen.

However, there is something to be said for people living amongst those who are not like them. My best friend and his partner live in a redneck community. At first I thought they’d be lynched, but they seem to have established very good relations with their neighbors, and are integral parts of the community now.

He once took a job that took him to the Bible Belt, and he hated it. I guess he felt he had no other choice, financially speaking. I was very worried about him, both physically and psychologically when he was living there. Still, if you can live quietly, as a good member of the community, and you don’t rub your differences in their faces, I think that is a good thing.

Not everyone, however, feels they can take the role of being an ambassador of their minority group. As fewer and fewer people do this, the distance between us grows, and it becomes more and more difficult to work together as a nation. This is an increasing problem, I think, so I don’t know if we can really afford our separationism.

@daloon

I agree that the separation is not a good thing and I do think it’s admirable that some people are able to fit in with people who don’t share their views. But I think that some people are simply too far apart on the views scale to be able to match. For example, people have different definitions of what “rub it in your face” means. I think of it as forcibly trying to convert people to your views and I would never do that and I find it rude. But there are some that think me holding my boyfriend’s hand in public is “rubbing it in your face”. I wouldn’t want to live in a place where the majority of people think that because I am not a quiet person. I like activism, I like protests, I like being free to do what I want to do and I wouldn’t want to have to do less or hide things just so I could fit in.

In order to make the separation go away, we would have to address the root of the problem. People are just too attached to what they believe in, which, I can’t say is bad. I stick by what I believe in and I always will.

However, I do think that we should be able to tolerate people with differences more often and stop trying to convert everyone who doesn’t match us. We wouldn’t agree with what the opposition says, but we would be able to stand it and tolerate the opposition.

I believe that intolerance usually comes from not knowing people one is intolerant of. Once you get to know people, you find out that they really are more like you than different from you. It’s just much harder to hurt people you know, that to hurt abstract people.

But I totally understand that you want to live somewhere where you can be who you are. I’m not running around trying to meet Republicans or Christian Fundamentalists. It hard enough having fun without having to confront people all the time. Toleration, however, is born from exposure, not segregation.

And that’s why I like California. We have everything and everyone. :P

I am waiting for the country of California. The rest of the country can do without us, and we don’t need them at all.

Didn’t we already fight a war about this? I worry that the Bible Belt states that want to secede would eventually bring back slavery.

Seriously. Their beef with the rest of the United States is that they don’t want “big” government taking money away from white people to give to black people for the purposes of creating a more egalitarian society. They don’t mind big government when it is throwing (black) people in prison, or intruding into people’s lifestyle choices when they diverge from a conformist, anti-intellectual, straight, white, male-dominated society. I think it would very quickly become a totalitarian, fascist country right on our doorstep.

Doesn’t this peculiar divide suggest to anyone else that there is a kind of crypto-racism going on which at least partially explains the hysterical response of parts of the country to Obama’s legitimacy? I think there are some people who cannot tolerate the loss of their traditional sense of superiority.

I think the racism going on is not very crypto- at all.

@zuma about the history, it was my worst subject in school, although somehow I did learn the basics. Here is what I am curious about, why exactly did the North WANT to keep the south? Forgive my ignorance everyone on this.

@cwilbur @pdworkin I think what they hate the most is that Obama is a liberal, they hated Clinton also and he was a southerner, AND he was fiscally more conservative than Bush or Obama.

I’ve always lived in southern states. I take the quirks and live with them and blow off the people that I think are too full of themselves. The south has it’s oddballs, but can you really say that the north doesn’t, the midwest doesn’t have some loose nuts? What about the west or northwest?

I’d prefer not to secede, but if I ever decide to, I’ll just go to Chrisland.

Good to see you @cak !

Hi CAK! :) Yes, all regions have their crazies, but it feels like there is a large consesus among southerners. I realize that some things like the electoral college make it seem even worse than it is. The whole state gets colored red during an election, even if the vote was 40/60. And, the media shows the most outspoken lunatics possible.

@judi – thanks

@Jleslie – Very true. I think there is a special line that forms for those to represent the rest of folks that just happen to live in the South. There are a lot of things that seem to be a bit too antiquated (Electoral College for one); however, I don’t see change happening anytime soon.

<—one of the crazies from the Midwest. I follow a fictitious religion, I celebrate Halloween like everyone else celebrates Giftmas, I despise sports, I like books, I read history, I use a computer for more than sending titty pictures and really old jokes to my friends and I raise Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches as pets. I vote my conscience, and I am neither liberal or conservative. It doesn’t get any fucking crazier than that.

If Obama wins a second term, Texas, for one, would definitely be better off seceeding from the Union. I believe a number of other states feel the same way.

Not particularly. It would be nice to have a government of my ideological fellows, and it might even clear the cache of corruption. But I don’t think that the aftermath would be a lot of fun. I’m proud of this big, unique country, and I’d hate to give the rest of the world the opportunity to scoff at it for breaking up.

I’d rather see an overhaul of the existing system. Decentralize it, pare back various assumed powers and privileges, that sort of thing.

@Zuma You’re reading an awful lot into other people’s motivations.

@Zuma

You really should get some help with that zenophobia of yours.