Red States and Blue States: Carve the Country in Two and Call it a Day?
[A loyal reader asked me to raise this topic. It’s an entertaining idea when you listen to him articulate it. But in the real world, I’m personally not wild about it — mainly because I don’t see the parties as monolithic, and I think each party has a mixture of good and bad ideas. Still, as a thought experiment, it’s worthwhile. And I’m interested to see the responses. — P]
Red states and blue states have been battling it out for quite some time, and the philosophical differences seem unlikely to be resolved through debate and discussion. They will never convince us to allow abortion on demand. We will never convince them that spending taxpayers’ money like it’s going out of style is a bad thing.
Maybe we should just agree to stop fighting, carve up the country in two, and be done with it.
If we did that:
1) Which parts should they get, and which parts should we get?
2) In 20 years, what would their country look like — in terms of GDP, taxes, environment, crime, and other factors that define a country? What would ours look like?
Your feedback is welcome.
Who would be President of each country?
And so forth. You can make up your own questions and answer them.
Patterico (c218bd) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:16 amYour comments about the “mixture” are relevant. One of the big missing things from earlier days (1960s and before) is “know your neighbor.” The separation can in principle take place on a much finer scale with walls that separate “neighbors” from undesirables. I think that is the more likely intermediate step. That is also why those who want to damage the U.S. don’t want walls!
docduke (9e8675) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:22 amOne thing to keep in mind when you’re carving up the areas: don’t worry about giving up the prime real estate to get this accomplished. In 20 years, we’ll have all the weaponry and they’ll have none. At that point we can just invade and take over whatever parts we always wanted. We can put them in, oh, I don’t know . . . New Jersey or something.
Patterico (c218bd) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:27 amRemember after the 2004 elections when liberals drew up maps of “red state” America and called it “Jesusland”? Let’s give them the Northeast, the upper midwest, and the Pacific Coast from San Francisco northward and call it “The Socialist State of Welfareland.”
JVW (796ed3) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:35 amIf we did that
“Should we do that” is the more interesting question.
But if we did that, why stop at two parts? Why not four? Or twelve? Of fifty? These United States are (these days, theoretically) composed of fifty sovereign states. If the US is dissolved the result should be fifty parts, not two.
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:35 amAnd to answer your second question, in 20 years Welfareland would look a like like England circa 1970 or modern-day Greece. The red state country would hopefully look like America circa 1984, but I suppose it could potentially look like America circa 1884.
JVW (796ed3) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:37 amGroup gaggle of lefties into one homeland… name it Bendoverstan… or Weeniezona… or Gimpsylvania… or Oreganoia… or Christmas Island… or Milquetostia… or ______?
ColonelHaiku (2deed7) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:47 amI shocked myself a year ago when I seriously told a friend that this idea is very attractive to me.
quasimodo (4af144) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:49 amI believe that if we could begin to devolve power from Washington back to the states a lot of this talk would go away.
We were never intended to be one monolithic nation, we are a union of 50 states. As such I think we could work quite well.
Less (8da0c8) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:55 am[object] is a good place to start the discussion–voting by county red or blue.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:58 amWell, that didn’t work. How about this: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/countymapredbluer1024.png
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:59 amJust looking at the West coast, the libs are confined by a mountain range in most places to an overcrowded area with little or no industrial or agrarian base…that’s all on the East side of the Cascade/Sierra range.
So, in 20 years, barring an invasion over the mountains into the (well-armed and -fed) Eastern portions of WA/OR/CA, the overcrowded areas of those three states collapse in to starvation and anarchy.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:03 amif we could begin to devolve power from Washington back to the states
Realistically, that’s not going to happen. The central government has been gathering power to itself and away from the states ever since the Constitution became law. Why would it agree to give that up?
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:07 amVI makes a good point, why stop at the State level?
If you take it down to the county level, the reason for the Democrats trying an urban strategy becomes obvious, they actually only have a majority in the urban areas, they dominate the Blue States only because they’re heavily urbanized.
So let the “Progressives” have their city-states, and leave the rest of the country to the rest of us.
But check on the health of those citys, Detroit, Boston, Los Angles, San Francisco, etc.
LarryD (f22286) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:10 amOur esteemed host asked:
Quite frankly, you give them the majority black areas, and us the majority white areas.
The Dana preparing to be heartily denounced (3e4784) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:14 amchanneling JD: Racist
quasimodo (4af144) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:18 amA man greater than myself has already addressed this issue. I quote him now:
I’m with him. If we wimp out because 20% of the population wants to kill government of the people, by the people, and for the people it would be a great shame and signal a dark moment in world history no matter how nice things may end up being in northern Texas.
This union will always be worth fighting for and I pray we never see the day that we purposely dissolve it without so much as a struggle.
Stephen Gutowski (1add04) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:41 amLiberty will prevail … Once humans have tasted freedom, they will not go to the corrupt tyrants. Americans instinctively know that.
tarpon (541ea9) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:42 amNow, turning to the southeast, we see a stripe of blue running through the heart of Dixie…essentially following I-20 from Raleigh to Atlanta, then looping up to Birmingham; and a strip along the lower Mississippi. Then add Miami.
No real topography to separate the blue from the red here, but one could assume that TX, AL, GA, northern FL, TN, and KY would all go red and have some internal strife until it was settled (mostly urban vs. non-urban battles), again with overcrowding and underfeeding driving the collapse of larger urban areas, a diaspora of sorts into smaller towns where a lack of work ethic would not be tolerated for long. TX would go with the red, but LA and MS would be a toss-up. TX would bring the oil industry with it, and likely help to tap reserves across LA and MS once they were annexed, as well as off-shore.
Oil allows red states to control blue states, and would likely be the the primary trading leverage of the Red states, followed by agricultural products.
Add ports to the equation, and things are looking pretty good for Red states economically.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:43 amIt’s interesting how radical supposedly-mainstream conservatives have gotten in just the past year. Breaking up the country is now on the table. I wonder what Reagan would think of this idea.
JEA (3fc310) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:43 am#15 Oh dear, quite right I say.
Would blacks leave the US if let us say a black majority government could be created in let us say California? Given 96% voted for O’Moron I suspect you’d get some great responses on that proposition.
CA can be set up as an African American Country. I would even go so far as to assume and pay off all CA’s debt leaving the California African Republic free to flourish and create its own currency, et al. Hell we can even pay for their security versus armed countries just in case Canada invades by sea somehow.
So California African Republic. We take the debt and pay for national security. And please make note, I would make it a requirement that hispanics and white (liberals) who choose so must be given immediate citizenship also. Like that wonderous Zaire Democratic Republic with all their freedom loving, non-racist policies.
I would even accept an increase in my taxes to facilitate it so long as the California African Republic takes over it internal affairs within 5 years or so.
It would given all the race hustlers what they (not really) want. Right?
HeavenSent (ff0596) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:47 amFinally, rust belt and the Northeast Seaboard.
Northeast Seaboard: Total collapse and another attempt at diaspora into the relatively healthy red states. Without adequate latte, and wearing Gucci shoes, New Yorkers will become an endangered species. As they attempt to move south and west, most will not have the skills to survive and will perish. Or become hunted by the people they have annoyed for a century past, especially as they arrive in Forida.
Rust belt denizens will hang in for a couple decades and try to make it work, but unless directly involved in fishery or forestry will die out as they discover that the unions have moved into the red states, too.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:49 amSeriously, and in a nutshell, the Red state/Blue state divide would be an example of a national-level “going Galt.” Blue states collapse.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:51 amWell, even in Massachusetts and new york one in three voted Republican in 2008. The reverse was true in utah. So there”s no clean division. Which way would a state like ohio go?
chris (be2afd) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:56 am“Escape from New York” anyone?
PCD (1d8b6d) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:56 amWhichever areas we take will prosper, and whichever areas they take, will not. Look at Israel, the only country in the Middle East with an agricultural EXPORT economy. In the dusty desert in which no other country manages to even feed itself.
Martin (7ac6df) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:56 amWe already have a division like that: it’s called Canada and the United States.
chris (be2afd) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:00 amQuite frankly, you give them the majority black areas, and us the majority white areas.
