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Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!
Why the Blue States Should Secede
They hate us. They say so in public. Bill O'Reilly hates us. Ann Coulter hates us. Sarah Palin thinks we're not "pro-American." And now an obscure Republican named Bachmann suggests that our senators and representatives be investigated.
It's like a bad relationship in which all you do together is argue. We got married too young. We didn't know each other well enough. And things have changed since 1789.
They're always calling us names: elitist, godless, defeatist, unpatriotic. They're paranoid control freaks, listening in on our phone calls and reading our e-mail. They think our friends are weird. We think theirs are scary.
They like country music. We like all the other kinds. They hate big cities, modern art, and research universities. We consider them essentials of civilization. They want to make war. We want to spend our tax dollars on domestic infrastructure, public education, and universal health care.
They believe that Jesus is coming back any minute, that global warming is a myth, and that evolution should not be taught in schools. We disagree.
Let's face it. This relationship has never been smooth. There was that huge fight we had back in the 1860s.
Here's the good part: if we split up, they're the ones who would have to move out.
What if Coulter, O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Karl Rove, and all their friends had to leave the big cities they revile? What if they had to live full-time in those glorious Red States, with their small towns, empty prairies, meth labs, and itinerant serial killers?
What if they had to hunker down in Juneau or Pierre for the winter? They could attend high-school football games and go to quilting bees. They could learn to square dance. As jets fly over on their way from the Atlantic seaboard to California, they could gaze up with outward shows of contempt and secret pangs of regret.
Because no more nights out on the town in Manhattan and Georgetown. No more of those risible libations, Chardonnay and café lattes. No more brie or arugula. Bring on the meatloaf, jello, and Sanka!
Much as they hate us, they won't like it if we leave. Without us the RSA (Red States of America) will be a second-rate power. They'll have no clout in international affairs. But they can console themselves by abolishing all taxes, massacring spotted owls, and engraving the Ten Commandments on their empty library buildings.
They'll tell us we'll be lonely without them. But we've always kind of liked the looks of our rugged next-door neighbor. You know. Canada.
Since they don't love us, we should leave them. What was that old slogan they used to like so much? "Better dead than Red."
- Posted in
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90 Comments so far
Show AllGood points in here.
The Republican party is and should be considered a hate group. They spew hate speech and encourage bigotry, violence, and xenophobia. They should be prosecuted for hate crimes under the RICO statutes.
I guess if you can't win an argument with somebody, you can always try using force. Kind of like the Nazis did in Germany...
Hitler was elected, without use of force.
Honestly, I've been thinking the same thing. We have one nation ideologically split down the middle. How will we ever accomplish anything?
The only problem is how to physically divide the country. Both coasts and much of the midwest are blue. The south, the plains and mountain states, and Alaska are red. What we need is a way to connect the east coast with the west coast. If we can do that, we've got it made. On the other hand, squeezing the red states between the blue states on each coast doesn't sound all bad. Either way, I say we start writing our declaration of Independence.
Easy, we take Canada to bypass the red states and go from East to West :-)
Uh, we've already got a Declaration of Independence.
After all, "all persons are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalianable rights, among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is definitely a blue state thing.
Its the neo-fascists that need to separate from America and write their own Declaration of Independence. I'm guessing it might go something like ...
"All men are not created eqaul. Everyone's status is determined at birth, and if you are lucky enough to be born into power and wealth, then nothing should interfere with you. Life is what we say it is, and only protected when we want it to be. We value security over liberty, and don't want any independent thinking. Pursuit of happiness is a godless idea and should be bombed and destroyed whenever it arises."
Remember, we are the true Americans. We represent the true American ideals of freedom and liberty. Don't ever let these people take this from us.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
There is no reconciliation possible. We're experiencing mitosis, and I believe it will happen naturally and inevitably without any special social engineering by us. Something like ethnic cleansing will establish the boundaries. (I have suggested a diagonal line from Miami to Seattle with capitals in LA and New York.) The border should be walled of course, allowing us to evolve into the separate species we obviously are. It will be interesting to see how we physically differ after a few generations.
The depressing thought I had on reading this is that after a few generations both sides of the wall would probably have very similar societies with very similar splits between 'takers' and 'givers' in both.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Think Eloi and Morlocks!
It seems the 100 million Evangelicals play a huge role...waiting for the rapture and their acsension. Well, if that happens, that will certainly be one way to separate the idealogies.
I've reached the point where I hope the rapture is true and happens really soon. I figure that's got one of two possible outcomes.
-- its actually all the peaceful people who suddenly disappear. Leaving behind a bunch of very bewildered hate filled fundamentalists who can't figure out how it was that a lot of the socialists working for common good or pot-smoking hippies are the ones who suddenly went to heaven.
