"And why shouldn't secession be viewed as a peaceful, if awkward, preferable alternative? "

Because, as I've pointed out before, the dividing line here isn't North/South. It isn't East/West. It isn't Coast/Interior.

It's Urban/Everywhere else. How is the red going to secede from the blue?

In the 1860's, both the North and the South were viable countries by themselves. Today? "Blue" America isn't remotely a viable country, it has roughly half the population and almost none of the territory, very little in the way of natural resources (except for good ports) or agriculture. The size of it's economy is exagerated by corporations making money in 'red' America and reporting the income in their corporate headquarters in "blue" America.

Red America, in the short term, isn't much better: Loads of resources, an agricultural powerhouse, but a bit short on factories. It could more feasibly be rendered viable than "blue" America, but it wouldn't start out that way.

Any proposed border would be a fractal nightmare.
 

And before somebody suggests it: You can't split the country by state. Too many states that are "blue" have most of their territory in habited by "reds", who would never consent to be dragged out of "red" America. And too many states that are "red" have dense pockets of "blues" who'd be similarly uncooperative.

There's no feasible way of breaking things up that doesn't even the original divisions in place and festering. We're stuck with each other, we need to find a way to make it work.

The one ray of hope I see, is that between Covid 19 and the rioting, the large cities have begun hemorrhaging population. Remote work is finally starting to become a big thing, and with remote work, people don't need to live in cities. While both the riots and the virus have brought into clear focus what has been true for all recorded history: Cities are NOT healthy places to live. America decades from now stands a good chance of being less urban.

In the short run, this flood of "blue" citizens into "red" areas is going to advance the interests of the left. In the long run? Well, I think it no accident that the urban centers have been left-wing, and everywhere else conservative: There's something about living at high population densities that alters your thinking. (Yes, I was thinking "warps", but I'm trying to be polite.)

How long do former denizens of cities have to live in the 'burbs before they stop thinking like urbanites? Years? A generation? I guess we'll find out.
 

Interesting. Yet, I strongly disagree. This is because, such ideas look for what Americans have in common. They don't find too much in common. But, this is what Americans have in common. That they don't have too much in common. The lack of ethos, is actually the ethos. It is simply "too close to the nose". That is the greatness of America. The first amendment for example, dictates, I quote relevant part:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof......"

End of quotation:

Well, that is the point then! Here, we are all free. Each group, each religion, each individual, have equal rights to maintain or hold or exercise their religion, ideology or whatever. While:

In other countries, people would be executed for blasphemy of let's say prophet Muhammad. Here, recently, titled:

"Pakistan court sentences Christian man to death for blasphemy"

Here:

https://www.jurist.org/news/2020/09/pakistan-court-sentences-christian-man-to-death-for-blasphemy/

Also, Americans ignore many times, the huge leverage, it does exercise on the world, simply thanks to that structure of powerful federalism. You name it:

Veto right in the Security council ( UN). Sanctions imposed on other states every Monday and maniac day. Huge GDP and economic prosperity. Here for example, unbelievable fine (or alike). Titled:

"BNP Paribas to pay $9bn to settle sanctions violations"

Here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-28099694

So, Americans should bear it in mind. You can't give up such leverage, made or formed by unity. This is really stupid thing to think of even.

For the rest, well, we won't stay young no more.....

Thanks






 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

The American republic has always been a diverse, continental society. The only way we can survive as a polity to agree we all have the rights to live our lives as we please so long as we do not harm one another and our government's purpose is to preserve that freedom. As soon as the government starts choosing economic and social winners and losers between our diverse groups, groups will wither want to run the dictatorship or they will want out.

Our Democratic socialists want to impose a government who will choose the winners and losers, then either run the resulting dictatorship or they want out. Because Democratic socialists (which does not include all those who vote for Democrats) remain an urban minority, they increasingly want out.

Sandy offers a false choice between secession and civil war, because secession will almost certainly lead to civil war. The majority will not allow a minority to take some of our Republic's most valuable territory to form scattered city states.

The modern Democratic socialist secessionists would not have chance of success. They neither control a military nor increasingly even their city police forces. They have disarmed the citizenry likely to support secession. All you are left with is Antifa and like minded mobs.

I suggest, instead, Democratic socialists considering secession leave for friendlier ideological climes like the EU. Otherwise, be prepared for the hell of a losing civil war, followed by imprisonment for sedition for the surviving leadership.
 

'Cities' are 'hemorrhaging' population to 'rural' areas only if you focus on what are called central cities and think metropolitan areas are 'rural.' The long trend is that population is fleeing actual rural areas.


"Democratic socialist secessionists"=Bircher Bart's latest talk radio talking point buzzword of the moment.

 

What's going on is that a big chunk of America was never meaningfully included in the 'mystic chords of memory,' they were denied basic rights. It was only around the late 60's these people started to feel they could express their anger over the indignity of it all and many white persons are very fragile when they experience this. The latter are Trump voters or Republicans to use another word.
 

Mr. W: "Democratic socialist secessionists"=Bircher Bart's latest talk radio talking point buzzword of the moment.

I understand you proles believe everyone follows a Big Brother, but this freeman enjoys creating his own catch phrases.
 

Basically the suburbs are the future, not the cities, and not the rural areas.