Comment by The Dana preparing to be heartily denounced — 8/12/2010 @ 8:14 am
DUDE!!!
I’m black, and I’ve been described as having politics slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. And as Prop 8 showed in California, many blacks are socially conservative. And don’t take the politics of inner city blacks as indicative of all blacks. That type of thinking is…. No, I won’t say it. Let’s just say it leaves a little bit to be desired.
Besides, I’ve always been suspicious of those maps that show this huge swath of the country as being “Liberal”. Especially when they never seem to rise above 30% in surveys. Especially when they show vote tallies in some districts as 100% Democrat – including the registered Republicans, Socialist, Communists, etc. Especially when they show large numbers of people simply despise the left wings agenda.
Besides, if the country splits, I’d have to leave NY. And even if the politics around here are weirder then wolf sh*t (see Bloomberg on the Ground Zero Mosque), its still my home.
Mike Giles (980220) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:00 amChris @24 That’s why I looked at it at a county level. Being a former Washingtonian (the state, not the DC), I understand that most states are really two states in one…the urban areas and the non-urban areas.
Urban goes blue, non-urban goes red, in general. Blue relies on the services and goods provided by others. Red swings more to the self-reliant side, but not completely.
Ohio would end up split, I think.
JEA @20 Lighten up. It’s a mental exercise.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:04 amThey’re called the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution.
Larry Gwaltney (1158fa) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:04 amCould a state defect? Re-defect? How often?
Kevin Murphy (73dcc9) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:07 amWhat about airspace issues? Could the Red West ban flights from the Blue Left Coast? Make them fly over Canada?
And water rights, too. Such fun. The Arizona – Aztlan water war!
Kevin Murphy (73dcc9) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:10 amSeriously, the people who rejected this country and it’s constitution migrated to Canada after the revolutionary war. Being the liberal alternative to America is the only real justification for Canada’s continued existence.
chris (be2afd) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:13 amThe central government has been gathering power to itself and away from the states ever since the Constitution became law. Why would it agree to give that up?
I agree, power seems to be only ever taken. So the people and the states must “man up” and take the power back from Washington. Also, Congress must “man up” and take the power back from the Executive.
I see it as a huge philosophical deal – you can only REALLY have the power if you also accept the responsibility. At so many levels there’s been a passing of the buck, unwillingness to accept responsibility for our decisions, so power is ceded.
States are suing the feds, some state legislatures are starting to fight back, I think the tide may be shifting.
But you are absolutely right, Washington will never give up the power, it must be taken back.
Less (8da0c8) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:17 amBut too many baby boomers and those they “educated” on public money don’t.
quasimodo (4af144) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:33 amWestern half. You need a coast, and the east coast is pointing at the soon-to-be corpse of Europe.
Frank Drebbin (8096f2) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:40 amIt’s interesting how radical supposedly-mainstream conservatives have gotten in just the past year. Breaking up the country is now on the table. I wonder what Reagan would think of this idea.
Because as history shows, centralized nations never break apart!
Honestly, the mere fact that the mainland US has managed to remain a united contiguous entity as states for nearly 100 years now (if you start from when AZ and NM became states) is pretty impressive historically. Let’s not forget that there have been two significant secessionist movements in the nation’s history, one of which resulted in a civil war.
A country breaking apart isn’t exactly a historical anamoly, and terming the contemplation of such an event to be “radical” shows willful blindness. If the cultural/tribal divisions become strong enough, it’s not a question of if, but when something similar happens here, as it did in 1860.
Let’s start from the understanding that if the US did split, Alaska and Hawaii would be on their own. We only have control of them because we maintain a strong military presence in both states, and in the event of a breakup, that logistical support network would fall apart.
Any sort of stable society in the event of a breakup would depend on the strength of social norms and institutions already in place. Even after the western Roman empire fell apart, the basic administrative structures and city networks managed to stay intact until Charlemagne died. I’m not sure we would be as lucky and believe a relatively anarchic breakdown more likely, with the real fight being over the military hardware, bases, and supplies. Whoever controls that, controls the destiny of the Americas for the next few years, as long as the fuel for the vehicles holds out.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if an invasion of Mexico took place once the chief military infrastructure of the leading power was finally established–if nothing else, to secure a more manageable southern border.
Another Chris (2d8013) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:43 amBlue people are always trying to go where the red people are but red people never try to migrate to be around blue people. The parasite needs the host but the host wants to separate itself from the parasite.
j curtis (4b7d63) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:52 amThe red region would need lots of walls.
An interesting thing to think about it — sometimes I have wondered the same thing myself.
There was a study done a while back suggesting that the blue states are subsidizing the red states. Even though that conclusion is a huge over-generalization, I think it points to what could be a likely outcome:
The red states will suffer… at least economically and (by extension) in terms of quality-of-life. But they’ll have lower taxes, so that would be good.
Kman (d25c82) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:56 amThe baby boomers will be dead soon anyway, quasimodo. Perhaps they will take anti-federalism with them, because they are going to collapse the entire entitlement system with their greed.
What I find particularly disgusting is this idea that they pretend paid for medicare and social security, when they actually paid far, far lower taxes than their government spent. No one who permitted a long term extreme deficit deserves a penny of entitlements. We have collectively burdened the coming generation, and simply haven’t paid in advance for any entitlements.
Political suicide, but that doesn’t matter. The house is going to fall apart whether we want it to or not.
The solution is not to split the country. We’d have to split into city states vs the rest of the country, anyway. All states are a micro of the nation. We’re so closely tied to eachother… far more than during the civil war, since the nation is easily traveled in mere hours, and kids migrate for school and work.
We’re one nation, whether we want to be or not.
A solution, in my mind, is a constitutional amendment that takes federalism to a greater level than even in the original constitution intended. No commerce clause. Any issue of controversy settled by states. Citizenship set by state law, and not reciprocal unless agreed by state law. A federal budget forced to remain confined to a few specific areas, in this amendment.
A congress that meets for a limited period, and only every two years. Failed states are chopped up and annexed by their neighbors (some blue states are going to fail, and the federal government is currently a way for these failures to infect the rest of the country… remove it and they will fail faster).
This constitutional amendment would be a great deal for the majority of US States. So much wealth is squandered by the federal government. We should encourage restraint. I’d say states collect taxes, however they want, and send to the feds some fraction (even half would be a huge improvement), and the IRS is shut down. The feds could be forced to budget to last year’s revenue, and only spend on areas explicitly set up in the federalism amendment (defense, mainly… even parks should just revert to states).
Kevin Murphy’s joking example of no-fly zones shows us… we’re just too mixed as a country, too easy traversed, to ever be two countries again. Your kids fly to a different state to go to school, etc.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:56 amThat’s a very simplistic analysis. Fact is, blue states inflate currency. You live like a king in Houston on the money that would barely get you by in LA.
You made an irrational shift… as far as ‘quality of life’, the red states are already so much better off, and this split would probably benefit them greatly. A dollar in a red state is worth more than it is in a tax state.
You’re wrong, and you know it.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:59 amI know kman’s silly, but this blue state subsidy is crap. It’s spending like the stimulus. It may be expensive, but it’s not actually helping the red states as much as the red states are paying for it.
Sure, it’s extremely expensive to live in many blue states, which means income tax revenues are way, way richer from those places than they ought to be. So?
There’s a reason red staters aren’t afraid of losing this subsidy. A nice post office named after a gerrymandered democrat wasn’t going to do us any good, anyway. We don’t need the government’s ‘charity’, anyway. It’s not like it wound up in my wallet or improved my quality of life. you could completely eliminate every single expense of the federal government, and the only affect on my life would be indirect.
Hell, if the blue states really are subsidizing the healthier red states, that’s yet another reason to shut down the anti-federalism system. California subsidizing Texas would be really, really stupid right now.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:10 amWhy not just enforce the 10th amendment and have 50 sovereign states with little interference from the federal government? Let the 2 parties fight it out in each state.
MaxTruth (673e58) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:29 amIt’s interesting how radical supposedly-mainstream conservatives have gotten in just the past year. Breaking up the country is now on the table.
I seem to recall liberals talking approvingly about the same subject not too long ago. In their case it was simply because “BusHitler” was in power. Our arguments are a little more substantive and less dependent on what happens in the next election.
