Enough Of This Crap -- Just Cut Them Off

[Andrew D]

As we have all seen in the last decade or so -- and as those of us who were paying attention saw much earlier than that -- America has been experiencing an alarming rise of people, including otherwise thinking people who have evidently been caught up in the flood, who embrace the essentially anti-American pseudo-ideology of right-wingism.

There isn't really any genuine doubt about the essence of right-wing domestic economic policy: The right-wingers want to impoverish as many people as possible and concentrate as much wealth as possible into as few hands as possible. That isn't news: It's been the essence of right-wing economic policy for as long as right-wing economic policy has existed.

(There will be, unless they have (quite rightly) become ashamed to venture it in public, the usual blather from the right-wingers; accord it the respect it deserves.)

The time has come -- indeed, it came quite a while ago -- for those of us who are not deluded by right-wing lies to step up and put an end to it. And that means ridding ourselves of those parts of our Republic which are evidently mired irremediably in right-wing extremisim.

Alabama, Mississippi, we've had it. We're giving you to Mexico. Or anyone else that will have you. Or no one at all.

Try going it on your own. You have been leeching the progressive (which is, of course, to say good) States for decades. Try getting along without the neverending feedtube you've been getting from the States that actually live in the twenty-first century rather than desperately trying to hang on to the eighteenth.

Oh, by the way, if you try to do something that we think threatens our interests, we will stop you. Go ahead, try to lease oil-drilling rights to a company that does not meet our (progressive; i.e., good) environmental standards. We will destroy it.

And the Dakotas? Fuck off. It was a mistake to make you States at all, let alone separate States. Try joining Canada. If that works well for you, dandy. If it doesn't, and it probably won't, don't come crying to us. Unless, of course, you're willing to sell your agricultural products to us at whatever price we deem fit. Oh, that price doesn't suit you? Fuck off again. (And if you try to sell your products in a way that hampers our national interests, you won't have any products to sell. Oops! How the hell did that happen?)

And Alaska? You're ours. We bought you from the Russians. And we honestly don't give a shit what you like or don't like.

You who are members of native peoples: Of course we will cater to your interests; indeed, we will bend over backward to accommodate your interests, just as we progressive (i.e., good) States have always done.

But the rest of you? Fuck off.

Yeah, you have the oil pipeline. But guess what: Tomorrow, you won't have it any more. We have decided that it is ours, we're taking it, and there is not a goddamned thing that you can do about it. Unless you feel like putting up a bunch of chronically drunk Alaska militiamen against the US military. Good luck with that.

And then there's South California. (Yes, that's right; North California and South California should have been separate States from the beginning, and they should be separated now.) Go ahead; block us. How will you feel when none of North California's water is coming your way? Oops! Canals and pumping stations essential to South California's stealing North California's water are no longer functioning. Gee? How could that have happened?

The bottom line is simple: The progressive -- good -- States (and, at least in the case of California, a portion of a State) can fend for themselves quite successfully in the global economic environment. The right-wing States haven't got a prayer. For all their ideological mouthings, the inescapable truth of the matter is that without the advanced States, the right-wing States have nothing in store for them except third-world status.

So let's just do the right thing: Dump the fuckers; we've been paying their way for far too long.

We can mold for ourselves a society in which no one ever has to worry about whether he or she will be turned away from the hospital, because her or his insurance company will not pay the bill. A society in which no one will be condemned to a life of wretched poverty by virtue of not having been born into an affluent family. A society in which fewer infants die than do now. A society in which whether one has access to public higher education depends on one's intellectual wherewithal rather than one how much money one's parents have. Etc.

The solution is straightforward: Identify those areas afflicted with the social disease that is right-wingism and perform the necessary surgical excision. The alternative is exactly what the right-wingers want: A twenty-first century version of feudalism.

Serf or citizen? The choice is up to each of us.

[Gob]

Andrew D for Pres!!!

