What if the Dem states seceded?

[scottxyz]

Seriously - I'm getting tired of being pushed around by these rightwing religious wackos in backward Republican-leaning states.

George Bush seems to be dead-set against protecting places like NY and SF against terrorist attacks (the new threats are subways, suitcase nukes, containers coming into ports - which he's done NOTHING about). Bush knew the 9/11 attacks were coming (tune into CBS at 7PM Sun for 60 Minutes if you still need proof) and was probably quite happy to see New York get blown up. Jeb Bush has even made jokes about attacks coming against SF someday.

And I've read somewhere that we have a kind of "liberal handouts to conservatives" welfare in this country - the Dem states generate much more money and pay much more taxes - because people are SMARTER and MORE CREATIVE and MORE EFFICIENT there - and that money gets transferred to the laggard Republican states.

Why should pregressive places like NYC and SF and LA and Chicago pay taxes into the till and then not get anything back in terms of protection, just because Bush is more interested in protecting his friends in "the Heartland". It's all very well and good for some of the yahoos sitting in "flyover" country to support inflaming and mishandling the war on terrorism - those aren't the places that are liable to get blown up when the next attack hits.

I know this sounds snobby and effete and elitist - but so what. There are people in this country who know what's going on, who know how to build a strong economy, who know how to fight terrorism - and these people are being silenced (or even murdered) by a bunch of dittoheads.

If the dittoheads think they're so damn smart, let them form their own country under God or whatever. Give them their own copy of the Constitution to deface. Us liberals can keep the constitution we've come to know and love (perhaps adding an amendment to allow for a better voting system, such as Instant Runoff Voting or Condorcet - so the best politicians would start winning for a change instead of being picked off one by one in these ridiculous primaries that always start in IA and NH.)

The Federal government is spending about $40 million a year to protect our ports - and $10 BILLION a year on the Star Wars boondoggle - just a way to funnel more money to Bush's buddies in the defense industries - while PURPOSELY leaving our big, liberal population centers wide open to being blown up.

Let the racist, sexist, homophobic people go off and form their own theocracy - and let the smart progressive people set up a system that provides healthcare, education, jobs and environmental protection - and sensible protection against actual terrorists - instead of shredding the bill of rights and fighting wars against the wrong countries.

I'm tired of seeing my country dragged down by a bunch of idiots. If the damn country is so polarized, let the theocrats go off and form their own country. Let them have post their Ten Commandments in stone in every courthouse (while their polticians sneak around breaking every one of them).

Let the progressive intelligent people use our tax dollars on the things we really need - schools, education, healthcare, effective anti-terrorism.

We'll see who does better in the end. We'll see which country attracts more qualified employees and creative people. Let the theocrats rot in their own putrid juices instead of tearing down the land of the free.

The American Revolution started over "No taxation without representation." If our democracy is gonna be Diebolded and Vanced to death, then we no longer have any representation any more. Maybe it's time to strike out on our own.

[Padraig18]

1. What lesson of the Civil war did you not understand?

There are NO winners in a civil war...

[scottxyz]

10. I'm only half serious

As for Civil War - I would say that that's a fair description of what the rightwing has ALREADY been more or less covertly waging for the last 30 years or so.

Maybe what I'm saying is: We should wake up and realize that the Second Civil War has already been underway for the past 30 years. These lunatics who want to ban words in our newspapers and radio stations and who want to put up THEIR religion's commandments in courthouses and who want to dismantle the New Deal and who want to "ban gays" (whatever that means) - they've been fighting the Second Civil War (undeclared, as usual) for the past 30 years.

Maybe it's time to force them to acknowledge that a war has been going on. The country IS being ripped apart and there ARE no winners now - the country is being destroyed because we HAVE been in a war.

But because we don't face this fact, because the war is covert, we just keep on handing over our tax dollars to the theocrats (the enemy) and we just keep on raising millions in campaign contributions and handing that over to the corporate media (the enemy).

Half this country has the brains and the money to run things pretty well. The other half is being dragged kicking and screaming into prosperity and comfort and they want to bomb themselves (and the rest of us) back into the Stone Ages.

Let's make the whole split visible. Let's point out who fired the first shot. And let's start fighting back.

Giving millions to unsympathetic censored media stations and continuing to carry along the laggards who are shooting at us might not be the best tactic. Waking up and realizing that an undecleared civil war is already being fought - that might give us the clearsightedness to save what's left of this country.

