Ancient European History – Part 4

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At the end of the last installment of this essay I said:

“And the stalemate between the Left and Right is maddening to anyone who wants this country fixed.  We seem to be at a dead end.  What’s the answer?”

I think the answer is we’re not one nation.  We’re at least two (and maybe several more than two) nations trapped in the same constitutional system that requires unanimity.  The people who are the majority in the blue states and the people who are the majority in the red states want diametrically opposite things.  It’s not just that they disagree on the details of how things should be run.  They want different realities on the ground.

Right now, people in Minnesota, Illinois, New York and California are actively conspiring to battle ICE agents to prevent them from fulfilling their lawful duty to deport illegal immigrants.  And while Biden was in the White House, he used his office to allow illegal immigrants to enter the United States in the millions.  These two examples underscore that the two major political positions in this country have no middle ground and cannot find a way forward that will satisfy both sides.

And this is just one of a large number of issues that are irreconcilable differences between the Left and Right.  Social, economic and moral differences exist and will not go away.  What seems clear to me is that some change is needed to allow the different groups to exist separately and peacefully on the same continent.

And actually, that doesn’t seem to be a difficult situation to create.  Look at the present situation between Canada and the United States.  If you met people living on either side of the US/Canada border (say between Ontario and New York State) you probably couldn’t tell them apart if they were mixed in a room.  They’re essentially the same culturally and even ethnically.  They belong to two separate countries.  But they can cross back and forth over the border and the companies that do business around there can buy and sell their services on both sides of this border.

The same kind of arrangement would be possible between two or more successor states existing where the United States is now.  The only thing that would change would be the status of citizens in each of these new states.  Citizens of the blue states wouldn’t be citizens of the red states and vice versa.  So, no one would be moving from California to Texas anymore without the equivalent of a green card.  Now theoretically the blue states would have this open border mentality and would allow anyone in the world including red state citizens to just settle in their country willy-nilly like they do now.  But I predict that once the split is made the blue states will change their immigration policy at least with respect to the red states for spite.  Which is fine.  But I would guess that once they aren’t spiting the red states through their open border policies anymore, they’ll probably re-evaluate how happy they are with this status quo.

But immigration is only one aspect of what would drive a separation between the red and the blue areas of this country.  We can talk about social issues and whether this would cause a separation into two nations or possibly more in the next installment.

Rename it Trumpland

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Trump had a press conference about opening up Venezuela to American Oil Companies.  Of course it was full of “Trump speak;” the greatest this, the greatest that, etc.  But what it came down to is Trump is telling the Venezuelans that American oil companies will be returning to Venezuela and will be under the protection of the American military.  That’s pretty damn good.

These companies had all of their oil extraction and processing equipment seized when Communist Hugo Chávez became the leader in Venezuela.  He nationalized the industry and it proceeded to fall apart.  Instead of engineers the industry was handed over to political hacks.  They brought in the Cubans to help them and they proved that they could make a fabulously oil rich country into a basket case in just a decade or so.

Of course, Trump didn’t provide a lot of the details on how these things will be arranged.  But based on how things worked before Chávez botched it up, the oil companies and Venezuela will both make lots of money.  And all of that extracted oil will lower the price of American gasoline and oil by quite a bit once it’s going strong.

As I said, “Trump speak” is maddening.  It’s like listening to one of Muhammed Ali’s jibber-jabber brag sessions before his fights.  Everything is over the top and outrageous but the results are there.  Ali was the greatest fighter of his generation and Trump is the only President in forty years to actually produce the results he promised.  So, I’ll let him have his bragging session and then I’ll look for a translation into English and the bottom line.  He’s pretty smart.  Increasing oil production (enormously) will have a major positive effect on consumer costs in the United States.  And the revenues that these oil companies will gain will also improve our GDP.  And capturing Maduro let’s Latin America know that Trump doesn’t play games with tin-pot dictators shipping fentanyl to this country.  I expect to see positive results in Mexico and maybe even China because of this.