I've lived in in a rural area. I liked it, but I'm well aware that's a minority taste. Travel times to anything are long, there's not enough population to support a wide variety of services. It's nice that you can hunt in your backyard, and have privacy, be close to nature, but more than once I suffered potentially crippling injuries that took way, way too long to be treated due to the distance to the nearest good hospital.

City centers, on the other hand, are way too dense. Dense to the point that it causes infrastructure problems, dense to the point where the sheer waste heat alters local weather, and dense to the point of having nasty mental and physical health problems. It is no accident that cities have been population sinks for all of recorded history, even at times of high population growth. They're just not a healthy way to live.

For a while, they were a necessary way to live, because of limitations on communications technology. That's going away.

People will continue moving to the suburbs from the rural areas, because not everybody likes living in rural areas, but if we can solve the birth dearth, it won't depopulate the countryside. (And if we can't solve the birth dearth, we face eventual extinction.)

People will continue moving to the suburbs from the cities, because the cities are an increasingly unnecessary unpleasantness, high population density is just as much a minority taste, but no longer economically required.

The suburbs are the future. And I do not think the suburbs will have any interest in the things that are driving our schism, because they lack enough population density to induce the sort of mania driving the left today. They may sometimes be 'liberal', but it's a more laid back 'liberal' that knows the value of peaceful coexistence.
 

I will add, though, that I suspect that, as travel technology improves, the disadvantages of rural life will decline, and in the VERY long run, most people will probably end up living at a population density that splits the difference between suburbs and rural. In the very long run indeed.

But every improvement in transport and communications makes the cities less needed.
 

Brett's theory is that nobody lives in the cities because they're too crowded.
 

Bircher Brett's anti-urban prejudices are just that, prejudices. Cities are not for me, but I'm not so irrational that I can't see how silly his generalizations about cities and their populations are. As most things Bircher Brett, I imagine its his partisanship running this particular crazy train (cities have leftists and Democrats right now, so bad!).

Historically nearly all major advancements of human civilization came from cities. Athens, Rome, Paris, NYC, etc., have defined the best of our civilization, arts and sciences. They continue to attract some of the most productive and innovative people in this country (look at the work of Richard Florida on this).

People in rural areas have all kinds of problems, many from the lack of population density (leading to isolation and alienation) and the distance from everything. The opioid problem is disproportionately a rural issue, for example.


 

"this freeman enjoys creating his own catch phrases. "

Lol!
 

BD: this freeman enjoys creating his own catch phrases.

Mr. W: Lol!

On the other hand, proles do not.
 

"I think it no accident that the urban centers have been left-wing, and everywhere else conservative"

This is also historically facile. William Jennings Bryan was in many ways to the 'left' of McKinley but he was a rural favorite. When FDR won NYC it was the first time a Democrat won the city in decades (think of the previous GOP candidates and it's ludicrous to think of that NYC as 'left wing').

The essence of the Bircher is to confidently make broad, grand, generalized theories based on really terrible empirical foundations.
 

Btw, McKinley destroyed Bryan in NYC in 1896 by 20% points. He beat Bryan in Baltimore by 13%. No doubt Mencken (in many ways the mirror BIrcher Brett is his anti-rural prejudice) found that amusing.
 

"Attempts to frame theories that remove from democratic control, areas of life our nation’s Founders intended to place there, can achieve power only if abstractions are regarded as legitimately able to displace the Constitution’s text and structure and the history that gives our legal rights life, rooted-ness, and meaning. It is no small matter to discredit the foundations upon which our constitutional freedoms have always been sustained and substitute as a bulwark on the abstract propositions of moral philosophy. To do that is, in fact, to display a lightmindedness terrifying in its frivolity. Bork, The Tempting of America, 353


"[A] living history was to be found in every family-- a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related--a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.--But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls." January 27, 1838, speech to the Springfield Young Men's Lyceum, "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions," Abraham Lincoln


A provocative post. As a "paleo-conservative," when I hear "secession" I concentrate; however it's not clear to me what Mr. Levinson is ultimately arguing, or at least defending. It is nicely engaging intellectually (in ways Richard Epstein is fond of indulging, often with useful results) but I wish he had been a bit more declaratory. If I understand him, he seems to be searching for a visible, tangible, codified social routine or charter such that a unification can be declared, or that absent one, or even if subject to interrogation, may not therefore be manifest. If that is the case, I disagree. The "code" of sovereignty, or statehood, is in the US perhaps especially, in the market; among all the wonderful "invisible hands" in a free market of free association, trade, exchange--and within those markets, cooperating coalitions of competitive entities. Such independence either threatens the inherent inadequacies of the Left, or more often, creates opportunism for their favorite reinforcement of courage: the visible institution.

America is no "myth" in this regard. As a social (versus economic) organisation, it leaves much to be desired, or perhaps much that is not to be regretted (like EU harmonised regulation and taxation). As for Ms. Wright, she is merely a journalistic opportunist with wandering ruminations that hardly command even consideration ("lightmindedness," indeed). As for Mr. Lincoln's address, that is man's work. Time, however, has been replaced or truncated, with class envy; hence the racial surrogate. As for secession, or de-centralization from Washington, that is a widely debated proposition. But the US has a bigger first-order problem on its plate, and that stems from influences external, but domestically installed (of which the current domestic synthetic social disruption is merely a proxy).