[Deja Q]

22. Well, we've had a COLD civil war for ~15 years now.

Ask me anything!

Even Clinton, a man who did things in bipartisan spirit and is no liberal by any strong measure, was chewed up and spit out by the "people" he helped.

Remember: "bipartisan", to repukes, means that Dems and Repukes band together to sign something - something that the Dems aren't allowed to touch.

And while he balanced the budget, DOMA, DMCA, NAFTA, 1995 welfare 'reform', 1996 telecom act, 1994 sacking of Jocelyn Elders, and other sundry items prove he's no liberal... Especially Jocelyn Elders; we haven't since had a surgeon general that made statements. Our country doesn't want people to think or speak; they just want a bunch of yes-men or tin-pot robots. x(

[NJCher]

2. Count me in

I want to do it. A long time ago I proposed that the U.S. divide itself into red states and blue states but I like this idea better. Let the suckers in the rest of the country who still believe in bush finance his endless wars.


Cher

[Wapsie B]

27. You got it.

Let them turn their version of America into a "free-market" theocracy. Please dear God make this so.

[James T. Kirk]

3. Paging Mr. Jefferson Davis... Jefferson Davis

Secession didn't work out so well the last time.

[mdmc]

4. Bring back the Confederacy?

oh, I don't know.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[scottxyz]

28. Perhaps the Confederacy is already here, in "stealth" mode

Think about it. The best way to wage war, everyone's now learned, is by NOT declaring one. "Who me? I'm not coming after you!"

The Confederacy has probably been waging covert war on the US and the Constitution for at least 30 years now.

Look around you. The media has been infiltrated and bought out and muzzled - a guy on PBS said something bad about Halliburton this week and got thrown off the air. (PBS!)

All this "school voucher" and "faith-based" crap has been simmering on the back burner in the Scaife-funded think tanks for about 30 years until now it can finally start coming out in the open under Bush.

There's some kind of new law being proposed in Congress that will make it legal for executive officers (presidents and governors?) to overrride the Constitition if they believe they're answering to a "higher power" (presumably the Born-Again Christian God).

Our inner cities have been destroyed - they're all slowly dying - because the Republicans think that "welfare" is something that just helps black people and they'd rather see them starve. The infant mortality rate in Harlem and the AIDS infection rate among black kids in NYC are the SAME as they are in Africa.

The war has been going on for 30 years, and the big breach happened with the Supreme Court electoral decision of 2000. And don't think that whole thing wasn't planned from way back - from Republican presidents stacking the federal benches, to Katherine Harris bumping Democratic voters off the rolls via "Choicepoint" because everyone knew they'd need Florida.

We have NO IDEA of what kind of stuff Grover Norquist and Karl Rove talk about with their followers. I bet if we were a fly on the wall for just one day there, we'd immediately understand that the WAR IS ALREADY UNDERWAY.

[robertpaulsen]

31. Good analysis

Though the "stealth" only exists in the branches of government. In the media, the war is pretty much out in the open. Hannity and O'Reilly continually spew their divisive bile on Faux, while Coulter has come right out and marked liberals as guilty of treason in the title of her book.

It really is just a matter of time (having Diebold fixed without anything looking TOO obvious) before the stealth of this war is swept away and the PNAC declares this country a theocracy. The only question then is will the people who still believe in the Constitution have the guts to stand up to fascism?

[mdmc]

66. that s scary... I'm glad that I am in a blue state, NY.

However, I'm in 'upstate' NY, which is a 'red' part of the state.

[Catholic Sensation]

6. and all republicans living in the blue states can be made slaves

god this is a ridiculous idea

[NJCher]

7. I don't see any mention of a civil war.

It's not like there's no precedent for this.

In my county, the property taxes are so high that towns are voting to secede from the county. In fact, the property taxes here are the highest in the entire United States. Several towns have voted to go to an adjoining county and while they probably will not be allowed to go, it has focused attention on the tax burden we homeowners in this county bear. Now they are talking about spreading the burden around the state.

The least that could happen from the above proposal is that attention will be focused on why various states what to secede. When the rest of the country understands that we could be buying healthcare instead of bombing "target-rich" countries that are no threat to us, they might see the sense in the proposal.



Cher

[IronLionZion]

8. who gets the nukes and the space program?