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:31 amThe reason that they came to the conclusion that Blues subsidized the reds were:
1. A lot of seniors move from Blues to Reds (like AZ) and receive Soc Sec and Medicare money.
2. Much of the defense establishment is in the Reds.
Steve (4e5cea) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:31 amStates do not subsidize other states. The tax system does not work that way. People in certain tax brackets subsidize other people in different tax brackets, without regard to which state either party is in. In no case does money belonging to state A get sent to state B.
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:37 amAmusing idea. Where I live, in rural CA, Los Angeles is trying to grab our water; Owens Valley water is no longer enough.
We have ranchers, farmers, water, a dam for energy, and defensible borders. We DON’T have many doctors, investment houses, latte shops… we’re sooo tired of being considered a resource for the cities to exploit! We’d be an asset for the Red country.
jodetoad (7720fb) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:41 amWe’re one nation, whether we want to be or not.
Obviously, we’re not one nation if we don’t want to be. That is THE foundational principle of the whole American idea – that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
I don’t see a whole lot of “consent of the governed” going on, do you?
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:42 amThey don’t? Look at the $28 billion government-employee bailout that was just passed.
There’s a very good argument that what is happening here is that taxpayers in well-managed states — who don’t overcompensate their employees — are subsidizing the taxpayers in profligate ones.
Steve (4e5cea) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:42 amHeh. I used to play a similar game with my ex. (I lean substantially more liberal than most of the folks here.) For some of the geographic bias I’m shamelessly displaying, know that she and I were living in NYC at the time, and I’d spent ~10 years living in San Francisco before that, and we were both refugees from the rural south.
One of the schemes we came up with was
– Fence off Jersey, but drop all the tolls on the bridge, institute an “out by sundown” rule, and make them take a bag of trash with them on their way out.
– Make the tradition of ibankers moving to CT when they hit 20M net worth mandatory.
– Let Texas be a separate country – probably should have been, anyway, and hopefully that would at least slow the insanity pipeline between Houston and D.C.
– Swap the middle of PA out for Massachusetts, sprinkle it around Alabama, TN and Georgia. It would probably make the mid-PA residents much happier.
– Fence off Montana, leave as unmodified human preserve, come the Singularity.
– Tow Florida around and use it to wedge under California in anticipation of the Big One otherwise causing it to sink into the ocean. Well, does anyone have any better idea of what to do with Florida?
fishbane (e0821c) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:54 amKman proves to be fundamentally dishonest again. SHOCKA
I want to be on Texas’ team.
JD (01434c) — 8/12/2010 @ 10:57 amyou know a break up of the greatest country in the world would be too tragic to even jokingly contemplate. imho.
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:07 am“In 20 years, we’ll have all the weaponry and they’ll have none…”
You’re a very naughty man, Patterico. 😀
For added amusement, remember that liberals believe that one should always respond to violence with negotiation and “dialogue”. So you should constantly lecture them on their duty to never resist as the red states slowly take over. Heh.
pst314 (672ba2) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:10 amTo be honest, I am not all that excited about transferring power from a corrupt, nonresponsive federal government to my corrupt, nonresponsive state government. The real solution is to raise the number of house seats enough so we don’t have huge constituencies of 600,000+ any more. The founders thought that a constituency of 50,000 was excessive, and that was when only white men with property could vote. The 435 number is a modern invention artificially imposed by congress.
chris (d9926c) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:10 amThere’s a very good argument that what is happening here is that taxpayers in well-managed states — who don’t overcompensate their employees — are subsidizing the taxpayers in profligate ones.
That’s a good argument. It’s just a different argument from the one about some states subsidizing other states.
The central government takes money from a certain pool of taxpayers, distributed unequally throughout the country, and gives it to certain states. Typically it is given with instructions that the states receiving the money spend it in certain ways. In this case, they are supposed to spend it on teachers.
Is this a bad thing? Sure it is. But it’s not a case of some states subsidizing other states. It’s a case of some people subsidizing other people.
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:10 amDustin:
Well, yes, it is. I said it was. Kind of has to be, given the scenario, as well as the uncertainty of just which states would be in “Blue America” and “Red America”.
Just how much rat feces do you like in your hot dogs?
Look, you’re not going to get an argument out of me that government spending — in many areas — is out-of-control and/or unnecessary. But if the “Red America” country takes it as far as some rhetoric on the right suggests, then I think it would, over time, see a decline in the quality of life (environment, etc.).
Kman (d25c82) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:11 amBreak it up. Let TX lead off. Let the voters of each state decide (to stay or go), and if they’d like to form a new Republic. If yes, use the USA Constitution as a guide, but heavily amended to correct errors such as the commerce clause. A reset. Among others, no Dept of Education, DOE, or Commerce Dept. Show the current federal judges the door.
No need to put up walls or fences. It would be in neither sides’ interest to try and disentangle the various commercial interests. Movement across state lines would be the same. The Blues can have their highly taxed and regulated lives, and the Reds can choose as they please. It won’t be easy,this rendering, but it’d be a faster and surer method than trying to wrestle control from our Blue state Federal govt.
MDr (fd1f4b) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:26 amthe uncertainty of just which states would be in “Blue America” and “Red America”.
We’re not constrained to just “Blue America” and “Red America”. If we abandon that silly construct all sorts of possibilities present themselves. Let the fifty states go their separate ways, and then they can recombine, if they wish, in whatever fashion they like.
There’s no obvious reason why New York and California would chose to be part of the same country.
Subotai (20be2e) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:41 amThat’s not going to happen, at least not without massive social dislocation, you all know your neighbors on your block, their attitudes, affiliations, ‘vert silly’ in the words of a Python charactwe
ian cormac (ab2f02) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:47 amChris, I’m strongly in favor of increasing the number of representatives.
That said, there comes a point where the resulting legislative body is unweildy. I mean: to get back to the 50,000 number which the founders thought was unreasonable, we’d have to have a Congress of at least 6000 members. That seems unlikely to be productive.
Which is one reason why devolving power back to the states is helpful: California could get a 50,000:1 ratio with only 600-ish members. That’s a much more reasonable size.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:50 amThe Blue areas will end up much like East Berlin, gray, depressed, state-run, liberty lacking and an economic disaster run by bureaucrats and clueless elites out to line their own pockets at the expense of their people. Red areas can be likened to West Berlin and where there are freedoms to succeed, have economic stability, and the basis for the productivity and ingenuity that a free and stable society of the people provides.
Sara (Pal2Pal) (4d3f49) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:53 amRed areas can be likened to West Berlin and where there are freedoms to succeed, have economic stability, and the basis for the productivity and ingenuity that a free and stable society of the people provides.
Don’t forget national health care, free schooling, a far more generous safety net than anywhere in the U.S., some of the best night life and art on the continent…
I would happily leave my “blue” state for a “red” state like West Berlin.
fishbane (e0821c) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:03 pmi wonder how much ammo i’ll need to fight my way out of Los Angeles to someplace sane?
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:06 pmmost Red states tend to vote at most 60-40 for the R’s
most Blue states tend to vote at most 60-40 for the D’s
any partition would leave many partisans on the wrong side of the fence.
Bill (0de294) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:16 pmNever mind the ammo for LA. Just make sure you have enough gasoline to give your car the range it needs. That is why the Feds are doing their best to shut down oil production!
docduke (9e8675) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:22 pmI have a simple solution. Just give California to Mexico and New York to Canada.
Bingo. The Republicans can get enough electorial votes to carry each election.
I am willing to move from LA to Arizona.
Arizona Bob (f57a20) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:26 pmSince my state is now technically bankrupt, you’d see the Blue states sink into disrepair quite shortly, while most of the Reds would be obliged to pull their own weight, like it or not. You can look to Canada’s recent experiences with a break – up of their own country, where Quebec residents camethisclose in the last referendum (49 % voted for it, in a simple majority) to seceding from Canada and setting up their own country. What made them step back from the abyss at the last minute? They realized that their economy was in tatters, and that the only thing keeping them afloat was the rest of the country. The Blue states would never allow for that outcome, simply based on their long – term survival.