As a former student of White House National Security Advisor W.W. "Walt" Rostow, at the Johnson School, he became unusually candid with me concerning the systematic but fluid organization of the post-war state, in the engineering of pretext, and the execution of private strategy, not all originating domestically, sponsored visibly, or residing institutionally. He has been ratified, (and indicted) again. At Yale, the Russian Language department was run in the 80's by escapees from the USSR. America was no "myth" to them.

Thank you and Regards, Matt Andersson, '96, University of Chicago; '84, University of Texas at Austin; '83, Yale College

 

You can't split the country by state. Too many states that are "blue" have most of their territory inhabited by "reds", who would never consent to be dragged out of "red" America.

A recent book by Jesse Wegman noted something related -- there are not really "red" or "blue" states as a whole. There are pockets of red and blue. A mixture. This helps his argument that the Electoral College (I would add the non-proportional Senate, contra to the wishes of the like of James Madison, who in the minds of some apparently didn't support federalism as a result) is bad & we should have a popular vote for POTUS.

A "myth" is a legend story that teaches a true message and often has real life characters and events mixed in. We do have a mythical idea of America. I will avoid engaging with the extensive analysis, often it is best just to let that be.

 

"Brett's theory is that nobody lives in the cities because they're too crowded."

"Historically nearly all major advancements of human civilization came from cities."

Yes. My point is that this was a product of limitations of communications and transportation technology. For most of history, you couldn't talk with somebody unless you were a few feet apart. So OF COURSE any advances stemming from large numbers of people communicating with each other required large numbers of people to live in close proximity. The closer the better.

Even after telephones were invented, efficient offices still required large numbers of people in close proximity.

This is no longer the case, large numbers of people can cooperate without having to be next to each other. Cities have lost their primary economic justification, leaving the downsides in terms of physical and mental health, and crime, still there. Only social inertial has been keeping them going the last few years, and this year has broken that inertia. The exodus has begun.

So, we get back to the conditions people LIKE to live in, if they are not forced by their jobs to live under other conditions.

I agree that it is not, for most people, rural life. Neither is it high population density urban centers.

It's suburbs. If people are free to live where they like, they don't chose rural areas, and they don't chose crowded cities. They chose suburbs.

I think this may heal our divisions in the long run, because the pathologies of the urban center are not natural to suburbs. Once enough population has moved out of the dense centers, there won't be enough screwed up people for a party to be viable focusing on their pathologies. The Democratic party will either wake from its current madness, or wither away.

And with that threat gone, maybe we can kill off the current Republican party, too, which is viable only because the Democratic party is so terrifying to people who don't live in urban centers.
 

"the Democratic party is so terrifying to people who don't live in urban centers"

Except for those who voted for them outside of urban centers, such as in the 2018 elections. Here's a quick look:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/08/midterms-suburbs-republicans-democrats-trump/1921590002/

Others can find more data. But, doesn't seem that "terrifying" for people outside of urban centers really.

As to "pathologies," to the degree a region favors Republicans, getting more people who support the party of Trump is a bit counterproductive.
 

" there are not really "red" or "blue" states as a whole. There are pockets of red and blue. A mixture."

That's what I was saying, and meant to communicate by pointing out that map.

The US is a very heterogeneous nation. Every "red" state has a lot of "blue" in it, and visa versa. It's not a mixture like salt dissolving in water. It's a mixture like aggregate suspended in cement makes concrete.

Almost all of the actual territory is occupied by populations with a political division in the range of 60-40 to 40-60. Levels where neither party should be expected to treat the opposing party as aliens. If the whole country was in that range, I think we'd be OK.

But then you've got those urban inclusions, where the party ratio goes insane, 70, 80, 90, even 100% Democratic. They're the source of the Democratic party's current pathology, it's inability to co-exist with people who think differently, because it's based in areas where such people are a powerless minority who mostly hide to avoid being targeted for retaliation. The Democratic party has become an urban center party, which thinks it can rule everywhere that isn't a city center as occupied territory.

I think a Democratic party that didn't have such areas as its chief stronghold would be a much saner Democratic party, and less terrifying to non-Democrats. That's my hope, anyway.
 

My goodness, I haven't seen goal posts move that fast since they tore them down after the Ole Miss victory over Alabama in 2014!

Also, if anything suburbs are not exactly in the middle between urban and rural areas. They're much closer to urban areas, *hence the name.* They're not rurburbs...
 

"it's inability to co-exist with people who think differently"

Again, the least self aware person in the world.
 

"Almost all of the actual territory is occupied by populations with a political division in the range of 60-40 to 40-60. Levels where neither party should be expected to treat the opposing party as aliens. If the whole country was in that range, I think we'd be OK."

So Brett's argument is the same as the argument for 2-senators-per-state and strongly related to the argument for the electoral college: WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE TERRITORY!

Rather than conceptualize the country as populated by 350+ million people, he thinks of it 3.79 million square miles in need of "sane" representation.

Could there be a reason why, when lots of people all agree (for one reason or another) to live in close(r) proximity to one another, their politics lean towards the Democrats? No, of course not! All that's relevant is the "insane" party ratio in the places where most Americans choose to live.
 

I think a Democratic party that didn't have such areas as its chief stronghold would be a much saner Democratic party, and less terrifying to non-Democrats.