[dales]

It's been over 100F here for several days.

[Lord Jim]

It's been over 100F here for several days.

That would explain it...

[Jarlaxle]

That or 100 PROOF.

Or he's channeling Medicator.

[Scooter]

By no means the first proposal to split the U.S. into two parts with more homogeneous ideologies:

Although from this side I think Alberta and Saskatchewan, and possibly Manitoba, would feel more comfortable as part of Jesusland, so they can take them.

[Andrew D]

It hasn't hit 100F at our house yet during the so-called heat wave. More's the pity.

Temperature aside (whether you regard triple-digit temperatures as good or bad), I'm not seeing any substantive response. If people think that I am wrong, they should have the guts to say so. And they should have the intellectual fortitude to explain why.

Is it not true that right-wing States such as Mississippi and Alabama have been sucking at the federal teat for decades? Is it not true that progressive States have been funding the right-wing States' endless appetite for federal largesse? Is it not true that Alaska is, except for its indigenous peoples, one big welfare basket case?

If those things are not true, let's see some evidence.

Oh, that's right; we're dealing with right-wingism. Evidence is at a minimum irrelevant, and when it endangers right-wing positions -- as it almost invariably does -- it is treasonous.

Or let's see someone with the guts to demonstrate otherwise. Where are you? You vote for the spineless shit that are the Republicans, so where are you? Where are the facts you can muster to show that what I have posted is untrue?

Ah, why do I waste my time? (Because I entertain some hope that there still are some people to whom facts matter. Maybe I am deluded beyond all hope.)

For the Republicans, facts are the greatest enemy. Just lick up the drivel spewed by Beck and his ilk, and everything will be fine.

Really. It will all be just fine.

Really.

[dales]

Write your congress critter and with your proposal.

Oh yeah, I think it's stupid.

[Andrew D]

Of course you think it's stupid.

And yet you can't even begin to articulate why you think it's stupid.

That's hardly unanticipated; you don't have even the slightest idea why you think it's stupid.

And you don't care. Ideas, rational thinking, coherent articulations of positions -- these are all far too much for you. And no one is surprised.

[dales]

Oh relax, Andrew.

If the union is dissolved per your idea, forgetting we fought a bloody war over this more than a century ago, result in a calamity of unforseen proportions?

Perhaps we should kick CA out of the union, the home of fruits and nuts.

[Andrew D]

We fought a war -- a nasty, bloody war -- because some States wanted to leave the Union over the objections of other States. Let's not do that again.

But we have never fought a war over some States' being thrown out of the Union. (And throwing out certain States would, legally speaking, be almost ludicrously easy; we can just retroactively recognize their own declarations of secession.)

Are you at all serious about this threat-of-war thing? Do you really think that if most of the US decides that Alabama should no longer be part of the US, Alabama is going to launch some sort of war to keep itself in the Union?

That's just preposterous.

California separate from the US would be better off than is California as part of the US. Go ahead kick us -- us? don't you live here in California? -- out of the union. California's gain; the US's loss.

[dales]

OK.

Sounds like a plan, Stan.

Write your representatives and circulate petitions and let us all know how it works out.

[Andrew D]

OK.

Just so that we're clear: You are abandoning even the slightest pretense of making a substantive argument. And because you haven't even a word to say about the substance, you are now asserting that the decision should be left up to a gaggle of political whores.

Has it occurred to you that you have been vociferous in denouncing the decisions made by the very political whores that you think should be entrusted with making this decision? Has it occurred to you that the almost unintelligible gibberish that constitutes your "position" amounts to nothing more than "Although the whores should not be allowed to make decisions with which I disagree, they should be allowed to make decisions with which I agree, even if I have no idea why I agree with them"?

You haven't even the slightest shred of anything with which to dispute this uncontroverted fact:

There isn't really any genuine doubt about the essence of right-wing domestic economic policy: The right-wingers want to impoverish as many people as possible and concentrate as much wealth as possible into as few hands as possible. That isn't news: It's been the essence of right-wing economic policy for as long as right-wing economic policy has existed.