Dmac (d61c0d) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:36 pmWe’re discussing this as if the Federal government can keep this country together. It can’t. The U.S. Is Bankrupt, says the IMF! The issue is not whether, but when!
docduke (9e8675) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:38 pm“Just how much rat feces do you like in your hot dogs?”
Ooooh, just enough to give it that distinctive Democrat flavor. But, better yet, there’s nothing like a delicious mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
Gesundheit (cfa313) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:43 pmkman – When did the US military become a “subsidy” ?
JD (3dc31c) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:44 pmIt’s worked quite well for AT&T.
Jay Bienvenu (f43811) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:53 pmLook, you’re not going to get an argument out of me that government spending — in many areas — is out-of-control and/or unnecessary. But if the “Red America” country takes it as far as some rhetoric on the right suggests, then I think it would, over time, see a decline in the quality of life (environment, etc.).
The decline is probably coming regardless. Four things–defense spending, Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment compensation–make up 67% of federal spending.
Not federal revenue, federal spending. 37% of that spending is borrowed. That means you could cut out the ENTIRE defense budget, and you’d still be in the red by 18%. Even reducing the Cabinet wouldn’t be enough to make a dent, as these departments only make up about 2-3% of the total spending apiece.
So which sacred cow are you going to slice next? Medicare? Social Security? Both rely on exponential growth in population and inflation to remain solvent; now that the economy is deflating and people aren’t working, SS is now paying out more than it is taking in (despite what Moveon may tell you). This isn’t a positive development for a “trust fund” loaded with $2.5 trillion in IOUs that have to be paid out with current bond sales, i.e. more debt. But going after those for cuts brings out Granny’s pitchforks.
A split is probably inevitable, just because the math says we can’t sustain what we have, short of a complete reset. And with a split would come a lower standard of living, at least for a while–I certainly won’t dispute that we’d likely see a large die-off of the population as borders adjusted and settled, and people adjusted back to growing or raising their own food supplies.
How long that would last depends on how well the disparate communities pull together and whether their foundation is based on the rule of law, respect for private property and self-defense, and mutual trust. Without those things, rebuilding is going to be impossible.
Another Chris (2d8013) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:53 pm#68
quoth Miracle Max … not everything the loony left does is utterly without merit
quasimodo (4af144) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:53 pmI should also point out that the vast majority of soldiers are from red states, or red areas of blue states.
Just sayin’.
Virtual Insanity (1d2640) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:57 pmDon’t forget national health care, free schooling, a far more generous safety net than anywhere in the U.S., some of the best night life and art on the continent…
Yeah, all that “free” stuff? That costs money too–and Germany’s debt to GDP ratio is as bad as ours:
http://blog.wallstreetgrand.com/tag/debt-to-gdp-ratio/
Another Chris (2d8013) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:58 pmbtw, off topic, but i think this guy really captures why obambi is in a tailspin.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100050412/the-stunning-decline-of-barack-obama-10-key-reasons-why-the-obama-presidency-is-in-meltdown/
Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e) — 8/12/2010 @ 12:59 pmI should also point out that the vast majority of soldiers are from red states, or red areas of blue states.
Yeah, but they’re still a bunch of bible and gun – clinging rednecks. I know because our POTUS told me so – but he still wants them to go out and risk their lives for their country, and never mind what he really thinks about them.
Meanwhile, the evil BOOOSH greeted returning soldiers at DFW, along with his wife. What a farking Nazi.
Dmac (d61c0d) — 8/12/2010 @ 1:35 pmAaron Worthing #75 – what the article does point out, albeit implicitly, is that the incoming Congress should fund any White House expenditures after Afghanistan and Iraq and the rest of the Budget … White House funding should be the *last* funding allocated …
It’s a system that mostly kept the UK honest (with admitted failures like George III’s Privy Council’s heavy-handedness) …
Alasdair (e7cb73) — 8/12/2010 @ 2:31 pmFood, water, and guns, vs. Laws, regulations, and riots.
htom (412a17) — 8/12/2010 @ 2:40 pm“Four things–defense spending, Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment compensation–make up 67% of federal spending.”
Let’s start w/ cutting any form of aid to illegals. Approx $200 bln/yr. The military could probably be cut 20% (lot of bases, overlapping commands, and redundant equip – these a general overpayments to bring the pork home). Maybe $200 bln/yr? What will the states save by cutting back on the federally mandated MediCaid “coverage”? $150 bln/yr?
Yea, I’m probably naive. I think most Red staters would make sacrifices by cutting SS & MediCare. Extend retirement age. Start immediate transition to personal accts rather than SS for retirement. And yes, cutting MediCare.
MDr (fd1f4b) — 8/12/2010 @ 2:41 pmWhy can’t a producer hire an independent lab to certify their product ? UL® tests electrical products for manufacturers. Most states have EPA type departments too.
Jeff S. (b15751) — 8/12/2010 @ 2:50 pmUnfortunately, Federal regulations prevent milk producers certifying their product is hormone-free for example. Buying off 50 Legislatures is more inconvenient for lobbyists as well.
Jeff S. (b15751) — 8/12/2010 @ 2:53 pmPreserve the Union!
gp (ba49cb) — 8/12/2010 @ 3:29 pmSeriously, “carving the country in two” is kooky talk.
JEA @20 Lighten up. It’s a mental exercise.
Comment by Virtual Insanity — 8/12/2010 @ 9:04 am
— You’ll have to forgive JEA. He pulled a groin on this one.
Icy Texan (826624) — 8/12/2010 @ 3:32 pmI’d like a third color, please, where I can be left alone by statists of both stripes — where whether you want to tell me what to do based on what God wants, or based on what Al Gore wants, I can tell you to go straight to hell.
Ken (2e87a6) — 8/12/2010 @ 3:40 pmGee, then the Cowboys truly would be “America’s Team.” 😉
Icy Texan (826624) — 8/12/2010 @ 3:50 pmJust how much rat feces do you like in your hot dogs?
We need the central government in DC because otherwise, we’d have rat feces in out food? The way we did before the FDA? The way all the hapless people in the world without the bountiful blessings of the American central government still do to this day?
Subotai (bd1b5d) — 8/12/2010 @ 3:59 pm— Without our tax revenue they would be bankrupt within a year.
— I envision a boom in “border businesses”. For example: along the Oregon/Idaho border you would have abortion clinics on one side, and gun shops on the other . . . with competing, gaudy neon signs.
— Their side would finally legalize weed! And then scratch their collective heads, wondering why production is down while domestic violence, petty crimes, traffic accidents and sick-days taken are all way up.
Icy Texan (826624) — 8/12/2010 @ 4:08 pmAnd, the blue-state nation becomes a Chinese colony in 7, 6, 5, 4…
Hey, look at that. They didn’t even wait til I got to “one”.
d. in c. (81a42e) — 8/12/2010 @ 4:10 pmI’m moving to Ken’s hood
happyfeet (71f55e) — 8/12/2010 @ 4:53 pm“Preserve the Union! Seriously, “carving the country in two” is kooky talk.”
I agree. There’s no reason to split the country up.
All we need to do is purge the country of the worst left wing traitors, Democrat politicians and assorted bureacrat parasites every generation or so, and we’ll be in fat city.
Dave Surls (c7403a) — 8/12/2010 @ 5:09 pmAnother vote for Ken’s hood.
Tully (4dce1a) — 8/12/2010 @ 5:49 pmHootlandia!
ColonelHaiku (2deed7) — 8/12/2010 @ 5:49 pmKen wrote:
You forgot an important difference: conservatives will tell you how you should live, while liberals will tell you how you must live, and are willing to use the power of the state to enforce it.
The Dana who can see the difference (8a8a86) — 8/12/2010 @ 6:23 pm“I’d like a third color, please, where I can be left alone by statists of both stripes — where whether you want to tell me what to do based on what God wants, or based on what Al Gore wants, I can tell you to go straight to hell.”
Spare me.
When I see the Baptists telling people “Give us 33% of your paycheck or we’ll put you in prison”, or when they start sending two year old Japanese-American kids off to concentration camps at Tule Lake, then I’ll start worrying about the dangers of Theocratic rule. Until then I’ll worry about the real danger…liberal Democrat rule.