Whatever you are trying to "communicate," it seems to always come back to how Democrats specifically are a problem. But, for years now, Democrats are a mixture, far from "terrifying" as a whole, as seen by how swing voters voted for them, including in the suburbs. Some Democrats in power now would have in another era been Republicans, who shifted so far that they are on some level "terrifying" or at least pretty pathological.

 

"If people are free to live where they like, they don't chose rural areas, and they don't chose crowded cities. They chose suburbs."

People moved to the suburbs for 2 basic reasons: state subsidies (roads, etc.) and racism. For the most part they didn't *work* in the suburbs because there weren't many jobs there. Cities were, and always have been, the source of jobs. Also democracy and tolerance, and lots of other important things like innovation.

The pandemic has indeed created some potential for working from a distance. I expect climate change to work in the opposite direction, though perhaps I'm unduly influenced by the situation in CA. My best guess is that cities will continue to drive civilization, but that's unpredictable.

As for some form of separation, I think Brett's argument works in the opposite direction he thinks it does. The lesson we should draw from the fact that states are mixes of red and blue is that successful societies need both. Stand-alone cities can work -- Hong Kong and Singapore being prime examples -- but they work better with a larger metropolitan area and rural areas too. Rural areas standing alone tend to be impoverished and to depopulate, the US being itself a prime example of that. Any separation, in addition to being peaceful and supported by a majority, needs to encompass areas large enough to succeed. That means something of everything.

And "secession" is still a bad term to use.
 

"Rural areas standing alone tend to be impoverished and to depopulate"

The whole country is depopulating, that's the "birth dearth" I was referring to. The only reason our population is still going up is massive immigration, (The immigration itself, the immigrants aren't having all that many kids either.) and that's even more true of cities than the countryside.

Trends in Fertility and Mother’s Age at First Birth Among Rural and Metropolitan Counties: United States, 2007–2017

"The total fertility rate in rural counties declined 9% from 2007 through 2011 and did not change significantly from 2011 through 2017 (Figure 1). Total fertility rates in small or medium metro and large metro counties decreased 16% and 18%, respectively, from 2007 through 2017.

In 2007, the total fertility rate in rural counties was 5% higher than total fertility rates in small or medium metro and large metro counties. In 2017, these differences widened to 10% and 14%, respectively.

In 2017, the total fertility rate for rural counties was 1,950.0 births per 1,000 women compared with 1,778.0 in small or medium metro and 1,712.0 in large metro counties."

Note, of course, that you need a fertility rate of around 2,100 births per 1,000 women to even break even. We HAD that 20 years ago. Not after 2007, though. So, we're all dying off, the cities are just dying off faster.

Like I said, cities have been population sinks through all recorded history. Yes, a lot of people move there, yes, a lot of things of consequence happen there. What doesn't happen there is the next generation being born.

That's kind of an important thing to have happen, and a pretty good indicator that, however bad off you think the countryside is, by biological standards the cities are considerably worse.

That's my thesis: The cities were economically essential, but horribly unhealthy. Today? They're just horribly unhealthy. Having lost their economic rationale, people are going to stop moving there from the country.


 

"People moved to the suburbs for 2 basic reasons: state subsidies (roads, etc.) and racism."

It's not a subsidy if you're paying for it when you buy the gas.

And my own family moved out of the suburbs, Warren Michigan, to the country, after the Detroit riots. Disliking having a riot stopped two blocks from your house isn't racist. It's sane. NOBODY likes riots, the color of the people rioting really doesn't figure into it.
 

Cities are not "just horrible unhealthy." The selective data provided doesn't provide that conclusion. As Mr. W. notes, other areas have problems.

Cities have had problems regarding heavy populations. They also have developed, early on, resources to provide for them.

As to fertility rates, the drop off with modern contraceptive rates and so forth is not surprising. We also have always been a country that welcomed new people. Likewise, there was always a nativist and racist aspect that did not welcome the "wrong types" of people. Claims these new people were not truly American.

Buying gas does not suddenly make it not a subsidy. The suburbs, including for me locally with cheap rail travel as compared to city transit rates, have certain subsidies. As with cheap grazing fees -- an issue back in the 1990s -- such benefits are so expected and assumed, it is not deemed one. Ditto corporate and other forms of welfare. That isn't really welfare. That's for poor people.

And, since people did not just move to the suburbs after riots & racism factors in in other ways, that is not really much of a complete response. But, MF if he cares can answer further.
 

Anyway, enough on that. SL posed these questions:

Do "we" have the requisite levels of affection vis-a-vis our political adversaries, or are we instead living in an increasingly Schmittian world divided between friends and enemies? If, as I fear, the answer is the latter, then what prevent civil war? And why shouldn't secession be viewed as a peaceful, if awkward, preferable alternative?

I think we have enough "levels of affection" to the degree necessary to hold together. There are strong political divisions but even then not so much, for so long, that there is a fear of breaking apart. An extended period of heightened conflict akin to the 1850s does not appear to at the door. Brett's comment about mixture of peoples, though it leads to a one-sided response, is a factor here. We are mixed together enough, even if the red/blue divide talk. As I suggested, our electoral system does artificially make it seem we are more divided. This is a problem that can fester.

Secession (I continue to find the word okay) is a problematic response that is also realistically unlikely. Again, there are not such clear lines or likelihood of success if it happens. Anyway, net it is not preferable.
 