Or this one:

The bottom line is simple: The progressive -- good -- States (and, at least in the case of California, a portion of a State) can fend for themselves quite successfully in the global economic environment. The right-wing States haven't got a prayer. For all their ideological mouthings, the inescapable truth of the matter is that without the advanced States, the right-wing States have nothing in store for them except third-world status.

Or any of the others.

You just don't care.

Whether my position has or does not have anything to recommend itself does not matter to you. Whether your position has or does not have anything to recommend itself does not matter to you. The substance underlying any position -- mine, yours, or anyone else's -- is of no significance to you.

That is an all too common position in the American political spectrum: "I pretend to think what I pretend to think, and no facts or reasoning will ever stand in my way."

And it is because of people like you that we are where we are.

[Lord Jim]

Just so that we're clear: You are abandoning even the slightest pretense of making a substantive argument. And because you haven't even a word to say about the substance, you are now asserting that the decision should be left up to a gaggle of political whores.

I don't see any need to present "substantive arguments" regarding proposals so fundamentally ridiculous...

You might as well ask for substantive arguments against the UN plan to appoint an ambassador to greet space aliens.

You're just intensely bitter that your views are not held by a majority of your countrymen...This seething resentment has been coming through in much of what you've written recently....

Get over it....

[Big RR]

Jim--why should he get over it? Why shouldn't he propose that he and like-minded individuals leave and form their own country, and leave those who you claim are a majority of the countrymen (which I don't buy, but that's another rant) form their own country? indeed, I thinkl it would be interesting to see which would do better in the longrun. I agree with Andrew that there is a politcal divide in this country, and it is likely to become worse as time goes on; when one or the other side feels that the government no longer protects them, isn't it time to consider dissolving the bonds of government and insitituting a new one. I think that such a discussion is not ridiculous, fundamentally or otherwise.

Edited to add: FIW, I don't think the question is whether this sort of division would ever happen--I think it quite unlikely. But we can discuss the merits of the rposoal and whether it should happen,

[Lord Jim]

Jim--why should he get over it?

Because obsessing over crackpot ideas that are never going to happen is not good for one's mental health...(See Steve, Chicken)

This (and a lot of what Andrew has been posting lately) is all about the fact that his bunch are in for a right pasting this November and he knows it. The reality of this has him sputtering with rage....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMAv1n8ieWE

[Big RR]

Well Jim, IMHO, the questions come down to this: first, is the US going in the direction I think it should be going? Second, if not, can it be changed within the current political process? Third, if not, what other alternatives are available? And the alternative of dissolving one's allegiance to one's current government is no more crackpot today than it was in 1776 or 1861, as unlikely as it is that a succesful dissolution can be made.

As for the pasting of "his bunch" this fall, I don't see many running under the endorsement of either party who embrace the ideals and policies Andrew prmotes (or ones that I do for that matter) and cannot think any would approriately be labeled "his bunch". Politics has disintegrated to the point that the sides are those who one disagrees with a lot, and those who one disagrees with a little less. That may be acceptable to you, but I understand the complaints of people to whom it is not acceptable. Dismiss them as crackpots if you want, but it won't silence them.

[Lord Jim]

approriately be labeled "his bunch".

Really?

Lately a lot of what he's been posting looks like it could have been written by somebody at the DNC. He's constantly saying that the main problem is that we just haven't elected enough Democrats, and blaming the GOP for everything from the sacking of the Alexandria Library to the heartbreak of psoriasis.....

[rubato]

I have posted evidence before with numerous links that the conservative states have the worst outcomes in all dimensions of social life. The conservative US states when compared to the G-20 are more like the 3rd world than like the first.

