So now we know. The true agenda of the pro-America Americans, the "real" Americans, is secession. Governor Rick Perry of Texas and fatties like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are being vilified in some quarters for their splittist views while adherents consider them true heroes. But here's the thing. This is the same crowd whose motto used to be "America – love it or leave it." For them, criticism of government policies like the war in Vietnam or the setting of dogs on civil rights demonstrators was equivalent to treason. Now they're criticizing government policies and wanting to leave the union. Does this mean they are traitors who hate America?
The answer is no. The Perrys and the Limbaughs love their country so much they're intoxicated with patriotism, unhinged by nationalism. They love the USA not wisely but too well. The real truth is that they love their country so much they want to start more nations just like us. Their goal is to found new USAs, wherever they can. Like the fissiparous Euglena, the seek to increase our numbers by splitting apart and regrowing the resultant bits.
This is the logical extension of the Bush Freedom Agenda, which sought to reproduce the American model of society in distant lands like Iraq and Afghanistan. The program worked so well for those nations, the splittists argue, why not expand it? And where better to spread the Freedom Agenda than right here in the home of the brave and the land of the free. Their vision: a world filled with continent-sized Texases and Arkansases, where the world's teeming billions, now everywhere in chains, are born free to foul their skies and waters, fire their guns, and spurn even the rudiments of education to their hearts' content.
In truth a Martian trying to make sense of contemporary U.S. right-wing politics would have a tough time of it. Protesting higher taxes in the face of the largest government tax cut in history? Vituperating federal policies expressly designed to provide them with jobs, education, health care, transportation, housing? After eight long years of a hated imbecilic cataclysm for a leader, despising their intelligent, humane, and thoughtful president? So much incoherent rage and frustration. Our Martian would rightly conclude that complete ignorance is a lot more dangerous than even a little knowledge, and also that there's nothing in the least blissful about it.