[scottxyz]

18. Get rid of all the nukes and space program

Who needs them? The world is teetering on the edge of economic and ecological disaster right now: peak oil, climate change. Some credible reports say that by 2030, 90% of the human race will be dead in a massive die-off.

Going to the moon (or Mars!) and funneling money into dead-end investments like nukes is a luxury that might have been affordable when we could just print up tons of money and get everyone to hold our TBills, but those days are over now.

If the plan to convert the USA into the AU (a bunch of sovereign states like the EU) included provisions such as eliminating nukes then it might get a LOT of support.

Or is it too late to turn back now? Once you've got nukes, you always have nukes? If that's the case, then we're fucked. No amount of creativity and cleverness can save us if we truly have backed ourselves into a corner with those nukes.

Al-Qaeda has just said that THEY have nukes now. Suitcase nukes.

At 7PM tonight, CBS is gonna air the interview with the counterterrorism guy Clarke (under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II) who's gonna say that Bush kept on fighting the Cold War his first year, when he was being constantly warned by his aides and his allies that the NEW danger was Al-Qaeda.

Bush did nothing about Al-Qaeda's boxcutters then.

He's doing NOTHING about Al-Qaeda's nukes now.

Our nukes in silos are useless against a suitcase nuke being smuggled in. And that's what the "chatter" is all about now.

This is different from when the Americans and the Russians were glaring at each other ready to blow each other up ten times over. For one thing, the Russians weren't so desperate to have become suicidal - but apparently the Al-Qaida type terrorists ARE suicidal. So "mutual deterrence" which worked for the Cold War is pretty much out the window.

It may be politically delicate to say it, but ethnically and religiously and organizationally Americans were also a bit closer to the Soviets (Indo-European mostly, once Judeo-Christian mostly, a "state") than to Al-Qaeda (Semitic mostly, Muslim, a loose organization of "non-state actors").

You could go have a summit with Kruschev or whoever when things heated up, so the nukes sat around and didn't get used.

Nowadays, things heat up, Al-Qaeda sends a letter to Al-Jazeera, it gets published on-line but nobody in America reads it, and we go on listening to that lunatic religious nutcase leader of ours using words like "crusade" in his speeches while the terrorists try to buy up loose suitcase nukes in Asia to smuggle them in and our Attorney General is obsessed with calico cats and snooping into women's medical records and our intelligence services are all hamstringed and demoralized.

Lot of good those nukes are gonna do us in this post-modern world. Breaking up the USA intu the new AU might be a good stimulus to make us get rid of the nukes and find a REAL way to deal with al-Qaeda. Because silo nukes are pretty useless against suitcase nukes.

[TheFarseer]

9. You can't do that

Us 35% that voted Gore in the Red States would really be up a shit creek.

[scottxyz]

13. Yeah, I know

We're pretty much stuck with each other.

I just have this suspicion that the Dems are really carrying the Republicans on our backs - while the Republicans still have the nerve to be complaining that they want even more.

I think I read somewhere on the web recently that the Dem states pay a lot more in taxes than the Republican ones.

I also read that the Electoral College gives like a 9% edge automatically to Republicans.

I have read all over the place that most of the money protecting against terrorism is NOT going to places likely to get hit (like the big cities) instead, it's going to the "heartland" disproportionately.

Grover Norquist always talks about wanting to "drown the Federal government in a bathtub".

Well let him put his money where his mouth is. Take "States' Rights" and "Federalism" and push it to the limit. Break the whole damn union up into 50 soveriegn states (plus give all those disenfrancised, mostly black people in DC the right to finally VOTE), send Congress and the President back to their homes, and just keep a common currency. Sort of like the EU. If the hicks in East Tennessee want to "ban gays" or the hicks in Georgia want to ban teaching evolution in their schools, they can go right ahead - they'll learn the error of their ways once investment and creativity dries up in their little hick towns and everyone moves to the progressive states. (Hey, it would be easier to move than in Europe - at least we all speak English here.)

[prodigal_green]

14. We'll build quality affordable housing for you...

...and your kids will have a top-notch education. Welcome to Blue America.

No need for a civil war. The Czech Republic and Slovakia did it peacefully.

I got slammed for saying something like this earlier, and accused of being a northeastern liberal elitest (hmmmm, sound familiar). I don't necessarily think that one segment would be "better" or "worse" than the other overall, just better or worse for some people. I agree--there is a cultural divide that is widening in this country that is bordering on ethnic difference. The Red States hate our liberalism and are afraid that we're trying to destroy them, the Blue States are afraid of the theocratic tendencies of the Red. OK, let's just move on then. It is a dysfunctional marriage, it is time for a civil divorce.