-- it really is the fundamenalists that disappear. But, for those of us left behind, the world has got to be a better place with them gone.
:)
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
You blue-staters are welcome to bring your states to Canada. We will exchange them for Alberta, which will feel much more at home with your red states.
There is always a lot of comparisions with the fascist states of Germany and Italy in the 30's. Not in this article or comment, but generally. The reason I mention this is because to me the more accurate comparision seems to be with pre-civil war Spain in the 30's.
In Spain, there had been a series of tight elections that went back and forth between left and right. The left had won one, but then the right one the next two. The left then staged a comeback and won the next national election. At that time, Gen. Franco overthrew the elected government with his right-wing revolution and started the civil war.
In this country, I wonder what would happen if the left really won an election. After all, the right in this country is so viscious and unaccepting of the Democrats, which are actually really amazingly similar to the Republicans. Its almost funny in that the right doesn't really want to accept even another right-wing victory.
But, what would happen if the left really did organize and win an election. If we were on the verge of putting Cynthia McKinney in the White House with a Green Party majority in Congress, would the right accept this outcome? Or, would they stage a revolution to overturn it, just like Gen. Franco did some 70 years ago?
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
If McKinney or Nader were ahead in the polls just before the election, then the right would try stealing the election, which might not prove that difficult given the corporate media would totally support the theft. If somehow that did not work, then the president would be taken out, in the usual fashion. If somehow that did not work, then there would be a military coup.
I do not hold much hope for the future of this country. I have thought for years that the best the left can do here is to try to prevent the worst of the warmongers from gaining power and starting WWIII and ending it all. But I recognize that the future is ultimately unpredictable and so the best way forward will always remain guesswork. It certainly would have been difficult to predict that a couple of corporatists named W and Dick would do more than any other pair of individuals in preventing the adoption of poisonous American ideas by others throughout the world.
"The US & UK led the way, refusing to sell weapons to the elected Spanish govt, which would have allowed them to defend themselves. Meanwhile, Hitler & Mussolini helped Franco. So basically the US/UK position was to ensure that the fascists would win. And this was under the sainted FDR!"
Congress was almost violently isolationist at that point...also, back then the President didn't overstep his Constitutional limits of power like our current one does daily.
Wasn’t the question of what the right would do answered for you on November 22, 1963?
You wrote, partly in jest as you admit:
Namely, that if we seceded (or let them secede), we would find ourselves living next door to a very dangerous now-foreign nation of ultra-nationalist hot-heads, militaristic ignoramuses, & aggressive expansionists. Left to their own devices, they would soon want to invade someone -- maybe us! Maybe Cuba. Maybe the rest of the Caribbean & Mexico. They had eyes on all that way back in the 1850's, too.
That is why any fantasies of secession should only involve a multi-state rather than a two-state solution. One possibility, out of a great number, would be:
(A) Northeast;
(B) Midwest;
(C) Confederate states plus Kentucky and minus Texas and Florida;
(D) Florida;
(E) Texas;
(F) Rocky Mountain (including Nevada) and Great Plains states;
(G) West Coast;
(H) Alaska; and
(I) Hawaii.
If the US were split into enough pieces, the conservative nations created would not have the resources to engage in aggressive foreign policy actions (and gaining allies for such actions is often problematic).
It's rare for me to start reading the day's Commondreams and find myself laughing out loud. Thank you, Carol Hamilton -- I feel better already!
I always thought we should have just let them go when they wanted to. Hell, ever since the "War of Northern Aggression" they have been taking more money out of the system than they've been putting in. That's why they voted democratic for so long, the dems were willing to pay them off. But then when the dems supported civil rights the south made a choice, the money or the hate, and they have gone with the hate.
As far as them trying to invade us, they would certainly lose the technological edge, and would have to pray us away. I'm guessing our godlessness would prove greater.
Uh, they've still got the money too. The figures for which states put in more to the fed gov and which states pull out more haven't changed.
Check out the military bases in the south. The place is dotted with them. And every one is a pork-barrel project for the area. I remember living in Georgia and wondering why the heck there are US Navy facilities in Atlanta and Athens .... hundreds of miles from the coast, or even from a real river.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
It is interesting that on a societal level, we have two extreme views that have existed since the beginning of written history- the conservatives and the liberals. I've felt for a long time that generally, when making decisions regarding politics and society, the conservative mind is motivated more by fear and greed; and that liberal mind is motivated more by love and compassion (a generalization).
Or more simply, takers and givers. And never shall the two mix.
It equates to the part of the brain that each uses. In the case of many conservatives, it is the 'reptilian' part of the brain which is just reacting and making decisions on a emotional level, which is why their manipulators use fear (just like any good car salesman). The liberals thought process goes through the frontal lobe, the rational thinking part.
