Welcome to thousands of new visitors this past week. You have seen several graphics and have asked what is going on: https://surakblog.wordpress.com/2021/06/28/democide-and-politicide/
Let me explain. You have dropped into the middle of an ongoing discussion among old friends who met in the comments section at Front Page Magazine. We know each other, and have been discussing many things since this blog launched one year ago.
As I said two days ago, I believe the United States of America is finished as a republic. There is a landmass, and an ongoing government that rules without the consent of the governed: hence the urgent need to replace the population.
It seems clear that the population living in this landmass is irreconcilably divided; that half of the population views the other half as deplorable and “literally worse than Hitler”; that the former half delights in reading stories about suffering in the other half, or inflicting suffering in the other half.
In 2016, 93% of the District of Columbia voted for Hillary Clinton; 89% in Prince George’s County, MD and Bronx County, NY; 87% in Manhattan; 86% in San Francisco. In 2017, St. Louis suffered 66 homicides per 100,000 population; in Baltimore, 56 per 100,000; in Detroit and New Orleans, 40 per 100,000. I expect that when homicide numbers come out for 2020, they will be much worse.
We are attached to a morbid corpse. I care about saving us. We cannot save them: https://surakblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/13/we-cant-save-them/
It is my goal to get defensible borders for a new America that will protect Western civilization from its many enemies, including “Americans”. That is the purpose of the maps that have appeared in this blog from time to time, and are maintained in the right margin of this page.
What should the borders of New America be? Although I appreciate the criticism of James Wesley Rawles’s “American Redoubt” given by some commenters, this was one source for my thinking. Here is his map.
His argument for limiting the size of the redoubt to this region is that these mountainous areas are more defensible. That is a serious consideration.
I tried to reproduce his results using some objective data on a statewide level. The results are discussed here: https://surakblog.wordpress.com/2021/05/23/the-quality-of-life-in-the-several-states/
The first map in that article has been updated at readers’ request.
You wanted scores and a legend – and you got it! Those scores are aggregates of measurements of 7 variables:
- the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which measures how far left or right of center a state is;
- fertility rate;
- arable land per capita;
- violent crime rate;
- homicide rate;
- unemployment rate;
- net migration rate.
If you demand the exact formula, be prepared for a lot of mathematics…!
The 7 highest scoring states are Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. This forms a contiguous landmass overlapping substantially with the redoubt, and could serve as the core for a New America.
This region is landlocked. Is that a problem? How do landlocked countries fare in GDP (PPP) per capita? In the rankings, the top country is Liechtenstein – landlocked; the third country is Luxembourg – landlocked; and the seventh country is Switzerland – landlocked. They all have a higher GDP (PPP) per capita than the USA. These countries have nowhere near the size and resources of the seven states listed above.
For comparison, Austria, Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia are landlocked as well. Hungary is doing so well in regaining its sovereignty that the EU now feels threatened!
Several readers have drawn attention to the divisions within states. Even the largest, most leftist states often have large rural areas that are conservative. Below is my partial county map from the 2016 election, depicting only the counties in which the winner received at least 2/3 of the vote. In this map, as above, I use the traditional color scheme in which red is left, blue is right. The darkness of the color corresponds to the percent vote margin.
Clearly, a New America could draw support from eastern Washington and Oregon, as desired by Rawles; northeastern California; northern Nevada; northwestern Arizona; northwestern and eastern Colorado; Kansas; Oklahoma; much of Texas northeast of the Pecos River and the Rio Grande valley; parts of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana; downstate Illinois; the Tennessee River valley and up through Appalachia; and most of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
My previous blog on quality of life in the states, linked above, includes a list of 21 counties or county-equivalents from which the remainder of those states could secede and gain political self-control. That in turn could greatly affect the grades of the states listed in this blog post: https://surakblog.wordpress.com/2021/05/24/grading-the-states/
That linked blog post indicates that despite the conservative political leanings of much of the old South, it is plagued by violence. That explains why the scores for those states were not higher.
All the maps in the world mean very little unless the new entity is willing to enforce its border. Dennis Prager points out the terrible damage done by John Lennon’s song “Imagine”, with its utopian borderless world. While social justice warriors are certain that it is immoral for America to enforce its border, they dare not convey that message to China, India, Japan, or Russia. “Imagine”, if you will, any of those countries allowing themselves to be swarmed by 22 million invaders.
