IHeartBadCode

I’m highly doubtful that a second Civil War would be like the first. I’m more of the opinion that we’d see something along the lines of the Troubles in Ireland.

Maintaining a fighting force requires a ton of money and the loss of international markets in the Civil War hurt the Confederacy greatly. Inflation in the Confederacy shot through the roof. Paired with the Union’s successful blockade, the Union securing most rivers, and the Union pretty much destroying every bit of infrastructure in the Confederate States, the Confederacy had massive economic woes that plagued morale.

I’m really doubtful that any State wanting to secede wants to lose access to the US dollar as it would wreck their economy. I just don’t see it being the way the Civil War was fought as it would almost guarantee a repeat.

Wars are fought along a lot more lines than just the ones where bullets matter.

That’s just a selfie with extra steps.

The United States is too big and needs to fail

Yeah, I don't think you understand what that statement means. A government failure would absolutely lead to a significant part of the the population dying. And that would be the good outcome for a lot of folks. A whole lot more would starve to death very slowly.

I would like to see it broken up into smaller independent countries

Very, very, very few States have the experience at this moment to operate as an independent nation. Like maybe four or five. The rest would either devolve into complete chaos and with it take a significant part of the population, or be invaded which would very likely have similar outcome.

With less military so that we can stay the fuck out of other people’s business.

Yeah, there's a lot of people like it or not that have an axe to grind. And wouldn't really matter to them if the US fell apart, in fact it would encourage them to settle that chip on their shoulder.

So I'm just going to tell you, your proposal would very likely get yourself killed and everyone you love killed and pretty much everyone commenting on this story killed as well. There would be a lot of dead bodies. Just literally look at any country that began falling apart and you can see that the body count starts increasing at a rapid pace when the Government completely falls apart.

I don't understand why people think that government falling apart or civil war means that a significant part of the country's population doesn't die? There's over 8,000 years of evidence of societies collapsing equaling a shit ton of people dying. If there's people wanting to die that badly, there are better ways that do not involve 10% to 20% of the civilian population.

The sheer speed at which the jury came to this determination is a really good sign that everyone on the jury was like "fuck this dude in particular". Not only that, what I think was hilarious was that Trump's testimony about his valuation in his NY civil trail was submitted and accepted as evidence for the determination on this fine. Like literally some Loony Toons Wile E. Coyote exploding in your face kind of thing.

This was such a massive L for Trump's legal team that I believe the correct lawyer term is HA HA HA HAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA!!

I swear, I'm just waiting for what creative backhoing their graves Trump's team will be doing in the appeals.

What's that saying? "Speech is free. Lies are expensive."

And just so everyone remembers this, Lake Gatún is the primary water source for fresh water in the area.

That little facet plays a non-zero role in any discussion about travel along the canal.

And for those wondering how a canal “uses” water. At some point a lake that was never connected to the ocean, has some small amount of it discharge into the ocean every time a boat moves through the canal.

You can use all kinds of partitions and fancy pumps to reduce the amount of salt water that gets in and fresh water that leaves, but you can never get it to zero. There will always be some salt water getting into the lake and some fresh water making it to the ocean. And that value begins to add up when you have thousands of boats.

Man. When we get one of these to Titan, it's going to be wild. Flying through the methane air there and snapping shots of liquid hydrocarbon lakes.

Why do we even have that bucket‽

Reach a compromise solution that helps the situation and the public at large. 😤

Say fuck it all, it's all about me and my run for President. 😉

Yeah, heading into the 2018 midterm Trump tried to create a border crisis. It didn't work. This is their election trick, create a lot of smoke, rile up the base, think that it will rile everyone else up.

I mean let's look at the core aspect of Abbott's argument from his statement.

That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Right out the gate, Abbott is based his ideology on a dissenting opinion. That is, the NON-MAJORITY finding of the court in Arizona v. United States. In fact, Arizona v. United States indicated explicitly that enforcement of the border was the sole privilege of the Federal Government. So right out the gate Abbott is literally using a case that ruled the opposite of the determination he indicated in his statement.

Additionally, Art. I, § 10, C. 3 of the Constitution.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Historically this was used for Native American invasions of property and so the key factor in cases around this is "will not admit of delay". Texas is not burning. No historical read of this section of the Constitution supports immigrants coming into the Nation. By definition as we have it thus far, Texas is not being invaded. Additionally, Scalia's conceptualization of this section, no other Justice has joined in on that understanding. So outside of the opinion of a single justice, a Governor just saying "I'm being invaded! I get to invalidate federal law!" nobody else has ever indicated this is the way it should be read.

With Art. I, § 10, C. 3, you can say "I'm being invaded!" But you still have to follow the law. You can fight invaders and maintain the law of this land, they are not mutually exclusive things, no matter how hard Abbott or Scalia wishes it to be otherwise.