All people are subject to emotional thinking when presented with situations that cause fear, sadness, greed, anger. The difference is how they react, their response. It takes energy to not react in emotional outbursts. to rationally think about possible solutions instead of the instinctual fight or flight. Experience has shown the limitations of the strictly emotional response.
Some have said that there are basically two responses that people have, fear or love.
Which begs the question is, does the argument of 'voting for the lesser of two evils' based on fear or love? I believe that it is based on fear and that is why I don't buy into it and will vote third party.
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." ~Bertrand Russell
We'd have to make sure we built a really good fence along the border. :)
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
It's just the folks who need a Big Daddy in the Sky who'll be home for diner any minute, and the other folks who can somehow muddle through this life without that particualr delusion.
Whoever wins the election will have a tough time digging out of the hole that the neocons and conservative base have dug, it's a whopper! As McCain shoveled as hard or harder than anybody he must still have his shovel handy and could possibly try filling in the hole one shovel load at a time, but I doubt it. Obama can have a go at it, but the hole is so deep and filled with so many bodies that it will take an avalanch to fill it in. Without any money to do much of anything the challenge will be to simply maintain status quo and keep the good people (red and blue) in a state of collective peaceful agreement. If nothing more is done than to lessen the wedge that divides this country then it would be successful. Until there is a united effort to tip this country right side up it won't happen.
annabelle:let the guys do the digging. We'll do the thinking/planning and saving of children and the planet.
You could always ask us Brits if we'd like to have you back. Or apply to join the European Union. I'm sure we could oblige. I'd support your applications, if only to avoid having to go through passport control at JFK ever again.
Give the land back to the Indians . . . and Mexico.
yes,indeed. Will they let us rent? And please add:reparations for all those who have ancestors who came here as slaves.
Secretarybird:Thank you. Before I accept your offer (I like the passport idea.), please answer these questions: Do I have to say "post" or can I say "mail"?
Do I have to say "vest" when I mean "undershirt"?
Do we have to pay for the Queen? (I read the Guardian online and\
who wrecked the BBC news website?)(When I saw the plates on her Majesty's table when she was on vacation, I first thought they were brownish colored glss.) I already spell the word "potatoes".
I'm sure others will donate questions for the "do we really want to go back" test. Almost forgot: I really like how you call folks "eccentric" rather than our loose use of "crazy".
Practically Speaking-
By Most counts there are movements in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho that are turning the states blue - slowly but surely. Most of these are led by women.
Plus we store all our Nukes in the Dakotas. Couldnt get rid of those now, could we.
The only parts we have to get rid of are Texas through Georgia, and the Gulf Coast through Virginia(maybe just north Carolina?)/Kentucky. Of course we would have to re-orient Indiana.
If we do loose Indiana, we would essentially be cut in half.
And I am not for ethnic cleansing.
The more practical method would be engaging these folks, and find out which universe they live in. It should work for enough people, so that we turn this country back on a sane path.
Love
Zero
Fully 1/3 of the U.S. nuclear weapon capacity is on submarines based in Bremerton, WA.
Red States might have the storage, but we'd be fairly even in launch capability, with Blue States having an edge in variety of delivery systems.
Not that it would happen.
Until I saw the comments I thought the article was meant as a joke, a satire pointing out the ridiculousness of our political polarization.
Seceeding is good. Dropping out is faster.
Who IS John Galt?
Plus, if we split, the only movies they'll have are "American Carol" and "Left Behind," the only music something called Christian rock, the only comedy from the genius of Dennis Miller, Larry the Cable Guy and Kelsey Grammer, and the only art that which features Jesus, often on velvet.
26 comments and I haven't heard my problem yet! I live in a red state!! Blue county but red state........(SC) I come from a blue county in the purplest state of all (OH). What am I to do???????????
Amusing article that made me smile with tongue in cheek. However, AgingPacifist is right. There are 'blue' people everywhere across every red state in this Nation. The neocons are responsible for all the divisiveness we are collectively experiencing. Their entire framework is founded on hate. Just listen to rUSH lIMBAUGH spew for 3 minutes and you'll know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I thought the article was just a joke until I read the comments.
Always interesting for people to react to "prejudiced" groups that "hate" by employing negative stereotypes and showing no compassion. Hypocrisy can be interesting to watch.(not aimed at the posters I'm immediately below)
Your problem reminds me of my problem. I'm in a Blue State (WA) that has a well-armed and couple million strong population of Red voters east of the Cascades. What are we supposed to do?
Another one I haven't seen is FOOD. Blue States would have all the mouths to feed and Red States would have all the food to feed'em (ignore California -it just ruins my point). We'd need to take back Iowa before the split.
