Imagine another American Civil War, but this time in every state | Hacker News Reader

Imagine another American Civil War, but this time in every state

npr.org

18 pointsevo_939 comments

A lot of the country’s problems are not intractable. Perhaps it’s the two party system that’s intractable where both parties are more interested in vying for power and defeating their enemies than actually coming up with practical solutions. The current discourse on the major issues sure does make one believe that the only solution is for one side to just die out, but that really isn’t the case.

Take abortion for instance. I think if a Democrat came around and said “no abortion is a good abortion” and created a policy to reduce abortions not through prohibition but through funding research of new contraceptions, family planning, and education, that could make for a widely popular platform.

Or for immigration, how about we let States determine how many migrants are allowed to live and work there? If California wants to welcome lots of immigrants, let them. If Wisconsin doesn’t want any, that’s fine too. Let’s have a visa program that limits which states they’re allow to live an work in.

Regarding health care: single payer is not going to happen. But why is the debate cast as there only being two options—single payer and the system we have now? Single payer is very rare throughout the world, and the best health care systems are not single payer. Perhaps we could have something like Medicaid for all, ie provide very basic coverage to everyone, and then most people will have private insurance on top of that? There are a whole bunch of other options that no one is even talking about.

I could go on. There are pathways to cooling the animosity between the two parties. Of course, Fox News and CNN and Twitter and Facebook make their money by riling everyone up and pitting us against each other.

For health care, I would tackle it in multiple phases. First phase, make Medicare purchasable by anyone. Specifically if a small company can get a better deal by buying through Medicare, then let them. Along with that would be restrictions that would prevent Medicare from charging more to one small employer than another based solely on the past health conditions or demographics of their employee base. And it would be available without networks, so you could use it anywhere. I think that would be the biggest win, so that you don't get hit with a large bill if you happen to get sick when out of town.

Secondly -- increase the employer's FICA rate, and credit it back if they provide health insurance to their employees. That way if someone works more than 40 hours a week, but spread across three part time employers, they could still get enough FICA medicare credits to be eligible for a Medicare-provided group plan. (Or, the credits could go to whatever provider the employee wants).

Finally, change the messaging. I hear from a lot of conservatives that they don't want to be stuck paying for someone else's healthcare. My answer -- they are paying for it anyway. If an uninsured and poor person ends up in the ER, they still receive treatment, and if they can't pay then it is written off and/or paid for with tax money or increased costs for everyone else. The messaging that I give to people that oppose universal coverage, is that the coverage would "make these uninsured people pay their own way through their own taxes". Now obviously there is still a payment imbalance, but it is still a message that may get through to the conservatives.

Why does health care have anything to do with employers? I simply don't get it. Somebodies health care should not be threatened simply because they may lose a job.

From what I understand, it was a way to attract employees during a time of wage freezes. And once that happened, you had the people paying for the health care being different people from those that consumed it. So that allowed prices to skyrocket. Now you have a situation where this is the accepted normal.

In some countries, the company you work for provides your housing. You get fired, you directly lose your apartment / dorm room.

I think if a Democrat came around and said “no abortion is a good abortion” and created a policy to reduce abortions not through prohibition but through funding research of new contraceptions, family planning, and education, that could make for a widely popular platform.

I doubt that. Republicans would still hate everything else about them. Some Democrats would agree, but for many abortion is incredibly important -- because even many Republicans agree that there are some abortions (like for women who have been raped) that are acceptable.

how about we let States determine how many migrants are allowed to live and work there

Because the Constitution guarantees that people can freely move from one state to another. There is no Constitutional way to enforce those borders, and I don't think either party is going to like anything in that direction.

People are not missing simple solutions. There are difficult problems of living together that aren't solved with a one-liner.

They're also not the real issue. Living together is genuinely hard, but it only becomes impossible when the individual people have made hostility a fundamental goal. Our disagreements about the issues have become almost completely subordinate to tribalism.

I won't hide that I consider some people more responsible for that than others, but it doesn't really matter who. Any solution won't come from ratcheting down tensions on individual issues, even if that were possible. Some powerful corporations and leaders have profited from it, but at this point it's self-sustaining, and there is no easy solution.

I didn’t realize NPR was publishing hyperventilating clickbait these days. The US government is no better than Haiti? Is that on this guy’s final for his poor students at American University?

This adds nothing to the conversation, there will be no interesting debate sparked by this article on HN, and this should probably be banished from the front page.

I read a lot of NPR. I donate to them regularly. For the most part, they offer decent journalism. But on this topic, I have to agree with you. They released several articles in the past few weeks similar to this one, including one about the retired general urging planning for a coup in 2024.

Me too and I am not amused.

This is baseless fearmongering that has no place on Hacker News.

I think everyone needs to start asking why this story is suddenly making the rounds among mainstream media outlets during an election year in the U.S.

I think we should be questioning if this is the kind of content NPR should be producing with the money “from viewers like you.”

The corporate sponsors list sure looks a lot longer than the individual donor list... Too bad they don't list dollar amounts or ranges.

https://media.npr.org/documents/about/annualreports/2019_Ann...

Honest question - if you characterize this as baseless fearmongering, how would you characterize Jade Helm, the Bowling Green Massacre, Reconquista or whatever name applies to the terrorist immigrant onslaught that Trump ranted about incessantly during the 2018 election?

I would characterize all those things as stories which have no place on Hacker News.

But veiled implications of some kind of media or government conspiracy during an election year has a place on HN? Based on your 42 days of residence here?

Nonconcensual government has no place in modern society. Most people are born into countries and it makes sense to have a regular opt in vote to continue.

