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Yet more wibbling about USA - Sally's Journal

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November 7th, 2004
01:04 pm

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Yet more wibbling about USA
Ok, following my last "stop saying it's split, it's not really spilt at all!" post, which I still think is true (at least as far as splitting the states up in the way that has been frequently bandied around on LJ is blatently wrong, and would give almost half of america the wrong governence) I do concede that the cities all overwhelmingly voted for Kerry, and the countryside didn't. I'm not sure what to make of this...

For a start, why? Because people in cities are poorer, and so want a government with more of a social conscience because it will help *them* personally? Because people in cities are better educated and so can see further than the end of their own nose? Because people in cities are younger, idealistic students and lonely career men with no family of their own to fight for and a lot of ideals that reality hasn't tarnished yet? Because cities are more cosmapolitan, and when forced to see and talk to millions of people you get personal experience that just because they're gay / muslim etc doesn't make them evil? Because cities are busier than the countryside, and no-one has any time to go to church?

And after the "why" question, what would the consequences be? If you could divide the USA (or britain, or any other country), not into two big chunks of land, but into a rural and an urban country, with two completely different governments? Would the people in USA-Urban starve as the rest of the world realised they had no way of producing food and pushed the prices sky high? Would the country people be charged vast prices for manufactured goods? Would that lead to them then building their own cities? And would those country-cities in turn become more left wing? Would you end up with huge walls round cities and border guards to prevent smuggling? How would country-ville cope with no airports etc? How different would the two lifestyles, side by side, become? Would you get misunderstood gay/pregnant teenagers running for the border? How far would countryville go? Making abortion, homosexuality, adultury a crime? And would it become even further removed because people *could* escape to the liberal cities, and so wouldn't stay and try and change stuff? And what would they be like? A holy paradise, with a NHS and patrols to pick up the country new comers and educate them into the brave new world with things like the internet? Or a seething den of drugs and sex, immorality, money and evilness? Or just something in between? In the end, would the country people become so distraught at the immorality around them, and loosing their youth to the temptation of the cities, that they'd declare war? Or would you get a scenario like The Village, where they made people too scared to leave? Would there be wars as the population of the cities became too great for their space and they tried to expand?

Hmm, head is buzzing with much sci-fi plotting now. Of course, it's a terribly pred scenario and has been written about far too often already, but the cliches are always most fun. Maybe I should jump on this NaNoWriMo bandwagon...

But what really would happen? I mean, on the surface it seems best to give people the government they want, and that would involve a split like this... what would it really do?

(From all this, you may be able to gather that my life is very dull. I'm trying to do supervision preparation, but LJ is more appealing. Last night was lovely, saw the new Bridget Jones, which was a bit nausiatingly soppy and far too far fetched, but great fun. Was saddened to find out that they'd solved the Colin Firth problem just by cutting it out though, as I really like that bit in the book, and was intreguied as to how they'd deal with it. Then a nice dinner with John, who I don't see nearly often enough nowadays. Politics about whether I'll be invited to his birthday thing nicely circumvented by me being busy that night, but... sigh. Cambridge is too full of my ex boyfriends.)

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From:senji
Date:November 7th, 2004 05:48 am (UTC)
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and would give almost half of america the wrong governence


As opposed to the current situation that gives 3/10ths of America the 'wrong governence' and 4/10ths more governence than they appear to care about? :)
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From:naath
Date:November 7th, 2004 06:28 am (UTC)
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The same argument could have been applied to America pre civil-war - why not just let the South have slaves and the North not and why ought anyone care? Why care - because the 'right' in America isn't just about how much tax you pay it's about telling people what to believe and what is right and wrong and how to live, it's about telling people that gay people are evil, that muslims are evil that a woman's place is barefoot and pregnant and cooking that a black's or hispanic's place is serving the White Man and if you let people who think these things get into power over a bunch of people who just go allong with their right wing government then the country side would quickly degnerate into the 18th century confederacy with an added dash of the sort of religeous fundamentalism you usually find in the Middle East.

And whilst I'm all for people haveing their own views I don't think that anyone should be able to declare any subsection of humanity as less than any other. And it's very important to keep the sort of idiot who believes that out of power.
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From:teleute
Date:November 7th, 2004 08:37 am (UTC)
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One eeny comment
Because cities are busier than the countryside, and no-one has any time to go to church?

This is certinaly not the case. Remember, America is far far far more churched than England and I think you'd find that roughly the smae proportions go to church in both cities and countryside. And of course, in the South (Bible Belt) it would be pretty much impossible not to go to church and still be spoken to by your neighbors.
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From:atreic
Date:November 7th, 2004 11:00 am (UTC)
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Do you think there might have been perhaps the slightest bit of trolling in the above?

But no, I don't have any idea really, I just scrawled down the first unlikely things that popped into my head. You're almost american, why is there such a split?
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From:teleute
Date:November 12th, 2004 09:49 am (UTC)
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I think a lot of it is advertising. To be honest, most democrats are anti gay marriage and many are anti-abortion, but they just didn't make those campaign issues. I would say that the morality of the country as a whole is strongly affected by religious fundamentalism and the ethics which seem to go along with it (God gave us free will to take yours away?!?) I think it's more that city-folk are likely to consider other political issues (the economy etc.) more important than legislating morality. Not sure entirely why that would be the case, but education no doubt has a lot to do with it. It makes sence that those in the city with high-paying, often technical jobs have more education on average than those working out in the country. *shrug*
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From:tienelle
Date:November 7th, 2004 02:49 pm (UTC)
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I remember a book which was thrown at me for year-9-ish English which was along about these lines. I can't for the life of me remember the title, though.
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