Oookay......

[patgund]

Interesting idea. I don't think it will ever fly though. And I suspect there's a significant number of people in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina that would be annoyed at best by this group, assuming they ever got it off the ground.

http://www.christianexodus.org/

"ChristianExodus.org is orchestrating the move of 50,000 or more Christians to one of three States for the express purpose of dissolving that State’s bond with the union.  The three States under consideration are Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina.  The exact destination will be chosen by vote of our membership.  Our move will commence when the federal government forces sodomite marriages on our local communities or once we reach the 50,000-member mark, whichever comes first."

Mind you, I suspect they define Christian as "those that believe exactly like we do", because I think there's quite a few Christians that would find this groups idea abhorent at best.

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I believe there's groups that have been planning the same thing up in the Pacific Northwest for a long time.

I suspect such a group would splinter again and again.

I can't watch your icon, makes my hand hurt in sympathy.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Oops, wrong icon

Yeah, I suspect any such attempt would be doomed to failure. Most people wouldn't want to leave, they'd have to create some form of industry to support themselves once there, and internal fraticide would splinter such a group past all sense of cohesion. Not to mention that the idea of spliting from the union just isn't workable.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, libertarians are doing something similar with the Free State Project (I think they settled on New Hampshire). And arguably liberals did that with Vermont though without formal decisions.

Did you ever see the county-by-county map of the 2000 election? It looks like we may be segregating even more thoroughly by smaller factions. Worries me.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/cbc/map.htm

[patgund.livejournal.com]

The main difference I see between this and the Free State Project is that the FSP wants to use that number of people to elect a Libertarian state government. Christian Exodus wants to actually seceed from the US. That recent unpleasantness should have shown that usually doesn't work....

(nods) Seen that map before. Worries me, yes. Surprises me, no.

Balkanization

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

That map is fascinating. Goes along with a question I was thinking about yesterday, driving from LAX home, after dropping off a friend. With the rise in the number of communities in which various foreign or other minorities are congregating (Glendale's burgeoning Armenian community, Little Saigon in Orange County, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, the Russian section of Fairfax or West Hollywood, or even the Jewish neighborhoods in the Fairfax district), are we becoming so segregated by our own associations that we are losing a sense of greater community within an urban area?

Certainly this sort of thing has happened before in this country, with the immigrations of the Irish, Russian and other minorities, but I think of the Swedes that went to Minnesota and the like. Looking at the map, it's apparent that urban areas (except, say in Texas) went for Gore, and the larger, rural areas went for Bush.

Re: Balkanization

[selenite.livejournal.com]

The immigrants don't worry me that much--their kids tend to move out of the enclave and mix with the general population. My mom was a classic case of that--her parents were in an Irish enclave on Long Island but she was outta there.

It's the deliberate sorting of people into common-minded regions that strikes me as having long-term problems. When people have no contact at all with people of differing views they tend to get into feedback loops and wind up completely unable to communicate with the other side at all. There's way too much of that going on now. Generally worst for party out of power (Hillary-shot-Vince-Foster versus Bush-is-going-to-cancel-the-election).

Re: Balkanization

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

I can see what you mean about the immigrant communities slowly dissolving as they are assimilated, but I have to wonder if we're taking in too many, too fast.

And it's the sorting, as you say, that has me worried, too. The larger an insular community grows, the less it interacts with those around it. You can see this linguisticly in the US, which has relatively-few (1) foreign speaking neighbors, and in Europe, where everyone speaks at least their native language and one other, especially if they live near a national border.

I liked your "(Hillary-shot-Vince-Foster versus Bush-is-going-to-cancel-the-election)" example. It shows also my contention that there's little place left for the moderate any more.

Shows something... but what?

[meerkat1.livejournal.com]

While that map certainly shows something about concentrations of liberal vs. conservative I don't think it is a clear cut as it appears. Because even if those counties were won/lost by one vote they still turn up Blue or Red.

To make that graph actually show significant segregation of ideology you would need to have two more colors to differentiate the counties won by large majorities vs. the ones only narrowly won. Anything less than 10% different is certainly not a "segregated" population.

Re: Shows something... but what?

[selenite.livejournal.com]

As you wish:
http://members.iglou.com/bandit/election2000.html
This one's less worrisome, there's a lot of near-tied areas.

Note that I don't agree with the flavor text on that webpage.

[tepintzin.livejournal.com]

What cracks me up is that the early United States was founded by Deist Masons, not Christians. They weren't even particularly sympathetic towards Christians.

But yeah, they'd start schisming immediately, probably over marriage law.

Huh???

[meerkat1.livejournal.com]

Puritans = Deist Masons???

Based on what data do you come to that conclusion?

Re: Huh???

[tepintzin.livejournal.com]

The framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were all Deist Masons, yes. The Puritans never lived in the United States per se. They predated it.