[scottxyz]

19. "Civil divorce" is a BRILLIANT phrase

Kind of bouncing off of "civil war" and "civil union".

I WANT A CIVIL DIVORCE FROM THE REPUBLICANS!

When you get a divorce, you can finally stop beating each other over the head.

At this point, I think it's fair to say the Dems have been undergoing 30 years of "domestic violence".

A "civil divorce" has just the right ring to it.

[NJCher]

11. why is it a ridiculous idea?

Why?

I think what is ridiculous is to try to live in a country where half the population is so dysfunctional/stupid/(fill in the blank) that they would vote for this fraud.


Cher

[NJCher]

12. let people in KS, NE and Wyoming pay for bush's wars

People in the red states can't afford bush's wars. The fact of the matter is--and why is this not self-evident?--that because of the electoral college giving states in the hinterlands more representation than they deserve, the rural areas are dictating policy for the country.

States like NJ, CT and NY pay way more in federal taxes than we get back. Yet we are being forced to pay for something we DO NOT WANT! What's worse, because of our population density, we're the ones most at risk of terrorist attacks.


Cher

[scottxyz]

16. Exactly

The people in the Dem states are:

- richer

- smarter (yes I know I'm being inflammatory - but tell me that the level of education in some of these backwater states can compete with NY and CA??)

- more at risk for terrorism

And their votes don't even get counted. Under the Electoral College, once 51% of New York state votes for Kerry, all additional votes are thrown away. (Once I was toying with the thought that a bunch of New Yorkers should register in one of the less populous states such as Wyoming so that their vote would at least be COUNTED.)

The rich, smart people at risk for terrorism know that the way to fight is is NOT by drumming up silly wars on the wrong country.

The people in the Repub states reading their biased newspapers ClearChannel-censored radio stations and listening to their hypocritical clergy and driving their gas-guzzlers through their ghost towns never talking to each other can do it THEIR way.

The people in the big cities who generate the bigger tax revenues and who deal with people from all over the world on a daily basis and who have more newspapers and radios to get their news from - they can do it THEIR way too.

Let the old heartland have Bush if they want him so bad. Let the new heartland - America's big cities, where everyone lives now - have the candidate we want.

Then we'll see who Al-Qaeda chooses to bomb. They've already called a truce against Spain because the new government pulled out of the Bush coalition.

Half of America is dying to pull out of the Bush coalition. Let us go.

[TheFarseer]

38. About education

Some of the best public schools are in rural areas(like NE and KS) because property taxes from farms fund schools very well. As opposed to in big cities where alot of inner city schools are a nightmare between lack of funding and lack of discipline. I can see that private schools back east would give you a good education, but I think it balances out to a large extent. Just had to stand up for my little backwoods state : )

[Kathy in Cambridge]

40. Wrong. Massachusetts has the best public schools and it is heavily urban

In fact, of the states with the best schools, the top eight are in the Northeast.

The housing values in states like MA, CT, and NJ and the comparable property taxes pay for our excellent public schools. If tests scores are any indication (and I really don't believe they tell the whole story), then places like NE and KS lag behing the Northeast. I could probably buy a farm in KS for the price of an average home in greater Boston (500K).

[TheFarseer]

60. i looked up stats

And MA, CT and VT are head and shoulders above everyone else, but NE is hanging in there at #11 and KS is doing fine at #15. Other "hick" states like Montana are at #4 and Iowa at #8 so the midwest cowtown states are pretty well educated despite not having alot of rich private schools. Of course if your main point you were really trying to make is that the south is dumb, well, yeah no kidding. http://www.morganquinto.com/edrank03.htm heres my link if you're interested

[countmyvote4real]

15. I've been feeling that way for awhile, too.

The UNITED in USA is a sad joke. We should be the Splintered States of America. Many countries have managed to successfully subdivide.

[scottxyz]

20. I bet the rest of the world would feel SAFER with 50 small US "countries"

I bet the people of the rest of the world would TOTALLY support the USA breaking up. They're sick of being pushed around by the USA.

Turn it into the AU - the American Union. Take the (Republican!) concept of "states' rights" (also known as "Federalism" for some stupid reason) to its logical limit.