If the OP's goal is to encourage separation, then it strikes me as imprudent to use a word which evokes the slaveholding traitors of 1860. Short of that, I don't care in this case.

The discussion of cities is a bit tangential, though not entirely so. I'll just note that fertility rates are not the same as depopulation. The latter stems more from outmigration. For example, the small towns of the Western Great Plains are dying out. That's a combination of climate change and lack of economic opportunity.

Fertility rates themselves depend heavily on the structure of society: economic equality, social services, immigration, etc.
 

I was mostly going to two points:

1) Secession is not feasible due to the fractal nature of the resulting border, and the non-viability of the two resulting countries.

2) I see some hope of tensions reducing in a few decades, if we can hold it together that long, because of the very high population density urban centers shrinking, which should reduce the Democratic party's pathology. Which pathology is due to having the party so dependent on areas where the opposition party is essentially non-existent.

Of course, Democrats aren't going to like people noticing that their party has become pathological. That it has gotten used to being the only party in little one party states, has come to think of that as the natural state of affairs, and views the rest of the country, where the parties are roughly at parity, as unnatural.

Should the Democratic party lose its focus in those little one party states, and again get used to the idea that the opposing party isn't some alien aberration, headed up by cartoon monsters, that needs to be stamped out, we can have civic peace again. And both parties will be better for it, or perhaps end up replaced by better parties.
 

" I'll just note that fertility rates are not the same as depopulation. The latter stems more from outmigration."

Right.

There's two things going on here. Where people move to, and how healthy those places are to live. Historically, cities have been unhealthy places where people moved to, and the countryside has been a healthy place people moved out of.

The advent of modern medicine has changed that a bit: Lifespans are slightly longer in the cities, due to better access to hospitals. But they're still fundamentally unhealthy places to live, as illustrated by the dismal reproduction rates. The only thing that's been keeping the cities alive through all of history is net in-migration.

What's changing is that people are losing the reasons to tolerate the downsides of cities. That doesn't mean they'll want to live in rural areas. But they will be moving out of the cities.

Eventually I expect further improvements in transportation and communications to level the playing field even more between rural and suburban areas. But it will always be the case that people like to have at least some people around them, we're social animals. So I don't expect rural areas to ever be a majority choice.

What I expect is that cities will STOP being a majority choice, due to being able to get most of the former advantages of city life without having to tolerate the disadvantages.
 

As for urban population density, it's possible Brett's hopes for the pandemic will come true, but I'm skeptical. It's far from clear yet that urban areas will end up with higher death rates than rural ones; compare deaths in Hong Kong or Taiwan to those in, say, Iowa.

The stuff about the Dems is Brett's usual fare and has been re-hashed here many times.
 

Brett: I think a Democratic party that didn't have such areas as its chief stronghold would be a much saner Democratic party, and less terrifying to non-Democrats.

This assumes that Democrats migrated into cities from elsewhere. This might be true to some extent for younger voters, but the primary factors in Democrat isolation in urban areas are the Democratic socialists alienating heartland voters and families more likely to vote GOP migrating from the cities to the burbs or to red states.


 

"But they're still fundamentally unhealthy places to live, as illustrated by the dismal reproduction rates."

Reproduction rates reflect far more than health. In today's world, they depend far more on the way women are treated. The lower rate of reproduction in modern cities speaks well for the way women are treated. I assume the other side of that coin is obvious.

If you want to consider health, then longevity is a much better quick measure. Even that, though, has confounding variables such as wealth.
 

Brett: "the Democratic party is so terrifying to people who don't live in urban centers"

Joe: Except for those who voted for them outside of urban centers, such as in the 2018 elections.

Dem self-segregation in urban areas makes them less efficient in an electoral system based in part on geography. The Dems enjoy heavy majorities in a minority of urban districts and states, leaving the GOP with narrower majorities in a majority of districts and states.

When the Dems find themselves the out-party during a midterm like 2006 and 2018, they will turn out in higher numbers than the GOP in-party and win closely contested districts and states (one of the GOP's disadvantages). However, when GOP voters turn out, they generally carry the majority of districts and states in which they enjoy narrow majorities.

POTUS elections are in their own universe because voters like reelecting incumbents and changing parties when the incumbent term limits out.
 

"If you want to consider health, then longevity is a much better quick measure. Even that, though, has confounding variables such as wealth."

From a species level perspective, it's ALL reproduction levels. If conditions are such that the population is rapidly dying out, it's no use saying, "The non-reproducing individuals are living a long time!", you're still looking at a population that's dying out. Dying out is not "healthy".

"It's far from clear yet that urban areas will end up with higher death rates than rural ones; compare deaths in Hong Kong or Taiwan to those in, say, Iowa."

You're whistling past the graveyard here. It's true that, if we never get a vaccine, eventually the total death rates will equalize everywhere, because eventually, everybody is going to get it. The urban advantage in access to medical treatment might even give cities the edge in final totals.

But there's no avoiding the clear fact that the virus burned through cities like a forest fire, and it's just smoldering in the countryside.

My thesis is that we've had the technology for a few years to switch to remote work, only inertia was stopping it. The virus AND the riots provided the impetus to overcome that inertia, and now that the exodus has begun, it's going to continue even as the virus ebbs, and the riots eventually end.