Lowest educational achievements.
Fewest top-50 universities.
Lowest intellectual-technical achievements.
Fewest patents.
Worst disease.
Highest divorce rates.
Highest rates of gun deaths.
Highest levels of federal subsidy.
Highest rates of tooth loss.
Highest rates of teen births.
Highest rates of infant deaths.


conservative state = low functioning society, is a proven fact.

The liberal states have been carrying them since the depression.

yrs,
rubato

Take the infant death rate for example. A direct measure of systematically brutal treatment of children by society overall. The guiding principle is "better to kill infants than to raise taxes".

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/compare ... d=47&cat=2

Rank
(1=high | 51=low) Infant Death Rate
United States 6.81
1. District of Columbia 12.6
2. Mississippi 10.6
3. Louisiana 10.0
4. Alabama 9.1
5. South Carolina 9.0
6. Tennessee 8.7
7. Delaware 8.6
8. North Carolina 8.5
9. Georgia 8.2
9. Arkansas 8.2
11. Oklahoma 8.0
12. Maryland 7.9
12. Indiana 7.9
14. Ohio 7.8
15. West Virginia 7.6
15. Michigan 7.6
17. Missouri 7.5
18. Wyoming 7.4
18. Pennsylvania 7.4
18. Illinois 7.4
21. Virginia 7.3
21. South Dakota 7.3
21. Kansas 7.3
24. Florida 7.2
25. Kentucky 7.0
26. Arizona 6.6
27. Alaska 6.5
28. Wisconsin 6.3
28. Texas 6.3
28. Maine 6.3
28. Idaho 6.3
32. Nevada 6.2
33. New Mexico 6.1
33. Hawaii 6.1
33. Colorado 6.1
36. Rhode Island 6.0
36. Montana 6.0
38. North Dakota 5.9
38. New York 5.9
38. Nebraska 5.9
41. Connecticut 5.8
42. Vermont 5.6
42. Oregon 5.6
42. New Hampshire 5.6
45. New Jersey 5.4
46. Iowa 5.2
46. California 5.2
48. Washington 5.1
49. Utah 5.0
49. Minnesota 5.0
51. Massachusetts 4.9
Guam 8.6
Puerto Rico 6.8
Virgin Islands 11.9

[rubato]

You can tell what people's real values are better by how they behave than by what they say.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/compare ... d=37&cat=2

Teen Birth rates:


Rank
(1=high | 51=low) Teen Birth Rate per 1,000
United States 42.5
1. Mississippi 71.9
2. New Mexico 66.1
3. Texas 64.2
4. Arkansas 61.7
5. Oklahoma 61.5
6. Arizona 61.2
7. Tennessee 56.2
8. Louisiana 55.9
9. Nevada 55.3
10. Kentucky 55.1
11. Georgia 54.9
12. Alabama 54.1
13. South Carolina 53.6
14. Wyoming 51.9
15. North Carolina 49.9
15. District of Columbia 49.9
17. West Virginia 47.4
18. Missouri 45.7
19. Florida 45.5
20. Indiana 45.2
21. Alaska 44.7
22. Kansas 43.7
23. Colorado 43.4
24. South Dakota 42.2
25. Idaho 41.4
26. Ohio 41.3
26. Hawaii 41.3
28. Delaware 40.6
29. Illinois 40.0
30. California 39.7
31. Montana 36.8
32. Utah 36.1
32. Nebraska 36.1
34. Oregon 35.9
35. Virginia 35.1
36. Washington 34.8
37. Maryland 34.4
38. Michigan 34.2
39. Iowa 33.2
40. Wisconsin 32.2
41. Pennsylvania 31.5
42. Rhode Island 30.0
43. North Dakota 29.3
44. Minnesota 28.6
45. Maine 26.9
46. New York 25.8
47. New Jersey 25.2
48. Connecticut 23.1
49. Massachusetts 22.1
50. Vermont 22.0
51. New Hampshire 20.0
Guam 60.0
Puerto Rico 57.1
Virgin Islands 51.5