Better to do it civilly and peacefully now. Because I think if we don't, something worse will be coming instead.

Hey, we all speak English at least. So if you're tired of living under Sharia law in some East Buttfuck state, you could move to California or New York and be FREE!

(The mass exodus of people wanting jobs and freedom and healthcare would be interesting.)

[Kathy in Cambridge]

17. Federal Tax Money from the Blue States are paying for the Red States

There were several threads a few weeks ago that showed that for every federal tax dollar we give in Blue States, we get like 50 cents back, whereas states like Alabama get over $2 back. I don't mind helping out the needy, but I hate that my money goes for 'faith-based' programs.

Another person pointed out that the Blue states contribute the most to the GDP, and that the Red states would be relegated to third-world status without the economic power of the blue states (and the tax money).

I don't believe we should secede, but I wish these dumbasses would stop voting against their best interests.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[scottxyz]

24. Remember that "welfare queen" image the Republicans always use

Funny how the things the Republicans try to pin on Democrats always turn out to be things the REPUBLICANS WERE DOING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Remember the "welfare queens" Reagan got all the angry white males ranting and raving about - images of black women living on food stamps in the big cities and having too many babies.

When come to find out the REAL "welfare queens" were guys like Ken Lay and Neil Bush and Dick Cheney and any number of other CEOs getting handouts and sweetheart deals and "special rights" snuck into bills.

If we talk about "civil divorce" enough, it would be a way of pointing the finger at a whole new category of Republican "welfare queens" - the poor backward theocratic Republican states who get handouts from the rich advanced secular Democratic states.

This is a very interesting quote from RationalRose: the Red states would be relegated to third-world status without the economic power of the blue states (and the tax money).

This is the kind of "fightin' words" that have been used against us for years and that we need to come out swinging with ourselves.

For 3 decades now that Republicans have tried to portray the liberal people in America's cities as evil loafers who are getting a free ride. WHEN IN REALITY the people who are getting a free ride (and who are dragging us into wars, apparently as some kind of high-tech international NASCAR-type event to make them fell all puffed-up and macho) are the backward inefficient superstitious Republicans.

I'm sick of carrying along a bunch of ungrateful incompetent superstitious losers who would ban my very right to exist. I can "tolerate" backwater rightwing troglodytes and they can keep their customs and make sovereign decisions about where they want to go and fight their wars, but they should keep it to themselves.

[ulTRAX]

57. FEDERAL SPENDING 1999: WINNERS & LOSERS

http://romcache.tripod.com/fedspending.html

[robertpaulsen]

21. Eventually, it's going to come to this.

I even wrote a screenplay about such a scenario called American Odyssey. In my story, the split occurred in the wake of a nuclear annihilation of D.C., blamed on terrorists of course, as well as decades of theocratic police state repression, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the draft and martial law.

The only problem with my screenplay, which I wrote before we invaded Iraq, is that it is set in the year 2067. Now I think these events will come to pass much sooner. It would be nice if they just let us go without a civil war, but I really don't see that happening.

[smirkymonkey]

25. I'm all for it....We already

are two separate countries, why not make it official?

I am pretty sick of the red states trying force their views on the entire country while at the same time sucking up all of the tax revenue from the generally more productive blue states.

The red state liberals can relocate to the new democratic nation and the blue state conservatives can relocate to the fascist theocracy.

There is one caveat, though. We'll need a powerful defense force to keep the warmongering theocrats OUT!

[beachbum]

26. Come on man.

The plan is to get Bush out of office. It CAN and WILL be done. I am not the smartest democrat around. But it is plain as day to me. I see republicans turning on him. I will be real surprised if Bush wins a second term.

It will be ok. Have faith.

[scottxyz]

29. Very sweet. I wish I could believe it.

When you understand about Vance International, and Diebold and ES&S, and Wellstone, and Steve Kangas, and now Athan Gibbs - and Martin Luther King and JFK and Malcolm X - in CoIntelPro and Operation Northwoods and Operation Tripwire and Operation Garden Plot - and even little things like the Electoral College - and the Leni Riefenstahl photo-ops being staged by Bush now in front of the troops - and Bush accusing KERRY of being RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11 (Kerry got a tip from someone at Logan a few months earlier, and duly passed it on to the NTSB or TSA or whatever, so he DIDN'T screw up - but there you have it again, the Repubs pre-emptively trying to innolucate the body politic against believing the real Repub screwup)...