Dave Surls (c7403a) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:03 pmYou forgot an important difference: conservatives will tell you how you should live, while liberals will tell you how you must live, and are willing to use the power of the state to enforce it
Funny, but here in the Bible Belt Bible-thumpin’ Jesus-jumpin’ wannabe theocrats are indeed quite willing to tell us how we must live … and they run for office and win all too often. Can we trade for some of your “conservatives?”
Tully (4dce1a) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:47 pmNote that I didn’t suggest that leftist-town is free. I didn’t contradict the concept that the regulatory state is totalitarian, and I’d like to be shut of it. I merely expressed a desire to be left alone by the other side as well. But even expressing a pie-in-the-sky desire about a hypothetical society is offensive to some people if it suggests that maybe a society run by some of the Right is not ideal. You’ll forgive me if that doesn’t fill me with confidence that some people won’t still be pathologically controlling in the Red Country.
The proposition that the socially conservative wing is content to merely tell me what I should do, rather than making me do it, is difficult to reconcile with the last 50 years of speech or sex or drugs litigation. As it happens, I don’t have sex with people other than my opposite-sex spouse, don’t use sex toys (they break the dishwasher), don’t smoke pot, don’t read dirty books, and don’t burn flags. I’m fine with all of those choices — because they’re choices. But anyone who wants their perfect state to have the right to tell to be that way can kiss my ass.
Ken (9c882e) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:54 pm“Funny, but here in the Bible Belt Bible-thumpin’ Jesus-jumpin’ wannabe theocrats are indeed quite willing to tell us how we must live …”
Sure they do.
Just last week I was driving through the Bible Belt, the cops pulled me over, forced me to attend Methodist services and then tithe 10% of my money to the church.
It’s a real hellhole out there in the Bible Belt, with endless abuses of power by Christian theocrats mad with the desire to force everyone to do as they wish and with endless governmental powers to enforce their depraved desires on non-believers.
Not.
Dave Surls (c7403a) — 8/12/2010 @ 7:59 pmTully – I live in the bitter clinger bible belt and not one person has done so.
JD (3dc31c) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:00 pmAt least not to me …
JD (3dc31c) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:01 pm1) Red would get the parts that require work like farms, fishing, etc. The blue would be a bunch of lawyers, deadbeats, and people who don’t have a clue.
2) In 20 years those from the red side would own the blue because communism never works and they would sell their souls for something to eat.
PatriotRider (17f47b) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:06 pm“Quite frankly, you give them the majority black areas, and us the majority white areas.”
Who gets manhattan?
bart (a15b00) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:10 pmDo you realize that the FDA permits some rat material in your food?
You’re living in a dream world, statist. Your arguments are, once again, asserting the opposite of the truth (in this case, you’re claiming there’s no rat matter in hot dogs right now).
Pathetic.
You know why people are fat in America? Richard Nixon and his ag secretary, Butz, and their RDA, corn subsidy, etc.
Americans would be MUCH healthier, not a little, but MUCH, if the federal government stayed out of my kitchen.
You’re once again dead wrong about how much I need these programs.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:13 pmJust wondering. What does that mean?
Does it mean your concept of liberty requires that you be able to convince the state to have me arrested and jailed for having consensual sex with an adult in the privacy of my home, if you don’t approve of the adult in question?
In other words, does your concept of liberty require you to be able to enforce your moral views on purely private conduct?
Ken (9c882e) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:14 pmis bart ever anything but a contrary troll?
JD (3dc31c) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:14 pm“The blue would be a bunch of lawyers, deadbeats, and people who don’t have a clue”
There’s probably a few lawyers that post here that might take issue with that…including the guy who owns the site.
😉
Dave Surls (c7403a) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:15 pmYou missed my point.
And you’re insisting on something as obvious, when it’s clear to me that this exercise, though interesting, cannot be made real. Consent of the governed has not been a requirement for a nation to stay together, ever. The United States today is proof of this concept, sadly.
No, the federal government is not largely legit in its actions. It does lack this consent, and has for some time. The people are letting that happen, just as people almost always do. The America of old that refused to go along is an anomaly.
But that wasn’t my point. I was speaking of our close ties, across the blue and red states. We are one nation, de facto. That’s just the way it is. I think the best solution to this kind of problem is a constitutional amendment, as I described above.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:18 pm#104
You can have sex with your pet tarantula for all I care.
As long as you keep your curtains closed.
Just don’t don’t come crying to me and expect me to pay your medical bills if the tarantula bites you somewhere sensitve.
Dave Surls (c7403a) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:21 pmIndeed. I’m so tired of the insufferable “third way” argument. The fact is that there are only two choices available. People are just going to have to deal with that fact.
Mike LaRoche (536c2b) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:25 pmIt won’t work.
The left will just spread like a cancer into the Republican society through subversion just like they have for the last 100 years in the various states.
They have destroyed California and are now working on destroying Nevada.
ghost707 (dc1c1d) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:25 pmWould it be so bad if one state was very Christian religious? So long as the right to practice whatever religion you want remained, would it really be the end of the world if Alabama had the Ten Commandments behind the judges, outlawed adultery, prohibited abortion, and didn’t sell booze on Sundays?
Who cares? Seems like that state would be great for some folks, and some states could be completely secular, and some states could be something in between.
If you’re freaking out about losing a ‘federal’ government to ensure one size fits all, you are the last person who should complain about anyone trying to control others.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:27 pmWe would require permission to enter. They would require permission to leave.
phunctor (018bc8) — 8/12/2010 @ 8:45 pm—
phunctor
We’re not constrained to just “Blue America” and “Red America”. If we abandon that silly construct all sorts of possibilities present themselves. Let the fifty states go their separate ways, and then they can recombine, if they wish, in whatever fashion they like.
There’s no obvious reason why New York and California would chose to be part of the same country.
Comment by Subotai — 8/12/2010 @ 11:41 am
I profoundly disagree Sir! I find more than enough evidence to make the argument that if indeed, Lady Gaga were selected as their president, they would find common cause to consider themselves as joined at the hip.
New California has a nice ring to it!
Dencouch (935f74) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:10 pm___________________________________________
I’m black, and I’ve been described as having politics slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. And as Prop 8 showed in California, many blacks are socially conservative. And don’t take the politics of inner city blacks as indicative of all blacks.
But, unfortunately, surveys do indicate that an absurdly high percentage of black America (ie, 80-plus to 90-plus percent) does favor liberal politicians and Democrat-Party/leftist policymaking. Are there any predominantly African-American communities anywhere in the country that can be described as reliably Republican/conservative? If there are (or even is), I’m not aware of them (or it).
It would be fascinating from a sociological/economic standpoint if 80-plus percent of black America switched to becoming staunchly rightist or truly centrist. I bet such a change would be one of the greatest epiphanies in the history of mankind. It would be analogous to someone finally waking up after a long nightmare.
Mark (411533) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:12 pm__________________________________
I think each party has a mixture of good and bad ideas.
That sounds like a variation of moral relativism.
Yea, both parties have crappy things about them. But the Democrat Party, and liberalism in general (particularly in the 21st century) is so far ahead of the Republicans/rightists in bad things, bad ideas, that trying to sound non-partisan about both — by damning both — is way too squishy for my tastes.
However, I notice polls do reflect that type of squishiness among a large portion of the electorate.
Discounting voters who are ultra-conservative, (and they’re only a small handful of all Americans) and therefore will never be happy with the Republican Party, most of the other voters must fall towards the populist/progressive side of the divide. IOW, a variety of shades of limousine liberalism (and one does not have to be rich to be guilty of that) and all its foolishness thereof. And a major defect of modern Western society.
Mark (411533) — 8/12/2010 @ 9:27 pmThere’s no way the hard working people of Texas should be made to continue paying for the lack-luster, industry-hating government in my home state (Oregon)and all the lazy drones it ensnares it it’s anti-business over-taxing web of slavery.
Something must be done.
C.T. Lostaglia (ea2b04) — 8/12/2010 @ 11:32 pmI mean: to get back to the 50,000 number which the founders thought was unreasonable, we’d have to have a Congress of at least 6000 members. That seems unlikely to be productive.
That’s a feature, not a bug.