Because cities still have all their disadvantages, but have lost much of their advantage if people don't have to live there to be employed.
 

You're sort of right about a species perspective, but wrong to apply that to specific areas of the US (or anywhere else). The reason you're only sort of right is that populations of even successful species rise and fall over time depending on environmental conditions.

Your description of the pandemic remains hopelessly limited, but since you agree that eventually death rates will even out everywhere I'll leave it alone.
 

1. As you can see, what ultimately bothers our Birchers, as I've long said, is modernity. The birth rate phenomena Bircher Brett bemoans is one of the most empirically supported and long recognized in the field of demography, when a country develops its birth rate falls significantly. As Mark notes this is in large part because women now have choices regarding their lives and more and more refuse to have them defined by having child after child after child. You'd think ostensible libertarians would celebrate this....

2. But Bircher Brett doesn't because, like Nazis or eugenicists he's ostensibly focused on defining 'health' as the 'health' of inter-generational groups, species or races. Note he's not concerned about our nation, because as he concedes our immigration can keep those numbers afloat. It's the specific blood lines that he's worried about dwindling. Again, perhaps odd for an ostensible libertarian.

3. If you hate modernity and development of course you hate cities because they are where the apex and font of modernity and development. This is one of the most examined themes in the history of sociology.
 

By the way, note Bircher Brett himself cites that rural areas 1. have better fertility than urban/suburban areas but that 2. rural populations are decreasing. I don't think he gets that this means that urban/suburban population decreases because the people there are happy to have less kids while rural areas are more likely to decrease because *despite having more kids* the adults leave when they get the choice and go to more urban areas (again, 'suburbs' are, as the name implies, more urban than rural). Again, odd that an ostensible libertarian misses this point...
 

Mr. W: As you can see, what ultimately bothers our Birchers, as I've long said, is modernity. The birth rate phenomena Bircher Brett bemoans is one of the most empirically supported and long recognized in the field of demography, when a country develops its birth rate falls significantly. As Mark notes this is in large part because women now have choices regarding their lives and more and more refuse to have them defined by having child after child after child. You'd think ostensible libertarians would celebrate this....

The key factor in the collapse of reproduction in increasingly totalitarian nations is the state replacing the family as the primary economic support for the individual. If you are living off of you neighbors, why spend the time and money on having and raising your own children?

Demographic implosion is an existential threat to a political economy. The number of workers producing goods and services shrinks in comparison to the number of people dependent on those goods and services, making everyone progressively poorer. When a totalitarian political economy misdirects the economy, the shrinking number of workers become less productive, making the situation worse.
 

"if people don't have to live there to be employed."

Again, note, Bircher Brett has some inkling that jobs are connected to city. He doesn't seem to ask 'why?' We're long past the time when infrastructure advantages explain this, instead given the age of urban infrastructures and government subsidization of suburbs via infrastructure that dog doesn't do much hunting. Jobs keep popping up in cities because innovators and young people like what cities have to offer. They like diversity. They like big groups. They want to hang out at interesting clubs and museums, not the Dollar General or Wal-mart forty minutes away. Liberal cities are the backbone of the modern US economy.

It should be noted that rural America is very well situated at the government teat. Farmers are one of the most spoiled American constituencies there are (Trump has spent more money bailing them out than was spent on the auto bailout). And rural families often line up, like Bircher Bart's family, at the government teat marked 'department of defense.' Of course urban areas get government help and one party is more pronounced in getting them that, but the GOP works overtime getting rural America plenty of bacon.
 

"The key factor in the collapse of reproduction in increasingly totalitarian nations is the state replacing the family as the primary economic support for the individual. "

Remember, Bircher Bart is an utterly unserious person. You can tell an unserious person by how they throw around the stupidest and most inflammatory language. Bircher Bart seriously thinks every modern industrialized polity is 'totalitarian,' and that's why he's not a serious person.

Now, think about this: arguendo Bircher Bart was correct here he obviously, being an unserious person, doesn't get what comes from his own argument: if the government can help people stave off the desperate fear that they need to have children or they will suffer and die in their old age then they will choose to have less children. Bircher Bart actually thinks he's just argued against 'totalitarian' government here! If only we could return to the halcyon days when everyone had lots of children out of desperate fear they would be alone and impoverished in their old age without them!

Not a serious person.
 

" I don't think he gets that this means that"

You then proceed to recapitulate exactly what I keep saying. Most people don't want to live in rural areas. So, even though they're healthier places to live, people move away from them.

Cities have always been population sinks: Where the people born in the countryside move to, to do interesting stuff which just happens to not include reproducing. The scary thing today is that the the countryside is now a population sink, too. They're not producing extra people to make up for the losses in the cities.

We have a fertility rate right now that would formerly have been seen only in the middle of a serious pandemic, Black Death level, not Covid 19 level, or in a war zone. We're papering it over by massive levels of illegal immigration from third world countries. But that only leads to America becoming more like those third world countries, and the immigrants don't reproduce, either.

This is an extinction level threat if we don't get a handle on it.

"Jobs keep popping up in cities because innovators and young people like what cities have to offer."

No, I get that. But you don't have to live at urban center population densities to get those advantages. Suburban population densities are sufficient for it, without the downsides of urban density.