Most "civilized" people will starve or die horrible deaths if the current cold civil war goes hot. People who don't know how to grow crops, hunt, fish, or setup logistic pipelines. The side has military backing will end up killing a lot of people until one side gives up and by that time China and Russia will win. An armed conflict is a real loser for everyone. Lots of Americans on either side are armed and obstinate and it will get ugly fast. It might be time to visit a friendly foreign country until it all blows over, just don't expect much to come back to, wars are ugly things, and civil wars are often worse.

The only question is are we going to be flexible enough to let people go their own ways peacefully or try to hug a mountain lion until it hugs us back? The cart is being pulled in two directions and a peaceful legal separation is much better than the alternative.

No one is going to counseling and "live and let live" is dead. Irreconcilable differences between at least two factions exist.

I don’t agree that “live and let live is dead,” but I don’t mind that you have that belief.

Judging by the number of times I've read something similar, A lot of people lately seem to be imagining a civil war is imminent, but it actually takes more than angry people who hate each other. The overwhelming majority of people screaming at each other online would not actually put their life on the line for this rage. As bad as things may seem to them, they're still far too comfortable. The events of January 6, that are laughably called an "insurrection" represent the level that the small minority of people even willing to leave their homes to do anything are at, and it's nowhere near what's needed for war. There are small pockets of people capable of organized violence that can do small events of organized violence. They exist. Some are desperate and ready to die, but that number is vanishingly small. A civil war, even in just one city is completely impossible under current conditions.

I'd bet $100 that China and Russia are doing everything they can to help stoke the conversation as well.

I would love for the country to split into tiny pieces. A Union of American States similar to the EU would strengthen our democracy. Freedom of movement and economic cooperation within the union would allow the market of political ideas to compete for your residency.

Recent history has shown that 535 people are no longer capable of controlling a $25 trillion dollar economy. Our success has defeated us. Break it up peacefully before it is too late.

The original intention was to have much less power consolidated at the Federal level, with each state essentially a nation, even more free than in the EU today. Sadly power consolidates until it implodes.

The inner cynic in me can't help but notice that the media only started freaking out about democracy and civil war after Joe Manchin drove a stake through the heart of Biden's legislative agenda. It's almost like they are just trying to whip people up into a frenzy to distract from this. Fortunately people don't really seem to be falling for it, even the most liberal people I know are just kind of tuning it out. The media is digging its own grave in terms of credibility here.

I don’t believe there is a causative relationship. nPR has been worried about this topic longer than Manchin has been a party pooper.

I'm still stunned that such a significant portion of the population could be, um, so divisive.

Non-American here: are tensions, on average, really that high? I get that when there's a Trump rally right next to a Hillary Clinton one, and a BLM/ALM party next door, it will be crazy AF.

But if I'm a random nice guy driving through, dunno, Trumpland, in an electric car, I stop off somewhere and causally drop in that I'm voting Democratic, not keen on guns, but hey we're all Americans and that's great... will this already peeve people off?

I'd like to imagine radical postures, present in every country, are rare enough that they won't spark a wholesale civil war/unrest.

It's definitely a regional thing, but its been my experience not really. But there is undeniably growing resentment and possibility that transaction you used as an example could be less pleasant then it used to be. It's probably safe to say on average yes, by a lot? No. People aren't throwing hands in the street over normal discourse.

> But if I'm a random nice guy driving through, dunno, Trumpland, in an electric car, I stop off somewhere and causally drop in that I'm voting Democratic, not keen on guns, but hey we're all Americans and that's great... will this already peeve people off?

I live in an extremely red area - if you did that here, you’d probably not get very good service from the business where you are, but you wouldn’t be in _danger_.

> I'd like to imagine radical postures, present in every country, are rare enough that they won't spark a wholesale civil war/unrest.

Ah, but that’s the root of the problem we’re facing, at least as far as I can tell. Each side sees the other as “radical extremists”. The few centrists are pretty much ignored.

I can see cities becoming more like city-states from the past. I have much less issues with laws created at the local level than from the Federal level. You already see it happening. San Francisco has much more local laws than other places and they are free to do that. SF even collects payroll tax. I could see many more cities taking the reins of government if Trump wins in 2024

I totally agree with this, but honestly I see this as a good thing. This is a feature of having such a large and diverse country. We can try different things out in different places and the people who want to live under different conditions can just choose one of the places that they want to live. I think we need fewer federal laws and more state and city-specific laws. Everyone wins.

There seem to be a lot of comments about civil war or splitting being a solution to the country's woes. If, however, you look at a voting map on a county by county basis, it is startling -- vast majority are red.

That's because there is a lot of politically disinterested corn in most red counties.

The population density in a lot of those areas that are colored red is much lower than the major cities.

The food production level, however, is exponentially higher -- not a trivial factor.

Then again the number of people that buy the food is quite high. Farmers need non-farmer people to buy food as much as non-farming people need farmers to grow it.

While this assumption is correct assuming a functional republic, what if the republic isn't functional? Those low population density areas can easily sustain themselves with considerably less production output needed and less cost to produce. However the high population density blue areas would have a tough time adapting if those big red swaths of corn dried up for them. Ditto for red state energy sources too.

The problem with the blue states (and it’s actually just giant blue cities that make these states blue) in a hypothetical republic breakup scenario is they don’t necessarily provide a viable industry or commodity whose wealth can sustain their demand. Short of wood/lumber, there is not a lot of valuable commodities there that could be exported to buy the food and energy needed to maintain the blue cities, which would quickly shrink.

>The problem with the blue states

I had to look up what a "blue state" is. That's not a common concept outside the US. Most countries have a politically diverse make-up multiples parties over a range.

The fertilizer comes in from further away, hard to keep that high production level up without chemical fertilizer.

Yes, from other red states.

By corporate farms with lots of federal subsidies.

The article has some interesting points about that very topic.

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