I fear that Colorado is going the way of California.
Of course it is.. where do you think our population growth came from?
It really matters how this goes down. If States are allowed secede peacefully, then we probably all pull up stakes, move to the free states, and live well until the Blue States inevitably go the way of Detroit, and start to present a threat to our ( new) national interest. However, I think that has a low probability of happening. The Blue United States can't have at least half of their most productive and wealthiest citizens leaving - especially with the debt they racked up. Open armed conflict will ensue. Provided they don't deploy WMD (nukes, chemical or bio-weapons) I suspect we will see massive resistance in EVERY rural area of the US... even in Blue States. The next civil war will be country mice vs city mice. Wars are about territory and the Liberals all live in fragile little sandcastles called cities. If states surrounding Colorado seceded how many bordering rural counties would petition Wyoming, or Utah to become part of their state, or start acting like it in all but name? How much food would be produced and shipped to the liberal enclaves in the cities and towns? How many of those shipments would never make it? How much of the electrical grid travels through rural counties?
The Colorado Front range here is also very dependent upon the water infrastructure (as is LA in California) There are tunnels driven through solid rock to move water to the plains. Many places in Colorado cannot locally sustain the population in them, and are dependent upon a select few roads and passes for the transport of goods. If push came to shove here, the infrastructure could be easily crippled - for months - without directly hurting a single human being. If that was combined with a (militia enforced) boycott of food and supplies from the surrounding seceded states - Colorado cities would be quickly hurting - and blaming the govt for not protecting them. Even in the rural areas of Colorado, liberals live in town (they have to be seen and heard you know) , don't own 4WD ( unless a Subaru Outback counts) , and generally don't own firearms or know how to hunt - and they are outnumbered by the conservatives in the surrounding areas - most of whom, given the successions and civil war, are now completely happy to watch them suffer and starve, backed up by law enforcement inclined to do the same.
I suspect that many places, even in Blue states, will look much the same. Yes, the military can try to start taking out rebel forces one farmhouse at a time-- as they have been doing in Afghanistan.. and you see how well that works, and the United states is much larger, and the rural counties are where the food comes from. They can't scorch the earth without making up the loss of production from overseas-- and their influence there (and here) will be diminishing as they print dollars to pay for this war on the American people who want nothing other than to be left alone. They will have a split in the Democratic party - pacifists vs hawks - Just like there was in the first Civil War, and this admin will be forced to show its brutal hand against the useless idiots in the cities as well.
Its thinking about this stuff that scares me so much.. you see all of the difficulty for the dictators UNLESS they kill us all with WMD. A Bio weapon that forces people to report to the FEMA camp for inoculation, classification and processing. Here is your RFID chip- "just so we have a record of what treatment you received". You are assigned to
Gulag 1 refugee camp 1 , and your husband will go to the showers for "decontamination" Oops- he was sicker than we thought. He isn't coming back Oh, and those meds that kill the contagion we released, yeah unfortunately they mixed with an genetically engineered addictive substance. Stay in line or you will face a painful withdrawl.
Of course, if they have and intend to use such a weapon, why haven't they used it already? What event are they waiting for?
I suspect their Hubris really makes them think they can subjugate us with out it. However if it looks like they might loose, perhaps then they deploy it. The H1N1 bit was certainly trying to gauge reaction to such a thing.