Murgatroyd (fd5fcd) — 8/13/2010 @ 3:21 amThere’s actually no need to divide the country. Simply re-instate the draft (this time, for both men and women, with no college deferments or exemptions) and watch as all the blue-staters scutttle off to Canada.
Same thing for immigration: institute a mandatory 10-year National Service regimen for all immigrants and children of immigrants — legal, illegal, refugees, asylum seekers, H1B visa applicants — and watch as they start heading for other countries quick smart.
Hey, where’d my base go?
d. in c. (0e735f) — 8/13/2010 @ 4:21 amd in c, you put legal immigrants and children of immigrants all in the same category? ten year service requirement sounds like a penalty. Why penalize the people who follow the rules?
And a lot of great immigrants, who follow the rules, do far more good for this country in their professions than in some chain gang or draft era Army outfit.
You seem to want to discourage all immigrants. I want as many of the legal immigrants, who are productive and law abiding, as we can possibly attain, while as few of the rest as possible, too.
I kinda like the work for amnesty idea, though. Ten years is overkill, but 4 years of labor, no pay, food provided, for all illegals? That could be tweaked into a good idea. And a 2 year draft could be good too, if you figured out a way to keep the professional military all volunteer (I’d say just have the draft military be its own branch of low skilled MOSs). Deploy them all the time to fix problems that come up all the time, such as oil spills or actual foreign adversaries, and we probably would see a lot of dirtbags flee a la Clinton.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/13/2010 @ 4:44 amI like that you start with:
“Maybe we should just agree to stop fighting, carve up the country in two, and be done with it.”
But within a few comments get to:
“At that point we can just invade and take over whatever parts we always wanted. We can put them in, oh, I don’t know . . . New Jersey or something.”
The comments seem to play along. This doesn’t seem to be so much about being ‘done with it’ as it appears to be about reacting to political loss with violence and invasion against your political opponents in the country.
bart (ae4d0b) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:44 amDustin, I meant it as a bit of creaky satire, intended only to illuminate some of the mechanics of the predicament, not as a practical program.
This whole post is a thought experiment: none of this stuff is actually going to happen, at least not deliberately, or barring cataclysm.
But the left, in addition to its supply of natural ideologues, grudge-holders and crackpots (all of which the right has plenty of as well), benefits politically from an ongoing structural advantage, being able to reliably pad its ranks with the idealistic young (who have always been unrealistic, and always will be, it’s human nature), and those groups who are essentially turned into client voters by being offered motivations to vote for Free Stuff.
So the question becomes, is there a way to chip away at these reserve ranks, in order to restore a natural political balance and avoid calamities like partition?
My suggestions were meant to be neither practical nor serious, they were only meant to shine a light on parts of the overall structural situation the country faces.
d. in c. (4de8b8) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:45 amD in C, I actually liked the ideas, with some tweaks.
But yeah, as a joke you do have a good point, too. A nation can’t be built on selfishness alone. There’s nothing wrong with an ambitious and hard working touch of greed, but a lot of people come to our nation looking to take away from the ‘rich’.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:51 amYou could use a sense of humor. No one is advocating killing the left, and you probably realize it. You shouldn’t be so lazy. It’s just a creative exercise.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:52 amWE could always follow Harry Reid’s 1993 solution;
ian cormac (ab2f02) — 8/13/2010 @ 6:06 amhttp://weaselzippers.us/2010/08/12/harry-reid-2010-i-dont-know-how-a-hispanic-could-be-a-republican-harry-reid-1993-introduces-bill-to-stop-anchor-babies-via-14-amendment-review/#comment-228489
Here’s another nutty idea: what if our voter-eligibility laws mirrored our office-holding-requirement laws?
At age 18, a citizen is eligible to vote only in local and state-wide elections; at 25 you become eligible to vote for the House; at 30 for the Senate; and at 35 for the preidency.
Would that result in power flowing back to the states?
d. in c. (bfaab0) — 8/13/2010 @ 6:10 am“No one is advocating killing the left, and you probably realize it”
I can tell it’s just fantasy. I don’t think y’all are actually plotting treason.
“You could use a sense of humor.”
Part of the humor is how quickly it goes from “stopping fighting” to fantasy of achieving with war, conquest and defeat what can’t be achieved politically.
“kman – When did the US military become a “subsidy” ?”
When people started fighting base closures, etc…
bart (017d51) — 8/13/2010 @ 6:11 amSo kman and bart are the same person? Makes sense, equally mendoucheous.
JD (ffe6ea) — 8/13/2010 @ 6:17 ambart perfectly exemplifies the douchebaggery of the leftists. It is as though they need the right to be violent racists, and they will twist anything they can to fit Teh Narrative, while ignoring evidence of same on their own side.
JD (da56a4) — 8/13/2010 @ 6:58 am“It is as though they (leftists) need the right to be…”
I’d remind you that the opposite of “the left” is not “the right.”
The opposite of “leftist” is “sane.”
d. in c. (297916) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:03 amThis doesn’t seem to be so much about being ‘done with it’ as it appears to be about reacting to political loss with violence and invasion against your political opponents in the country.
Comment by bart — 8/13/2010 @ 5:44 am
— And you all said that he doesn’t have a sense of humor!
Icy Texan (eee334) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:43 am“Urban goes blue, non-urban goes red, in general.”
To an extent, but with notable exceptions. New England and Upper Midwest (where I grew up) have large rural sections that also lean very Blue, sometimes even more so than the urban areas (if you count the Metros)– weird historical circumstances I guess, with Quakers and Socialist farming co-ops still exerting force today. All major contributors to enabling Obama’s crooked reign and all his Chicago-thug cronies.
“The left will just spread… into the Republican society through subversion just like they have for the last 100 years in the various states.
They have destroyed California and are now working on destroying Nevada.”
This is why I’m a (conservative-leaning) Independent, b/c this is true for both the Left and the Right– they’ve both been responsible for screwing up US society like this. For every Blue-State California, Illinois or New York (mostly-Blue I guess, RINO GOP governors in California for what that’s worth), there’s a Red-State Arizona, Oklahoma or Alabama that’s in as bad or worse of a budget mess, with a massive deficit, broken schools and crumbling roads. Both parties have screwed up. And as for Presidents, I tend to lean Republican myself and I can’t stand the sight of Bill Clinton’s pudgy smirk, but George W. Bush was hardly a fiscal conservative himself. It’s one thing to add trillions to the deficit during a fiscal emergency, but Bush adding $5 trillion to the debt during prosperity, bailing out his bankster buddies and unfunded wars? No other industrialized country has done that– no country survives with that much cronyism, and if you fight wars (legitimate or not(, you pay for the damn things. Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower all understood that.
The point is, both parties in the USA are ridiculously corrupt b/c we have a corrupt system– monopolized by two parties, and captive to the greediest big-money special interests (like the banksters, the most crooked of the union bosses and big health insurance companies that don’t contribute squat to the actual economy). I’ve been posted overseas, and at least some of the better-run Nordic Euro countries (the Scandinavians, Germans, Dutch) are multi-party. So when the two major parties get crooked and incestuous with their various cronies, you get someone like Geert Wilders in Holland to shake up the system and keep them honest. And the banksters and other crooks go straight to jail if they try to buy off politicians and sway elections, so the officials actually work for the people. It’s why I always see more Americans moving there (except for Britain, which was destroyed by NuLabour) every successive year I go on my biz trips. (A real trip– fumbling around with our broken German/Dutch only to realize we’re both Americans still watching the Cowboys/Cardinals games via satellite dish on Sundays.) For some inexplicable reason, people like countries where the leaders aren’t whores for the special interests. And since just about any American with some Italian/German/Danish/Dutch ancestry can wheedle their way into settlement rights there (if learn the language/prove a tradable skill), more folks keep seizing the opportunity to do so. I don’t know if it’s doable in the USA, something about our election system (I guess the plurality winner getting into office) forces it into the 2-party arrangement, which just doesn’t work.
“Oil allows red states to control blue states”
Texas is my favorite state, but unfortunately I wouldn’t count on that. I’ve been privy to those geological surveys, and the Gulf oil stocks are fast running dry. Still have a decent number of years in ’em, but nothing like the good ol’ days. Truth is, the whole US of A is running low in the resources department– it’s gonna be increasingly miserable for Red and Blue alike.