What kept the urban centers going wasn't the positives in terms of lifestyle, which you can get at more moderate densities. What kept them going was that density helped to overcome former limitations of transportation and communications technologies. That, and inertia.

Well, the events of this year have overcome the inertia. Society is now relaxing into a distribution which better reflects the technological capabilities, and the general preferences of humanity. That distribution won't be as urban as before. Won't be rural, either.

It will be suburban.
 

"if the government can help people stave off the desperate fear that they need to have children or they will suffer and die in their old age then they will choose to have less children."

Yes. The part you don't seem to want to wrap your head around, is "less children than are necessary for a society to continue functioning long term."

Not having children stops being just a lifestyle choice, if enough people make that choice. It becomes a dire threat to civilization. A society that doesn't have children is a society that is dying.
 

If you want to evaluate the validity of Brett's claims, you can simply go to "Population Clock" (www.census.gov/popclock) and check.

Births, one every 8 seconds, deaths, one every 12 seconds, international immigrants, one every 46 seconds...

Gosh, looks like we're not doomed to be the last man on earth, sitting in a room, waiting for a knock on the door any time soon.
 

Mr. W:

A twofer logical fallacy (kill the messenger and appeal to emotion) without addressing the propositions themselves.

I have cited the sources for these propositions on multiple occasions here. If I have time after court today, I may do so again for any lurkers. You will not even read them.

Unserious, indeed.
 

"even though they're healthier places to live"

Again, the ostensible libertarian can only think of 'healthy' in terms of racial or species survival. Wow. Individuals thriving and being happy not a measure that he can relate to it seems.

Also, as an empirical fact, fertility rates are highest in the *unhealthiest* of places. In third world countries (which are also closely correlated with % rural) they are high (because, as Bircher Bart celebrates, the people there have desperate old ages to look forward to and want to have lots of children in the hopes they will split the burden of taking care of them later in life).

"But you don't have to live at urban center population densities to get those advantages."

You'd think Bircher Brett would be smarter than to opine on what the advantages of a place he clearly hates are. Jk, of course you wouldn't think that!

As the work of economists like Richard Florida has shown cities are a draw to the young and innovative for features like their museums, clubs, diverse populations, things that don't change when you can telecomute from home. But it speaks volumes that all Bircher Brett can think of is work as a draw.

"It will be suburban."

Which, I'll note yet again, is closer to urban than rural.

"less children than are necessary for a society to continue functioning long term.""

Again, not for a society. It's a race Bircher Brett is worried about. A society can increase even with low birth rates via migration. He's just worried the wrong 'kinds' of people will replace the 'kinds' we have now, and he equates kinds with societies. That reminds me of some movements...

 

"I have cited the sources for these propositions on multiple occasions here. If I have time after court today, I may do so again for any lurkers. You will not even read them."

Lol, he doesn't get my point at all!

It is a second order one I guess and he's not usually good at those.
 

"What's going on is that a big chunk of America was never meaningfully included in the 'mystic chords of memory,' they were denied basic rights."

This. As a great American once said, "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us."


Of course America is a myth. We have always been a self righteous, repressive bully who loved nothing more than subjugating others.
 

"This is also historically facile. William Jennings Bryan was in many ways to the 'left' of McKinley but he was a rural favorite."

You really can't say things like this. The issue map was different. Bryan was a populist with a lot of lefty positions, but he was also a Biblical literalist with theocratic beliefs.

Coalitions change over time.
 

At least in the US, life expectancy is lower in rural areas: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/die-young-move-to-rural-america#1

And of course quality of life is generally worse there too: lower incomes, less access to desirable things, more drug use, less freedom, etc.

As C2H5OH points out, humanity is in no danger of extinction due to birth rates (it may be thanks to the stupidity of those who refuse to recognize climate change or the dangers of nuclear war). It's in fact likely that we would all be better off with fewer people on earth rather than more. Regardless, lower birth rates in the US can be solved quite easily with immigration. The fact that Brett is unwilling to consider that solution to what he sees as an "extinction level" event is quite revealing.
 

Mark: Regardless, lower birth rates in the US can be solved quite easily with immigration.

Not remotely. Importing low skilled immigrants into redistributory welfare state to replace retiring high skill workers creates a net drain on the economy.
 

"We have always been a self righteous, repressive bully who loved nothing more than subjugating others."

It seems both the left and the right see things like the promise of the poem at the Statue of Liberty as a silly myth. That's rather sad.
 

"Importing low skilled immigrants into redistributory welfare state to replace retiring high skill workers creates a net drain on the economy."

Remember when people like Bircher Bart used to profess to believe in free trade and markets? Good times.

Look, Trumpism really was the defining aspect of modern conservatism after all.

Also, migrants aren't 'imported,' they are drawn, and largely by market forces.

"creates a net drain on the economy"

https://www.cato.org/blog/14-most-common-arguments-against-immigration-why-theyre-wrong

 

"You really can't say things like this. "

If in response to someone claiming that cities have always skewed left then of course I can. And I'd be correct. As you note, coalitions change and ideological mixes then are different than they might be today, so it's silly to say cities have always been on what we today consider 'the left.' They haven't on a range of issues.
 

"it's silly to say cities have always been on what we today consider 'the left.' They haven't on a range of issues."

