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Ideas on how to avoid a civil war [1]

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Date: 2023-03-01

Hoping to avoid another War of the Roses. image from public domain http://www.publicdomainfiles.com/show_file.php?id=13925178612500

I want to preface this by saying that I definitely don’t want a “national divorce”, and I don’t think it is in the best interest of anyone in the USA. But as someone who has been increasingly worried about a possible civil war, or imposition of a Christian Nationalist theocracy that would take away rights from all too many of us, I’ve started to wonder if it might not be the worst scenario. And as someone who has been thru more than one divorce in my personal life, I might have something to add to the conversation.

The scary thing about divorce is how quickly people had been at least somewhat on the same team will turn against each other, and become selfish and try to get the best deal for themselves. It is perhaps inevitable, but can be mitigated by establishing certain rules upfront. For example, “we will always put the children’s interest first”, or “neither of us wants to ruin the other financially”.

In the USA, we have been segregating ourselves by ideology for a while now. Conservative people stay in or move to conservative areas, liberal people stay in or move to liberal areas. It has reached the point where many people rarely communicate with anyone who has very different beliefs than they have. I want to consider if a ‘national divorce’ could be done in such a way that most people could live amongst people who have similar beliefs, under rules that they agree with, without conflict, simply formalizing the segregation by ideology that is already underway.

Again, this is not something I want to see happen. But if it were inevitable, how could it be done without a civil war or massive suffering? I have put some thought into how it could happen in the best way possible, with the least disruption and damage to peoples lives, if it did happen. And that would be based on agreeing on a set of rules for the process. The petition by various counties in eastern Oregon to join “Greater Idaho” might provide a starting point. If we had to divide up, what would be the fairest and best set of rules to separate by?

Separating by “Red States” and “Blue States”, is simply not an option; each state is a patchwork of localities that have different ideologies. I think that segregating by counties might be reasonable. While not desirable, it would be preferable to civil war. And I envision that the conditions of such a separation could be discussed and agreed upon before a national referendum on whether or not to move forward with separating. Most major blue cities in America would become individual city-states in a sea of red, like they already are, and some would become more than one city-state if their populations were large enough. Some large mostly-unpopulated red states (ie, south Dakota and north Dakota) would merge. Here are some of my ideas:

1) The first thing would be for “red America” and “blue America” to agree on a set of national principles. Only concepts that get the agreement of 90% or more of all voters would included in this set of basic agreements, and it would form the basis of what the Federal government was responsible for. I anticipate that universal national principles would include things like:

a) no human can be enslaved

b) the borders of the USA must be defended against attack by foreign governments

c) no state is allowed to go to war with another state

d) people could transit thru any state in the USA without passports or risk of arrest

e) if there is a separation between red areas and blue areas, neither will attempt to enforce their rules onto the other area.

f) corporations could chose which side of America they are headquartered in, but could not get the benefits of both sides (for example, both low taxes and access to a highly educated workforce by positioning themselves in a red state near a large blue city). Corporations would have the option of splitting up (ie, “blue taco bell” and “red taco bell”) between the two sides. Enforcement mechanisms would be put in place (maybe corporations could only employ people from the side of America they were headquartered in?).

g) People could move from one side to the other at will, so long as they were willing to abide by the rules of the side they moved to. Children over a certain age (early teens probably) would have the option of moving to the other side, but the side they came from would have to continue to support them financially until they reached an agreed-upon age of adulthood.

2) Next thing would be to get a rough idea of the outlines of “red america” and “blue america”, and what rules would govern them. Put aside the current idea of state boundaries, and organize new states based on equal populations and contiguous counties that have the same vison. In the example of Oregon, the Greater-Idaho counties might join Idaho, but there probably wouldn’t be enough people in Idaho to make an entire state, so maybe they would have to merge with another state. But the people in “blue” areas of Idaho might want to join up with the “blue” areas of that second state. And so on. The goal would be to establish regions where the vast majority people agree on whether to join “red America” or “blue America”. During this time, “red America” and “blue America” would start to establish their own sets of rules for their “sub-federal” governments, each of which would have the power to tax and make laws within its own boundaries. I think we all know what the basic outlines of those rules would be for each side of America.

3) A vote whether to move forward with the separation, or not.

4) A transition period, if the vote is for separation. People who live in one area but want to live in another would get federal subsidies to move. No one should get stuck in an area that had rules they couldn’t live with simply because they couldn’t afford to move. Since the assortment into “red America” and “blue America” would be based on county votes rather than state votes, hopefully people who wanted to remain near family members but didn’t want to live in the same side of America as their family members would have the option to move to a nearby county.

Since both “sides” believe deeply that their way of life is the best way to have a happy and productive society, surely each would be willing to go all-in on their specific view. If they balk, that might be a learning experience for both.

This is just a thought experiment. I’m not advocating for a “national divorce”. But a civil war would be worse. I really, really want to avoid getting caught up in a civil war. Or getting stuck living in an autocratic theocracy. I would rather live in “blue America” than either of those possibilities.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/1/2155737/-Ideas-on-how-to-avoid-a-civil-war

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