PaulBunyan (58060d) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:48 amAlaska is a red state. The oil shale states are red.
Icy Texan (eee334) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:56 amGhost 707 called it. I grew up in California before the East Coast libtards moved en masse there. Once they arrived, the libtards utterly destroyed what had been a fiscally conservative state that tolerated weirdness, but was not enslaved to being ruled by weirdness as is now the case. I love California, but not enough to ever move back there.
509th Bob (58dde3) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:00 amHey, I see that San Francisco is moving the discussion along by regulating how many carrots must be in a Happy Meal before it can have a toy.
Ken (2e87a6) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:08 amYep. Food police, photo radar, unlimited lawsuits, sex-ed in grade school, and “equal pay” for women.
On that last one, what will they do about the disparity of pay in the porn industry? Women performers typically earn 2 to 3 times MORE than men!
Icy Texan (eee334) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:46 am#98 Dave Surls:
Dang, I need to travel with you!
Them Baptists got holt of me last week, forced me to eat fried chicken and ice cream after church, and not only hit me with a tithe, but were threatening to turn me over to the Amish if I din’t promise to come back next week!
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:53 amThey will call them Ambivalent Not-at-all Joyous Meals now, Ken.
JD (3dc31c) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:54 amThe only reason we are having this conversation is because the federal government has become too powerful. If states were still sovereign we could just move to the state of our choosing based on our preferences and that state’s performance. When a state passes a new law you can move to a different one. When the feds pass a law there is nowhere to run. That being said, don’t we already have a case study with Colly-fornia vs. Texas? Aren’t the results pretty obvious?
stout77 (5a121f) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:54 am________________________________
I grew up in California before the East Coast libtards moved en masse there.
Actually, most of the population growth in the state over the past few decades has come from immigration, primarily from Mexico and other societies in Central and South America. Generally, high percentages of such people — associated with stumbling, fumbling urban (or inner-city) communities — favor politicians and policies of the left.
If a nation is going to lean left and somehow survive, much less thrive, then it had better be okay in the category of demographics. IOW, liberalism is like a family with permissive, flaky parents. For such a family to not be torn apart by chaos, the children in such a family had better be naturally self-disciplined, resourceful and talented. If they’re not, or, worse of all, if they’re just the opposite of that, the “family” (ie society) probably is headed down the drain.
Mark (411533) — 8/13/2010 @ 10:28 amTwo things:
– We’ve already had one Civil War. It is hard to imagine that this would not lead eventually to another (except that the Blue country may not have anyone willing to be a soldier.)
– America has a mission in the world: to be an exemplar and defender of liberty, democracy, and prosperity for all people. We stumble often enough now. It is hard to imagine this mission being performed by half a country or two countries. Without the mission we are not America, and the world is a much darker and more dangerous place.
Mahon (920cf1) — 8/13/2010 @ 11:08 amthe snarky dude in me wants to say that the contrast would look very much like a nighttime satellite photo of the Korean peninsula:
The free capitalist South is self-evidently free and vibrant & brilliantly illuminated all across the country, whereas the totalitarian planned economy North is totally blacked out except for a few bulbs lit up at the Dear Leader’s place in Pyonyang.
DC would have its lights on. So would SF City Hall and Hyde Park Chicago. The rest of Blue USA would be without power because electricity is racism and murder, like meat. By day you would see no cars on expensively paved roads. Cars are racism and imperialism you see, & not good for mother earth, so not allowed.
Drilling down a bit further you might see all the people living in planned housing and wearing hemp uniforms. Cant have freedom of thought action or association you see, coz thats racist and contrary to the collective good. Likewise you cant have wool because animals might be harmed with electric razors. And you cant have cotton because cotton = teh Rebel Flag.
Drilling down even further to the dinner tables in Red USA, you would see soy milk and soy gruel served twice a day. Cant have animal proteins or have free choice in one’s diet you see coz thats cruelty racism and imperialism. And you cant eat more than the planned twice a day, coz thats gluttony and imperialism and insensitive to cultural diversity or something.
Drilling down even further to the bookshelves in the living quarters of Red USA, one would find only Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and Dreams From my Father. Cant have freedom to publish you see because a minority might become offended and thats a hate crime. Cant have that. No bibles allowed, either. thats religious fanatacism.
But the Koran will be required reading because failure to do so is Haram and a culturally insensitive hate crime. Cant have that.
Get the picture?
Mike D (cfd823) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:04 pmwell like a total Dumb ass I confused Red with Blue. Do it all the time coz Im stoopid.
Lo siento.
Mike D (cfd823) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:06 pmMi dispiace.
I grew up in California before the East Coast libtards moved en masse there.
Colonel Haiku grow
ColonelHaiku (2deed7) — 8/13/2010 @ 5:07 pmup behind Orange Curtain
in land of Mickey
One way to immediately partition America would be along the U.S. electric grid lines, which could result in 5 sections: Hawaii, Alaska, most of Texas, the West, and the rest of the country. However, I suspect Texas is the only one of these areas that might have an interest in partition.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:21 pmHey there DRJ!!!!!
daleyrocks (940075) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:22 pmDRJ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JD (3dc31c) — 8/13/2010 @ 8:39 pm#144 DRJ:
I suspect you are correct.
Still and all, it would be an interesting experiment.
Er, come to think of it…we already tried that.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:04 pmProperty values in Alaska and Texas would soar.
MD in Philly (5a98ff) — 8/13/2010 @ 9:19 pmNotice how blue staters seek to stop the wasteful suburban lifestyles they enjoy(ed) – better to let the immigrants live in communial living aka”tenaments”. The “american dream” for these beknighted illegals will not be that of their liberal champions – they get a stunted future with no freedom to “waste” their money on SUV’s, steak fajitas (or steak anything) and flat screen TVs. Because nothing warms the subconscious of hard-lefties more than a permanent dark-skinned underclass to act sad over their plight, experience the trills of slumming in their neighborhoods (such “charm” and how “real”) and -darn it! – champion them to the horror of Mom and Dad. (but they really don’t want them to actually get in the running for junior’s allocated spot at Harvard – now do they?! Or have them surpass the lefties in economic power – that would be ….Bad.
Californio (6c4897) — 8/13/2010 @ 10:55 pmThe blue zones might end up looking something like Europe, if the red zones keep a lot of military bases there propping up their economies. I think the blue zones would have a lot of powerful foreign allies, more so than the red zones.
Dave M (7f7111) — 8/20/2010 @ 1:34 pmI find it interesting that much of the debate here is based on broad generalizations and name calling, not on rational thought or facts.
Anne (6a1b5f) — 8/22/2010 @ 12:44 pmI’m a proud resident of a blue state, and I can assure you that we do not spend money like it’s going out of style. However, we understand that, like or not, we live in a SOCIETY. We understand that we are obligated to be productive members of this society and that we should treat the other members of our society as we want to be treated. We understand the value of working for the common good. We understand that the things we value cost money, such as safety, health services, roads, education, etc. We understand that these things don’t just appear by magic. We consider the long term effects of our decisions. No one here wants abortion “on demand”. We want abortion to be rare and safe.
Because of these things, the residents of my state enjoy a relatively high standard of living and a low unemployment rate.
By comparison, it’s a fact that red states receive more in government aid than they pay in taxes. Meaning, the blue states subsidize the red states. Look it up. You’re welcome.
Anne – Thank you for that very specific comment.
daleyrocks (940075) — 8/22/2010 @ 12:48 pmThe self-righteousness is pretty hilarious given Anne’s attempt to condemn generalizations and namecalling.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 12:59 pmColonel cue this up just for anne…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtCKtHoGHRU
ColonelHaiku (60a24c) — 8/22/2010 @ 1:07 pm151. I find it interesting that much of the debate here is based on broad generalizations and name calling, not on rational thought or facts.
Icy Texan (11d02b) — 8/22/2010 @ 1:29 pm— An ad hominem attack . . . that alleges the use of ad hominem attacks? Very effecient.
I’m a proud resident of a blue state,
— Clue #1: NOT New Jersey.
and I can assure you that we do not spend money like it’s going out of style.