The best first line of defense for a country is a border wall. China’s Great Wall worked successfully. The only reason China was invaded from the north is because a frustrated general ordered the opening of a gate in that wall.
America’s partial wall is not complete, and it is not as tall as China’s wall. The next question for patriots is this: what do you do when an army comes to breach your wall?
For Ann Coulter, the answer was obvious; American armed forces have no higher obligation than to prevent the invasion of the homeland. She was right. This is not a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. No commander-in-chief has chosen to deploy the military to protect our own country. Instead, the Border Patrol act as welcome guides, shipping invaders deep into America’s interior at taxpayer expense. In other words, we are subsidizing our own destruction.
If you have the opportunity to set policy for New America, and a column of invaders comes to your border, ignoring your warnings, what do you advise the border guards to do? If your response is anything less than “Shoot them”, then the new country will fail as surely as America has, and your concern for your family is less than your concern for a criminal. China, India, Japan, Russia, and every other self-respecting country protect their borders with force. New America must do the same.
surakblog 
Welcome, visitors. I had no idea that Surak’s Blog was attracting so many visitors. I’m one of the old-timers, who met Surak at Frontpage Magazine.
My opinion of New America, if it were to start out with the so-called “American Redoubt”, is that it should invite all of the Conservative States … Surak: Are you calling these areas Blue, now? … at its earliest opportunity into a political union (in the classical sense of that term). Also, the new nation should be willing to entertain the notion of conservative counties in liberal states, like Illinois, separating themselves from the original state and joining with the new nation. I would gladly move my wife and I across the country and become a citizen of New America.
One thing should be taken into consideration. In north-central Montana are quite a large number of Minuteman missile silos. These are strategic nuclear targets, in the event of war. Negotiations with Red (commie) America would be long and difficult, as to what would be done with these targets, and in whose control they would be. Long and difficult negotiations, to say the least, and the USSR and PRC would be involved and highly interested in these negotiations. Red America would love to have the participation of Russia and China in these talks, I am sure.
But these negotiations would be worth all the time and sweat poured into the talks. I have a book called “Strategic Redeployment” which, among other things, list all of the strategic and secondary nuclear targets in each state of the so-called union.
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I think it would be interesting to rerun your state by state index after tossing out the crime and homicide statistics for the Democrat controlled crime infested cities that skew the numbers for many otherwise nice states.
That would be New Orleans in Louisiana, Memphis in Tennessee, St. Louis in Missouri, Atlanta in Georgia. Heck, I wonder what Illinois looks like without Chicago?
The fact of the matter is, when you look at what the Big Cities, the NorthEast, and the Left Coast bring to the table….you realize that the rest of the US could do just fine without them. Between the Gulf Coast ports and the Mississippi River corridor, such a pared down nation would have plenty of room, arable land, resources, and transportation links.
Cut the NE and the left coast loose, we’re better off without them.
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Having lived in Illinois, in both Chicago and a county 75 miles away from it, I can tell you that, outside of the cities, Illinois is a GOP state. My last residence in Illinois was LaSalle County. In the election of President Trump, and in the last one, he took that county by a margin of 8000 votes. The Sheriff of LaSalle County has said that … in the event of an emergency … he would deputize every legal gun owner in his jurisdiction. A local gun range is occupied by people honing their skills every day of the week. Those who can’t afford that have many farms where to owners have set up personal ranges to choose from.
Outside of the cities, Illinois is not much different from West Virginia or South Dakota.
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“Clearly,a New America could draw support from…and most of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico”.I am always amazed when I drive across “the alley” to Naples how noticeably more civil the atmosphere is.People are more courteous and respectful than here on the east coast (Broward/Miami Dade).We have too many liberal transplants from the northeast that prevent us from being a conservative county.
The big cities are definitely a huge part of the problem as Mr Ritter states,and I can attest to that personally.I believe I just read somewhere that DC elected a councilman (to the 7th ward?) who is currently incarcerated,and I don’t believe it was in the Babylon Bee.Perhaps my memory is faulty,but either way it would not surprise me.The depravity of some people is amazing.Pax vobis.
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Thank you for updating that map, the results are appreciated.
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Just an update on what I said earlier about nuclear targets in the “Redoubt”. Montana has hundreds of primary nuclear targets, because of its Minuteman silos. It also has two secondary targets. The safest place to live, there, would be in the southwestern part of the state, behind a sheltering system of mountains. From the middle of the state to its eastern extremities, Montana’s radioactive fallout … in the event of such a war … would be incredibly intense. Of course, south of the Montana border is Yellowstone National Park, with its own hazards!