When you think about all these things, and factor in Karl Rove and Grover Norquist and now Michael Powell and even the foot soldiers like Judith Miller at NYT or that Kelley evangalical liar over at the LA Times - AND ALWAYS REMEMBER TO FACTOR IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND DIEBOLD IN THE END - then you've got to be a pretty big Pollyanna to think that just being in the majority in a country with paperless hackable partisan voting machines is somehow gonna get your guy in office.

YES we are in the majority and YES we are right and YES the country supports us. Look at how much good that's done in all the other dictatorships around the world.

The only way we can win this election is if we declare the Diebold machines INVALID and hold a separete paper ballot on the same day, hand counted.

[tom_paine]

64. So very well and truly said, scottxyz

In a Free Nation, Bush would be voted out in asecond.

But Imperial Amerika isn't a Free Nation, anymore, is it? And "98% free" just doesn't cut it because the 2%, such as our crumbling electoral systsem, that is gone is the 2% that protects the rest.

I fear you are correct. We'll just have to see.

[NJCher]

30. this is the best thread ever

It cuts right to the heart of what is wrong with this country.



Cher

[ulTRAX]

56. If you like this thread.... try....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1199976

[TheDonkey]

32. The blue states carry this country. I'd be for a split

we take D.C.

the new capital can be Honolulu ;).

[Kathy in Cambridge]

33. The Red States take advantage of the Blue States and treat us like sh*t

it's like being in a bad relationship. They abuse the 'libruls' in the Blue States, call them names, and then whine that we're being mean to them. A minority then gets to determine the policies of this country.

I'd be more than happy to leave, but then we'd be the 'traitors' rather than the confederacy.

[Muddleoftheroad]

34. Abe Lincoln already settled this

We are all in this together. Any state that tries to leave gets its ass kicked.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

35. Abe Lincoln didn't settle this

we're still paying for the cultural split dearly. And, as I mentioned earlier, through federal tax dollars.

[Muddleoftheroad]

36. He died before he could heal all the wounds

But the issue of secession is settled.

You can't do it without getting the smackdown of your life.

[FDRrocks]

37. What if?

I'd move to Canada. The Democrats starting another civil war...yea, fuck that.

[arewethereyet]

39. works for be, start the paperwork !

[Kathy in Cambridge]

41. I know how much you love us Yankees!

;-)

[arewethereyet]

42. not fond of the Red Sox either

or the rest of the junior circuit with their disgraceful so-called designated hitter for that matter. You need to return to playing REAL baseball.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

43. I like National League Ball better too

but I was born and raised a Red Sox fan.

Too bad you've never been here-Massachusetts is a wonderful place-not full of snotty Yankees.

[arewethereyet]

59. I have been to Boston and Salem

I actually like Boston. Too damn cold as a place to live though.

[sweetheart]

44. seceeding preemptively

You'll need to clean up the mess of a previous civil war (called "the
cold war") once your faction takes power. I presume you'll simply
use your nuclear arsenal to pre-emptively erradicate threats to your
administration, leaving only a billion or so human beings left alive.

So now, once we've perfected christian distopia, how many virgins
does a christian suicide pilot get compared to his muslim brother
with his 72 luxurius ladies. This question will determine the victor
in the next election.

[NinetySix]

45. Secession? No more far-fetched...

...than the idea floated late last year regarding the suspension of the Constitution following another September 11-type terrorist attack. For the conspiracy minded among you, do you think that if GW allowed the 2001 attacks to proceed in order to consolidate his hold on power (which I have not yet ruled out), then do you believe for an instant that he would hesitate to permit another in the same way if it accomplished the same end for him?

If such a series of events occured, how long do you imagine the citizens of progressive states like California, New York, the New England states, Minnesota, and others would wait before considering secession from a Union no longer bound by Constitutional authority, with its checks and balances, but by rule of force?

I must admit, after long years of being a gun-control advocate (after all, state militia are superfluous in the face of the overwhelming power of the United States military, right?), I have begun to reconsider my former position with regard to the Second Amendment to the Constitution. As Thomas Jefferson so boldly posited, "(Sometimes) in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...." In addition, he continues, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

I don't relish the idea of doing so, but if a situation arose which made such action necessary, such as an indefinite suspension of habeas corpus, posse comitatus, and in general the liberties guaranteed us under the Bill of Rights, then such a struggle would to my mind be far preferable to the kind of right-wing, authoritarian autocracy generously supplied with 'good ideas' by the likes of Anne Coulter and Judge Roy Moore.

