Reading Kos's post on Republican code words and the lunatic right wanting to be out of the closest, reading all the comments and especially one about compromise and the Civil War starting me on this meditation.
There's more below the fold.
Of course, the Civil War started because the slave interest (the intellectual and historical antecedents to the current Right Wing in America) would not compromise. Lincoln was elected with the stated platform of leaving slavery alone where it currently existed, but not allowing it to be extended into newly acquired territories. The US had tried compromise; the Missouri Compromise, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act tried to compromise by balancing slave and free territory. South Carolina seceded due to Lincoln's election which would have left South Carolina with their "peculiar institution" but not allowed slavery to expand any further.
While the country probably could not have weathered the secession of the red states back in 1860, what would happen if the lunatic Right got pissed off again and threatened to leave and take their Red States with them.
Here's my daughter's take on the question. Let them go their unhappy way.
Dear Red States :
We're glad you're leaving. We'll have California,
Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the people of the new country of New California. (She's from California: obviously Arnold would have to go). You Red States will have one another.
To sum up briefly:
You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Elliot Spitzer.
You get Ken Lay.
We get the Statue of Liberty.
You get OpryLand.
We get Intel and Microsoft.
You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard.
You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and
entrepreneurs.
You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue.
You get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families.
You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be
pro-choice and anti-war, and
we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need
people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you
don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.
We do wish you success in Iraq, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm
control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 % of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 % of all cheese, 90% of the high
tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy League and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech, and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.
By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt herb they grow in Mexico.
Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California
So maybe we just let them go.