This is true. It's also hard to apply the terms "left" and "right" to previous time periods. For example, in the 1790s the cities (such as they were) tended to be Federalist, the countryside Jeffersonian. The basic reason for that was economic -- agriculture v. commerce -- though there were others as well. But the Jeffersonians tended to favor the French Revolution, while the Federalists strongly opposed it (after a short honeymoon). It's therefore hard to characterize the Jeffersonians as anything other than "the left", since the very origin of that term was its application to supporters of the French Revolution (essentially, the seating in the National Assembly).
 

I for one can hardly wait for the war between the sovereign nations of Bart and Bartbuster.
 

BD: Importing low skilled immigrants into redistributory welfare state to replace retiring high skill workers creates a net drain on the economy.

Mr. W: Remember when people like Bircher Bart used to profess to believe in free trade and markets? Good times.

Read for content. There is nothing free, in any sense of that word, about a redistributory welfare state. If you eliminate that state or bar immigrants from partaking, immigration is a net economic gain as Cato observes.

The government declining to enforce immigration law to allow big business to hire illegal immigrants is importing the latter.
 

mls said...I for one can hardly wait for the war between the sovereign nations of Bart and Bartbuster.

Cyber stalkers who refuse to even identify themselves are unlikely to show up for a war, especially one with a cranky and well armed old paratrooper


 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

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Mr. W: it's silly to say cities have always been on what we today consider 'the left.' They haven't on a range of issues.

Totalitarianism, in it's various forms, almost completely originated and is still largely centered in urban areas with their Mandarins, bureaucracies, professions, finance and media.
 

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"There is nothing free, in any sense of that word, about a redistributory welfare state. If you eliminate that state or bar immigrants from partaking, immigration is a net economic gain as Cato observes."

1. According to this 'logic' ostensible libertarians shouldn't favor drug legalization, cigarettes, gambling, not wearing your seat belt, not having health insurance, etc., etc., (after all, those who become sick and impoverished by those will then qualify for our 'redistributory welfare state').

2. Cato finds that in our current system of 'totalitarianism' (to use Bircher Bart's utterly unserious terminology) immigration is an economic gain.

"The government declining to enforce immigration law to allow big business to hire illegal immigrants is importing the latter."

Post-modern jiggery pokery. Words have no meanings for these so-called 'textualists.'

"Totalitarianism, in it's various forms, almost completely originated and is still largely centered in urban areas with their Mandarins, bureaucracies, professions, finance and media."

Bircher Bart's concept of 'totalitarianism' is utterly absurd, remember he thinks North Korea and the United States are in the same category here. But if you look at actual, sane conceptualizations of totalitarianism, note that it was in the largely rural nations of China and Russia it reached its apex.

Also, no one fits the description of a 'Mandarin' better than Bircher Bart himself. Mandarins had recognized sets of occupations, one of which was: lawyers. And, to make the analogy more apt, they commonly were also military men. Every accusation is a confession with these people.




 

BD: "here is nothing free, in any sense of that word, about a redistributory welfare state. If you eliminate that state or bar immigrants from partaking, immigration is a net economic gain as Cato observes.

Mr. W: According to this 'logic' ostensible libertarians shouldn't favor drug legalization, cigarettes, gambling, not wearing your seat belt, not having health insurance, etc., etc., (after all, those who become sick and impoverished by those will then qualify for our 'redistributory welfare state').

As usual, you have it ass backwards.

Libertarians properly argue people should be responsible for their own decisions and identifies the redistributory welfare state forcing others to pay for those decisions as a problem.

Your reply offers the progressive point of view, which assumes a redistributory welfare state and then argues the government should further direct our lives in an effort to keep the redistributory welfare state within budget.

BD: Totalitarianism, in it's various forms, almost completely originated and is still largely centered in urban areas with their Mandarins, bureaucracies, professions, finance and media.

Mr. W: Bircher Bart's concept of 'totalitarianism' is utterly absurd, remember he thinks North Korea and the United States are in the same category here.

Yet another false choice argument. The fact North Korea takes its totalitarianism to an extreme does not change the fact American progressivism and North Korean communism are both totalitarian.

Mr. W: But if you look at actual, sane conceptualizations of totalitarianism, note that it was in the largely rural nations of China and Russia it reached its apex.

Read for content. The socialist flavor of totalitarianism originated in urban Europe before being exported to Russia and China. Once there, both Russia and China based their totalitarian bureaucracies in the cities.

Mr. W: Also, no one fits the description of a 'Mandarin' better than Bircher Bart himself. Mandarins had recognized sets of occupations, one of which was: lawyers. And, to make the analogy more apt, they commonly were also military men. Every accusation is a confession with these people.

As an attorney, I am indeed part of our totalitarian ruling class. However, while the Mandarin caste originated and champions the various flavors of totalitarianism, not all members of the caste are totalitarians. This classical liberal is most definitely part of a small minority in the legal guild.
 

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Our Bircher doesn't seem to understand the problem with his argument I'm pointing out, that the major premise he's offering would apply to a lot of other minor premises than he would surely care for. Oh, well, what can be expected from someone who equates North Korea with the United States?

Not a serious person.

"The socialist flavor of totalitarianism originated in urban Europe before being exported to Russia and China."

As I said, it never caught on in urbanized nations like it did in far more rural ones, so much for the idea it's an urban thing.

It is nice Bircher Bart realizes he's a 'Mandarin' through and through.