I think, however, that if we can simply reach November and a fair and honest election, the American public will do what is necessary through the proper, democratic means and right this boat themselves.

[Cleita]

51. If Bush suspends the Constitution, then I think all and any states

that don't agree with him should secede for the sake of freedom.

[newyawker99]

63. Hi NinetySix!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Cleita]

46. I think it would be a good idea to divide the country into two

or even three sovereign nations. One big bully in the world is not good. We seem to swing from left to right regularly and no one gains from it. I don't think Mr. Boosh would have been so cocky about invading another country if his military and treasury were much smaller and if he had two other equally strong neighboring nations breathing down his neck telling him not to.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

47. California and the Northwest should merge with the Northeast

and these areas would be an economic powerhouse.

[Cleita]

49. Yes, and we could divert the taxes paid to benefit the same

people who generated the revenue instead of having it flow into a red state fiscal black hole like it always has in the past.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

54. That's exactly my gripe: Not paying the taxes but where they go

'faith-based' programs that discriminate against women, gays, and minorities.

Massachusetts is really suffering right now. According to a Globe article: "Massachusetts has lost nearly 220,000 jobs since payroll employment peaked in February 2001, a decline of about 6.5 percent. The percentage loss is more than triple the US average and the greatest among states, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/03/20/job_losses_mount_... /

I wish my federal dollars could go to some relief here, instead of teaching creationism in fucking Kansas.

[Norbert]

48. Though not a state what if the District of Colombia were to secede.

Although I think the notion of states seceding is proposterous it would be interesting if the DC would.

[Cleita]

50. Actually, the whole country should secede from DC.

Wouldn't that be funny. Bush would be President of a place with no more power than Prince Ranier of Monaco. I wouldn't do that to the poor residents of DC though.

[strategery blunder]

52. If Blue States seceded, would I get political asylum?

Because I live in the Freeper States. Once they set up their theocracy, I would be one of the first ones to get stoned and/or crucified for heresy.

Believe it or not, right now it's the Blue States that are saving my butt from the fundies (well, I'm Christian, but I think the fundies are modern-day Pharisees...I blaspheme). If you guys went away, I would be surrounded by freepers with no earthly appeals. They would probably do trial by fire instead of having due process.

[napi21]

53. You can't do that to me! I live in Ga. because I work here!!!

If you yankees cecede what will happen to me? Just because there are a lot of nuts in the red states, it doesn't mean that ALL the people are crazy!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

55. We'll offer you asylum!

I much prefer the weather in Georgia, but they would burn my Catholic ass at the stake down there.

[napi21]

58. I'm Catholic too! Haven't burned me yet.

But I'm sure they'd love to. ;o))

I grew up in Pa. and moved south in 1987. It is another world.

[Muddleoftheroad]

62. Pretty much everybody who advocates secession

Needs asylum.

It won't happen. Been there, done that.

[drumwolf]

61. some quick thoughts on secession and decentralization.....

I've actually been thinking for some time that maybe liberals should keep an open mind with regards to the right-wing idea of "states' rights," federalism, and decentralizing government power in this country.

Let's face it, they don't like us and we don't like them. We don't want to live in a wingnut theocracy, and they don't want to live with THOSE GODLESS SECULAR RELATIVIST VALUES. So why not let each state do what it damn pleases? If Mississippi wants to ban gay rights and abortion, let plutocrats run rampant and pollute the environment on their own turf, at least they won't have to impose their values on us and we won't have to pay for them.

As for outright secession, if the country continues to be this polarized and our empire continues to be this bloated and overextended, I don't think it's a farfetched idea. I can very much envision both ultra-progressive and ultra-wingnut states breaking away at some point a few decades from now.

And to the poster who said "don't bring back the Confederacy," I think you can make a case that the Confederacy brought itself back and took over.

[fujiyama]

65. What exactly...

defines a blue state as opposed to a red state?

For example, some 10+ states were decided in the last election with a margin of less than 5%. That means there are a lot of blue people living in red states. Also many red states have democratic governors.

If the problem here is pork being diverted to Bush voting red states, then we need to fix that...Or better yet go about trying to fix or abolish the electoral college (granted that's not goin to happen anytime soon).