On a more serious not I do think that a return to decentralized basic economies in the Individual States and decentralized government -involving mostly a reduction of the National Military and the various federal "police" agencies- would go a long way to improving the U.S..
Eventually, political borders throughout the World will need to be withdrawn in order to reflect ties to Bioregions and Watersheds. This is a fairly large problem for a lot of the western U.S. and some of the East of the Miss. but not in the orginal 13 States as well. But most political borders suffer at least a bit, with the use of rivers as boundries instead of centers the most glaring issue.
But in the meantime, a peaceful movement toward a return to the decentralized Federal Republic of fairly independent and powerful States, united mostly by a single currency, that was the U.S. pre-Civil War would -in my opinon- do much to increase both the democratic character of our system AND social justice and cooperation.
The EU seems a fairly good sightline marker for such a movement -though we wouldn't want to get all the way to that level of national sovreignty for our States.
Don't Panic,
-matti.
Cought betweed Red and Blue? Alas, you're Marooned!
Purple or stripes. With Kucinich on top.
Make up your own solution.
Odd how red is used to denote conservative regions or political parties.
If you follow elections in other countries, they denote the main left/centrist party with red and right with blue.
But whatever the color, the probelm is (with the possible exception of Vermont) that there are no "red" or "blue" states, just different proportions or urban, suburban, small-town and rural populations.
Mexico does blue (PAN) and yellow (PRD)...And an electoral map of Mexico shows the same divide seen in America, with ALL the north going blue, and all the south except Puebla and Yucatan going yellow...
Something went seriously wrong with American Democracy after Alexis de Tocqueville wrote "DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA" and I wonder what it was. Oh well, if at first we don't secede then try, try again!
Why does it have to be separated into two nations? Why not several? Even two nations would be too big and at least one, if not both, would still have the resources to bully other countries and their people. How about 50 different countries? With a UN mandated international police force to keep the peace. The USA is too big. Time to downsize, permanently.
Interestingly, secession was only tried through use of force. What if they, the Confederacy, had tried to use the courts? How about using the courts now? Break this place up.
Samson:
Unfortunately, I think you're right, there would be a right-wing coup. Nearly had one ourselves in the years before WW2.
Who says that all liberals just love the cities and the city life? I hate it. I like living in a small town where I can find everything I need, ride my bike everywhere I need to go and still be tucked in behind wide rainforests of trees and hear the ocean at night. I'd rather go camping for a week and grow my garden in the backyard that go out at night for a latte.
She's talking about Rove,et al loving big cities. Me,too. But it's not about you or me.
Can somebody here please educate me what it means to be "unamerican" ?
Remember Michelle Bachmann and her rant about Obama,his associations and the liberals in Congress.
Yesterday I watched a reportage from the biggest weapon factory in US (in Oklahoma ), where bombs were made. A worker was asked if he had any second thought about his work when many of the bombs would kill innocent people.
"No", the man said, I'm proud. When asked why, his answer was
"Because I'm an American"
If that is the definition of "American" maybe "unamerican" is'nt so bad--after all.
My supposed sister is now a Republican because her husband works GD hard for his money and why should he have to pay more in taxes, they're gazillionaires now, 3 homes, Lots 'O Cars from many countries, she continued about the Dems will tax us and billions will be blah blah, I said whats up with the name RNC why no ??? about the Trillions we've, no they, have thrown at Occupations and wars and contractors, this is what I get back,"You PEOPLE[WTF did I do], always the war ...", her hubbie, the fat pig, owns a Corporation, shes proud of him. What is it he does, why he manufactures warhead guidance systems to murder women and children, proud, pride cometh before the fall, when that supposed sibling of mine[i begin to believe i was adopted so i may be happy]has one of her children harmed by these "wars'[which albeit I was Air Force in the 70's]which she said in no uncertain terms, "If any of MY[yes she owns them, i've seen the deeds]children were fighting for our country, the best country in the world[F$$K yeah keep saying it then it shall be as such]I WOULD be SO PROUD!, I said they would be dead or maimed you know nada, girl probably does not even know how many Amendments are in the BILL OF RIGHTS. I cannot comprehend these thought processes, you will be proud if your daughter or son is murdered, then you say you love them and you are called "Mom", I give up, I give, UNCLEEEEEEEEEEE
BillofRights
If the population of the United States consisted only of reactionaries and fascists they would war endlessly among themselves, one winning group conquering and wiping out another whose political and ideological heresy would be impossible for a sane and rational person to understand. Eventually, only one group would be left standing; then they would split apart, repeating the process until only one person remained alive. That person would commit suicide because there was no one left to fight. Then we could all come back from exile and live in peace.