Thread by @chicagolandish

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 ^ This. Merrick96 is right.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 The United States, as it exists, is not a viable union. It is headed toward civil war.

We could go our separate ways in peace, like the Czech and Slovak Republics did, or we could stay on the road to mass death and destruction.

Which option really sounds more foolish?

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 #CalExit is not a new thing. There's a state with a much different vision of the future it wants than does almost any other state in the union, and let's take a good look at it.

It has 39.24 million people, more people than Canada, and has more land than the country of Japan.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 As an independent country, today, California would have the fifth largest economy in the world. That might soon drop to sixth, given the rise of India, but the point remains: an independent California wouldn't just be viable as a nation, it would be a major power in its own right

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 The New Bear Republic, or whatever it would end up being called, could easily sustain a powerful military of its own. Even, as poorly governed as it is, would be so formidable a presence as to demand serious consideration as a prospective member of NATO, on its own.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 So, if California wants to go off and be its own wild and strange self, why should it have to stay shackled to Mississippi? Why should Mississippi have to stay shackled to it?

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 The country that state would become, left on its own, might not be a place where you or I would want to live, but the Californians obviously wouldn't mind living life on their own terms, because who would?

Especially when they could easily afford to do so, if left in peace?

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 If #CalExit happened, the only credible threat to the newly independent California would be America, itself, if Washington decided to hold the Union together by force. But any other military that tried crossing an ocean with conquest in mind would be committing suicide.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 Californians have guns, too, they have the most advanced technology on the planet, a diversified economy (well able to sustain a war effort), and (if they chose to be), the Californians would be a nuclear power in short order.

Who would dare to land on their beaches?

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 More people than Poland, and one doesn't hear anybody scoffing at the idea of an independent Poland, now does one?

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 It might not have the centuries old culture that Poland does, or Romania (another country with fewer people than California), but nowhere as recently settled could.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 It's already distinctive enough that, as much as it is mocked, the Californian culture's existence and distinctiveness can't sensibly be denied. An independent Californian people would start out with a national sense of self, and the potential for a real future.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 I think that Europeans tend to not really get a sense of the scale of the United States, and so will react to the idea of an independent California in much the same way that they might react to that of an independent Warwickshire.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 The reality is that the US has roughly 1/3 of a billion people and covers an area about 57% the land area of Russia, with a larger percentage of that land being arable.

The pieces of a balkanized America would be large and sustainable.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 Even relatively little Illinois, at 57,915 square miles, is much larger than Austria (32,383 sq miles) and Hungary (35,917 mi²). With 12.67 million people, it would have far more people than either of these landlocked countries, and it's a net food exporter.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 On top of this, there's no reason to assume that in a post-break up America, that all of the states would end up independent, though one could point out that even the smallest of them (Rhode Island) is still about the same size as the viable nation of Luxembourg.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 There really isn't a lot of ill will between, for example, the states of Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri. Most of the successor states would probably be large ones, former regions of the US. One would probably still see a unified South.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 Given that Texas, on its own, would be a major power, just like California (albeit with a much different government), an independent South (of which Texas would be a part) would be a formidable presence.

@Merrick963 @TomPilcher6 Need I cough up numbers on that one, or have I made my point?

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