Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 23:05:30 -0700 From: wes@intele.net To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: America the Beautiful Message-ID: <199604050605.XAA00232@obie.softweyr.com> In-Reply-To: <2281.828577114@time.cdrom.com> References: <199604031659.KAA28168@compound> <2281.828577114@time.cdrom.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Jordan K. Hubbard writes:
> > The more interesting question to me personally is how long *Minnesota*
> > will remain a part of the Union. (Not long I hope. Better a dead
>
> I wonder if you're really serious here.. It's kind of amusing, but
> I've had a lot of my european friends ask me what America is going to
> do in the next 50 years now that we're at end-of-empire and sort of
> generally sick of playing self-appointed policeman to the world
> (Vietnam was sort of the beginning of the end in many, many ways).
At least our generation is. I don't see many signs of this in the
aging WWII set, or even in the ex-hippy set. Unfortunately, the
older ones are still running the country. I hope we can hang on
till 2000, and get a good 35-40 year old President in office who
doesn't want to play cop to the rest of the world.
> I say that we'll still be here, just fragmented into a bunch of
> nation-states. New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada will probably be one
> independant territory, I expect the northies to go their own way
> (Montana/North Dakota, etc) and California, of course, will finally
> acknowledge the obvious and become its own country.
I'm leaning in the opposite direction -- I can see all of North
America becoming one large country. We've almost become one large
economy already, what with the U.S. bailout of the Mexican banking
mess; the cross-border trade being enhanced by NAFTA, the porosity of
both of the U.S. borders (intentional on the north, but not on the
south). Personally, if we manage to keep a reasonably representative
government, I don't see this as a bad thing at all. America has
suceeded so far *because* of the melting pot idea, and more of a
melting pot will make us stronger. We'll also maintain the largest
collection of natural resources in the known world.
> No idea whether or not the transition will be peaceful thought.
> Depends on how attached the Federalists are to the idea of a complete
> Union. My feeling is that the writing on the wall will be there for
> many years before the first official break-away, and by then everyone
> will have had time to get used to it. That is, unless you silly
> Minnesotans jump the gun or something.. :-)
Those Minnesotans could be dangerous, if they can figure out how to
organize their mosquitoes into an air force...
--
Wes Peters | Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
Softweyr | The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder
Consulting | I'm an over forty victim of fate...
wes@intele.net | Jimmy Buffett
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199604050605.XAA00232>