And finally, the Art. IV, § 4 argument.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Again, no court would uphold that Texas is being invaded. But Abbott is adamant about Biden "isn't enforcing…" And the thing is, Governors do not get to legally make that determination. What laws are and are not being enforced by a President is the sole prerogative of the Executive branch. (Wayte v. United States)

The Governor of Texas cannot just unilaterally make a determination that the President isn't XYZing. That's what the court system is for and distinctly the thing that Abbott has lost. If the Governor felt that the President was not holding up their end, they have every right under Article III of the Constitution to take it up there. Which that's what Abbott did and lost. Also, why when he was questioned if his defiance would be upheld by SCOTUS, he merely indicated that he felt the 5th Circuit would uphold it. Meaning, he knows that SCOTUS will overturn any determination the Governor is making on this front.

And with all of that, his core argument has nothing. It's easy to pick apart. Now here's the thing, Gov. Abbott is not stupid in the legal sense. He's quite aware that his determination is unfounded. He's banking on stirring the pot enough to make either Biden do something so that can be plastered all over the place or getting the issue fresh into his base's minds.

And like I said, this is exactly what they did 2018 and lost. Abbott is just trying to get under everyone's skin and he seems determined to spend as much of Texan taxpayers' money in litigation to do that one thing.

I submit Nintendo's online service as evidence that, that is not true in the least bit. MK8, Smash, Splatoon 3, all of them have atrocious online. Pokemon Unite using Tencent's online services runs circles around anything Nintendo has offered with online being a major factor and that's on same hardware.

Nintendo has their IP and they take extremely good care of it. No argument there. But holy shit is Nintendo's online service absolute trash. I will always have something Nintendo because I must always have my Animal Crossing, but holy fuck, let's not kid ourselves about Nintendo's online stuff. Anything that's using Nintendo's servers for match making or their network stack for connectivity is just garbage.

I will always love a good Mario, Pikmin, or Animal Crossing but Nintendo clearly isn't investing a single cent into online anything. And that is just my 2¢.

Texas has a relatively huge economy that we kind of depend on

They're physically located in Texas yes, but Texas doesn't own them, they're privately owned or owned by a foreign nation. Like the largest oil refinery in Texas isn't even US, it's owned by the Government of Saudi Arabia. Texas isn't claiming ownership of that.

In fact a lot of Texas' economy relies on access to the US dollar, of which they would absolutely lose access to if there was even the hint of leaving. One of the things that really boiled over in the US Civil War was that the United States indicated to its trading partners of the time, that they could not do deals with the rebel states. The South was quickly going broke. It would literally be the exact same thing in present day, Texas wouldn't have an economy because the one thing that keeps that economy running is something they would absolutely lose. Access to every trading partner on the planet.

At best they might be able to do bilateral trade with not friendly to the US, but they wouldn't be able to ship it out. The Gulf of Mexico is firmly the United States and Texas distinctly has no navy even closely matching the United States. They can't go south because "of obvious reasons", and they wouldn't be allowed in any airspace and likely the FAA would ban every single flight in and out of the State.

But remove the fact that they would have to take State ownership of private business and somehow sneak large quantities of it out of their State. The other country they're trading with knows Texas is trading at a disadvantage. There's no way they're asking fair market value for shit. There's no way those dollars sustain their economy. Losing access to the US dollar would absolutely wreck Texas' economy and that's the exact point, because when enough Texans are hungry and their economy has turned to dust, the citizens will likely have a heart-to-heart with their Governor about this whole "leaving" businesses.

Also this would absolutely fuck over all the not-assholes that live down there

Ah yeah, it will. I live in Tennessee and know full well that should our State decide to "leave" that basically I'm dead. Between the likely intolerance to people sticking to the middle ground and an almost certain conscription, the not-assholes would likely be the first among the dead. I mean, that's just how civil conflict works anywhere. It sucks and is also a pretty good reason that taking the middle ground is not always ideal.

I just want Biden to do something other than give stern words of warning

Well the thing to remember is that we're supposed to be a country of law and order. We're supposed to settle things inside a court room. And ideally, that's where Biden should go. Abbott's reasoning is completely unsound legally and relies on a reading of Art. I, § 10, C. 3 that's only enjoyed by Scalia.

I get the temptation to hand out smack down, but we should stick to order at all times. Even with the Civil War before, the US waited until the Confederates struck first. All the cards are in the US government's favor. All the economic factors are in the US favor. There's not a whole lot that Texas has over the United States on this matter. There's no reason for the US to even remotely push on the matter while Abbott is clearly content with digging his own grave here.

Considering the trike nature of the, and I use this term very generously, vehicle and the poor steering mechanism that was on display in that video. This is indeed just that suicide booth with extra steps.