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Wolfie, if it ever gets to all-out nuclear war, I find it hard to believe that matters like your location within a state will make much of a difference in your survival and health. I am guessing that the winds will pretty much swirl everything around. Japan was the world’s second largest economy for most of the post-war period, even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chernobyl did not kill off the population of the Soviet Union.
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Please, please, please! STOP lumping all of California into one Liberal Mess!! grew up in Los Angeles-we elected Reagan, remember? My mother had me walking those hot San Fernando Valley streets to make sure that the neighbors knew who to vote for. While parts of LA; Malibu, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, etc are all on board for Brain dead Biden- they are a surprising number of good ol’ boys and girls in the rural hills. The inner strip of California is redneck country, and Placer, El Dorado, and other regions have wanted to be the State of Jefferson since 1940. When session starts, you will be surprised at the number of places that will kill a commie for mommy and join a new free Republic. Eastern Oregon and Washington-the same thing. Just as we write off Europe being lost, San Francisco hasn’t been hetrosexual male since 1955. So a lot of coastal areas will be on their own. Stockton and the rest of the San Joaquin Valley get nauseous everytime Obama’s name is mentioned. The Elites continue to live off of the labors of the people they hate. Well, sipping lattes and being photographed builds neither character nor muscles. Just sayin’.
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Maps that show what California actually looks like politically — this is the 2016 Presidential vote by county, and by precinct:
As to defensible borders — highways through major mountain passes are chokepoints all along the Coast Range, and especially the Sierra Nevadas and the northern Rocky Mountains. Block those passes and that prohibits eastward surface travel by pretty much everyone not backroads-savvy. (There are ways around all of them, but they’re not easy roads in summer, and are mostly impassible in winter.)
To the east, the Mississippi River south of central Minnesota is, for practical purposes, uncrossable without bridges. Block or blow the bridges and again, only the most boat-savvy will make it across.
I am not firsthand familiar with east of the Mississippi (as I am with points west) but I expect there are similar chokepoints in the Appalachians, and that the Great Lakes and Ohio River can similarly become surface boundaries that can be made tough to pass.
An additional buffer zone can be created simply by limiting access to fuel. No local ID? no fillee gas tank, no chargee EV.
(I don’t worry about air travel; the number of warm bodies that can be moved by air are too small to matter, and runways are easy to disable. The real problem would be mass exodus of the abruptly-feral from suddenly-starving cities.)
Absent an open welfare system, and with a return to harsh indictment of street drugs, methinks the Mexican border would cease to be a problem… and that’s assuming we didn’t just annex and militarize a buffer zone (no doubt much to the relief of the current inhabitants).
The part of Canada that would (if not steered by crazy politicians) join us is similarly defensible from the Rockies to eastern Manitoba.
As to those who say Flyover Country would starve for lack of trade and ports… really? We’d have primary control over the longest navigable river in the world and its warmwater port, over most of the continent’s food, water, and energy, and a population with most of the skills and attitudes needed to develop relevant industries, and a number of excellent ag and engineering schools. (Not to mention lots of small arms and quite a few nukes.) Ain’t us gonna be hurting. We can do without what they offer, but they still need to eat.
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I do not lump them all together, as I said in the column. I think there is a good chance we could peel off northeastern CA plus the Central Valley. San Diego would be nice too. Let the left have the Bay Area to LA along the coast.
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The ranching area between SLO and San Jose would prefer not to be lumped in with the coastal metros either…
BTW the oddly-located inland blue areas are mostly Indian reservations. (Same for various odd blue lumps across the western U.S.)
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What we may all be missing is that a nuclear event of any kind may end up being superseded by God deciding that the “ring of fire” needs to be ignited all at the same time, along with all the calderas. That would create an extremely unpleasant situation for everyone in the world, except perhaps the Penguins at Antarctica. I keep thinking that God is coming close to saying, enough is enough, and He does something that definitely gets our attention.
God may also decide to make sure that the 3 Gorges dam collapses this summer, which would put China in a world of hurt.
It almost collapsed last summer, and was severely damaged by the summer rains.
God can do far more to us than we can to ourselves, and that time may very well be coming.
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This year China is releasing water from Three Gorges to prevent further damage, and the fact that this exacerbates downstream flooding… oh well!
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