George Rebane

I have written in these pages about the possibility of America splitting into two sovereign nation states for the last couple of years or so under the heading of The Great Divide.  These were lonely thoughts for some time.  With the election of Obama – the self-declared Great Unifier – the prospect of the country dividing, with conservatives going their way and the progressives theirs, is beginning to gain traction.

Respected columnist and economist Walter Williams wrote yesterday (7 April 2010) that this question was first posed by him already in 2000.  He now reprises it within today’s charged and polarized environment.  Williams asked “If one group of people prefers government control and management of people’s lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?”

It has been clear to me for some time that not only are our values and mores on opposite sides of an ideological chasm, but so also is our ability to reason together.  To minds like mine, the logic of the Left is beyond bizarre.  One has only to read the comment streams appended to blog posts and web published articles on governance to see that we no longer have the intellectual materials to build a bridge to common understanding.  We are not working to make the country go forward in a commonly agreed productive direction.  We are just biding time attempting to be what? pseudo-civil with each other while figuring out how to torpedo the other side’s fondest dreams?

Right now we are fighting in the wheelhouse while the ship of state is heading for the rocks.  Perhaps it is time to start a national dialogue on the Great Divide.  You can read Dr Williams’ thoughts on the matter in his ‘Parting Company’.

[update]  The Great Divide discussion in the comment thread is off to a good, if not a predictable, start.  Progressives participating for the first time always come up with an analysis of how the country will be divided between the ‘backward’ red states and the ‘industrious’ blue states.  This is a simplistic yet fallacious solution to the Great Divide.  But it does again underline how the fundamental logics of the red and blues differ, which motivates the debate.

Yes, the preponderance of wealth is generated in red states due to the concentration of large urban areas there.  But the same regions also have large concentrations of the mal-educated and those receiving transfer payments.  They invariably vote for parties and policies that promise them other people’s money, and because our democracy is a one-man-one-vote system, they carry the state/region.  (see the Peter/Paul Principle)

Such divisions of territory are akin to the belief by many Mexicans and Reconquista Mexican-Americans that the placement of the chain link fence boundary is what determines the opportunities and the manner in which wealth may be generated on either side.  Moving the fence northward to subsume American factories, farms, and businesses will not make the Mexicans richer.  They will just import their dysfunctional and corrupt culture to whatever territory they control.

And so it will be with the progressives no matter what ‘fair division’ algorithm is used to implement the Great Divide.  (BTW, it’s naïve to think that such an undertaking will be limited to using existing states’ boundaries.)  The ones who know how to generate wealth will invariably transplant themselves if necessary, as will those of the collective philosophies.  Unfortunately, for the collectives, they will also draw the overwhelming proportion of the beneficiaries of current transfer payments.  That is because the new free market nation will appear to them as a bleak landscape where every outstretched hand will not automatically be filled.

However, given a mutually satisfactory implementation of the Great Divide still does not get us out of the woods, at least according to the conservative/libertarian worldview.  They will cite history that predicts near-term conflict between the collectivists and capitalists.  As both post-partum economies develop, the blue side will quickly see that they are living a lie.  The past teaches that such nation-states will not change their socio-political beliefs, but will instead find a pretext to attack their richer neighbor.

The collectivist elites will find this as the optimum stratagem because, if successful, 1) garnering the captured wealth will delay their day of reckoning, and/or 2) it will remove the irritating exemplar that is now a de-stabilizing contrast across the border.  Simply put, it will be the reprise of the Mexican (East Germany, North Vietnam, North Korea, …) mentality.  Such states never examine why the grass is greener on the other side.

The only salutary solution for the Great Divide aftermath is the re-education of the collectivists.  The left has yet to pull it off successfully, but Red China, Russia, and even Vietnam are giving it a mighty try.  (Even though other nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, … are lurching towards the Cuban and North Korean forms of workers’ paradise.)  Keeping the peace after running out of other peoples’ money will be the real challenge.