Okay so where does that leave us with Iran and Ukraine and Greenland?  Well, I may have underestimated the people of Iran.  The actions there have grown from protests to open rebellion.  They’re burning down police stations and IRGC barracks and so far, the military doesn’t seem to be able to stop it.  The size of the crowds is staggering.  There are literally millions of people in the streets of dozens of large cities.  I think the Ayatollah is going to take a plane ride to Moscow and join Assad in the section of Moscow reserved for former Middle Eastern dictators in retirement.  It looks that active.

Ukraine is hopeless.  The Russians and Ukrainians will fight to the last man.  God help them all.

Now what the hell are we going to do with Greenland?  Military bases, oil and mineral extraction?  Ice for drinks?  Trump says he wants to buy it.  I mean, who figures out a fair price for Greenland?  But as I’ve said, after you get finished with the bluster get a translation into English and chances are you’ll discover that Trump is right about Greenland too.  But what do you bet he wants to rename it Trumpland?

ArthurinCali Wants to Discuss American-Balkanization

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Now this is a topic near and dear to my heart.  In my soon to be released novel “The Sniper,” I do a thorough job of smashing up the Union but that’s fiction.  Arthur’s talking fact.

Pondering the Idea of American Balkanization

I think we all have our theories about how this country could and maybe should split up.  And by the same token there are lots of theories about changes to the Constitution that would allow greater regional freedom without the necessity of busting up the USA.

Check it out.

Minnesota in the Balance

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So, what is next in Minnesota?  One of the Left’s acolytes tried to play “chicken” with the ICE agents and got herself killed.  That’s pretty scary stuff.  The real question is what comes next?  Will they escalate and attack the agents again?  Or will they back off?  I start to wonder if even they know what they’re doing.  These are highly emotional almost emotionally disturbed individuals who have been preached to by people on the Left who don’t seem to care that they’re going to get some of them killed.  These provocateurs are the same sort that attacked Kyle Rittenhouse during the George Floyd riots of 2020.  They rile up the useful idiots who follow these protests and that is exactly how you end up with a woman who has no idea how dangerous it is to drive into a police operation and then disobey the orders of those police when they point their guns at you and tell you to get out of your car, get herself killed.

I heard Walz addressing his constituents and begging them not to give Trump an excuse for declaring martial law or invoking the Insurrection Act.  And this makes me wonder whether this is just cover.  Would Walz be happier if things blow up in Minnesota or would he prefer the fraud investigation to be the top news item in the country.  I honestly don’t know the answer to that.  Minnesota is a bottomless pit of leftist madness so it’s almost impossible to know which crazy cause or interest group will erupt into madness next.  But it looks like Minnesota is going to be ground zero for all of the problems that Donald Trump is trying to fix; fraud in government programs funded by the Biden administration, sanctuary state activities that interfere with ICE arrests of illegal aliens, transgender policies that lead to minors receiving dangerous medical treatments and finally discrimination against anyone who doesn’t follow the progressive mantra.

The flip-side of this question about Minnesota is what will Trump do?  Will he back off after the death of Renee Good or will he continue to arrest illegal aliens that are emphatically present all-around Minneapolis.  This is million-dollar question.  Trump has staked his presidency on deporting the millions of illegals hiding in the blue states.  If he lets Minnesota or New York or California defy him and prevent the deportations he will lose his backing.  But at the same time, he knows he can’t spook the moderates by appearing to turn the country into a battle ground.  So, he has to strike a balance.  And that is why the death of Renee Good is a tricky problem.  Will it scare Trump?

I hope the answer is no.  I think in the long run the vigorous enforcement of the immigration law will have both a positive effect on Trump’s voters and a negative effect on the Left’s morale and election turnout.  So, I think along with his efforts to improve the economy Trump shouldn’t be afraid to go after sanctuary states like Minnesota as hard as he can.  That’s my opinion.