— On the crontrary, I’m sure that you do it very stylishly.
However, we understand that, like or not, we live in a SOCIETY. We understand that we are obligated to be productive members of this society and that we should treat the other members of our society as we want to be treated.
— This is true for “us” as well. If I was a welfare whore, I would want my fellow members of SOCIETY to tell me to get up off of my fat ass and get a fucking job!
We understand the value of working for the
commoncommune good.— FTFY!
We understand that the things we value cost money, such as safety, health services, roads, education, etc. We understand that these things don’t just appear by magic.
— They appear by taxation! And, of course, health services needs to be one of those things.
We consider the long term effects of our decisions.
— And we decided that we don’t care about saddling our great-great-grandchildren with mountains of national debt, because we’ll be dead by then. So what? Can’t take it with you.
No one here wants abortion “on demand”. We want abortion to be rare and safe.
— Is 1.3 million per year considered “rare”? Well, I got into trouble with Patterico the last time I called someone a fucking liar, so I won’t do that now.
Because of these things, the residents of my state enjoy a relatively high standard of living and a low unemployment rate.
— Is that the state of Confusifornia?
By comparison, it’s a fact that red states receive more in government aid than they pay in taxes. Meaning, the blue states subsidize the red states. Look it up. You’re welcome.
— Citations, please. Put your money where your gum-flaps are.
No, you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be here telling me that I should work for your benefit.
More serious disconnection from reality. Let me give you a hint: go tug on your shoelaces and lift yourself three feet into the air. Government spending us into prosperity works the same way. And if it worked at all, we’d all be rich, believe me.
You keep mouthing the words, without out an inkling of the content of them.
Because of these things, the residents of my state enjoy a relatively high standard of living and a low unemployment rate.You need to take a closer look at what drives the local economy~because so far, everything you have enumerated tends to cause economies to shrink. In other words, you don’t have an understanding that the local economy being prosperous is what allows you to be an idiot, at others’ expense.By comparison, it’s a fact that red states receive more in government aid than they pay in taxes.Bzzzzttttt!!!!! Wrong again. Allocation of federal money for maintaining its facilities and doing whatever “mission” it is supposed to be accomplishing is not “aid.” Interestingly enough, of the approximately 1/3 of the landmass of the country owned by the government, most of it is in red states, primarily because of the NIMBY effect, but also because of the “you yokels wouldn’t know how to take care of rural land, so us cityfolk will take it and make sure we mess it up good” effect. Besides, when attempting to argue based on an economic premise, it’s considered de rigeur to bring your own facts to the argument, rather than just saying “look it up.”Kind of makes you look like you just pulled it out of your ass.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:29 pmHuh, not sure how I did that. There are some quotations in my previous post that I intended to be blockquoted, that are struck out instead. Tedious to read that way~but I’m not sure that redoing it is worthwhile either.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:31 pmAnne is exhibiting her stupidity here in assuming that you all know how to read and comprehend what she is writing. What a moron. Hey, can we nuke Canada when we get our own country. Those lefties are too polite.
Slerpee (62cc62) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:34 pmSorry – Youre right. Guilty as charged. I’m operating on
Anne (92200f) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:40 pmassumptions as well. I can’t presume to speak for everyone in
my state. And and I doubt these sentiments are unique to blue
states.
Out of frustration, I’ve also thought “let’s just split us up
red/blue and be done with it”. It’s an interesting intellectual exercise, and as this discussion is proving, not that easy.
However, I think there are people who want to encourage exactly this kind of thinking. They know if we’re busy squabbling among ourselves over manufactured differences, we’ll be too busy to notice that we are being played. We’ll be too distracted by “wedge” issues to realize that we are losing ground while they become richer and more powerful. We won’t notice that they are buying our government. And we’ll be too divided to fight back. Right where they want us.
Maybe we should see through their tricks and focus more on our similarities than our differences, and take back our power, our rights and our lives from corporate interests.
My vote is that we all go “purple” and give them hell!
Slerpee, trolls like you are less impressive than Anne.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:41 pmSlurpee is about as intelligent, and honest, as a Slurpee.
JD (3dc31c) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:41 pmAnne – In your silly little construct, in order for that to work, you have to include military spending, and count that as a subsidy. Is that really how you view the military?
JD (3dc31c) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:42 pmClever and racist! Brilliant JD.
Slerpee (62cc62) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:42 pmI am shocked, shocked I tell you, that a drive-by idiot would call someone a racist, based on, well … nothing.
Anne – I am far less worried about “corporatists” than I am nanny-state statist leftists, who pose a far greater threat to our liberties.
JD (3dc31c) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:44 pmWho is Saint Anne, and why is she trying to lead us to salvation?
AD - RtR/OS! (84b2f2) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:45 pmI am basing the charge of racism off of countless things you post that are racist.
Slerpee (62cc62) — 8/22/2010 @ 2:47 pmDid someone blow the bugle for the insane clown posse to arrive?
daleyrocks (940075) — 8/22/2010 @ 3:00 pmdaleyrocks, if so, its a high pitched whistle above my hearing range.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 3:22 pm#158
This was a tactic developed specifically to use against Western democracies by the Soviets. Not only is it very effective, but quite durable as well, having outlasted the Soviet Union by several decades so far with no sign of abating.
Bottom line is this: one side is the “it’s better to leave people alone as much as possible” side; and the other side is the “look over there, they have more than you! let’s take it away!” side. If the sides split up, as if for dodgeball or something, I’m gonna go with the “people do better left alone” side, since the other side won’t have anybody to take stuff away from anymore.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 3:29 pmHi EW1 SG –
Anne (92200f) — 8/22/2010 @ 4:41 pmThanks for your comments. No doubt I’m naive and probably even a little ignorant. If it makes you feel better to call me
an idiot, go ahead.
I’m not asking you to work to support me. I support myself
just fine, thanks to my public education and degree from a
state college. I don’t mind paying my taxes because I know it
benefits me, both directly and indirectly, in ways I don’t even
realize. Taxes help support my state’s colleges and technical
schools, makes them affordable, and provides an educated
workforce for the region.
I’m not sure what I said in my previous post to make you
think that more government spending will make us
prosperous. I was pretty vague – I’m sure it sounded like a
bunch of empty talking points. It’s not the amount of spending
so much as the effectiveness of that spending. I don’t want to
waste money any more than you do.
Thanks for pointing out that there might be some local issues
in your area that might require a totally different mindset than
issues in my area. It didn’t occur to me that your state might
deal with some issues on behalf of the entire country that
your state should not be expected to pay for by itself. One
example that comes to mind is the disposal of nuclear waste. I agree that I should help pay for that.
I apologize for not providing a link. One was provided by a previous poster. Thanks for helping me learn something new today. : )
PS – if it makes a difference, I live in the country and commute to my job in the city. I also raise sheep. The local GM plant was closed and some friends are unemployed. They are good, hardworking people and deserve every bit of help they get.
Anne, your insertion of nuclear waste disposal is very weird.
But evidently you did not know that the nuclear power generation industry pays a lot of money to the Federal government for waste disposal – disposal that the Federal government keeps failing to actually do.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 4:50 pm“…disposal that the Federal government keeps failing to actually do.”
Thanks to Harry Reid, and Barbara Boxer, among others.
AD - RtR/OS! (84b2f2) — 8/22/2010 @ 5:27 pmThanks for clearing up the nuclear waste disposal. More enlightenment for me. Without knowing exactly what was being referred to, I could only guess.
Anne (92200f) — 8/22/2010 @ 5:48 pmAs for the question about the military, who has benefitted the most from the wars? Not the left.
Some of you seem to think that the left wants to take away your rights. Really, the left is all about “live and let live”. Think about it – gay marriage, abortion, etc. The left says, “that’s your business, its not for me to say”. They don’t want to take away guns or any of that other crap. That’s just another “wedge” invented by those who want to be divisive and control people with fear. I don’t get why the right is so afraid the left will take away their liberties? The right, not the left, always seems to have their nose in your personal business. The right wants to tell you how to behave and take away your liberties. The left doesn’t care what you do in your personal life. What’s up with that?
that?
Anne, you are making up stuff now. The Left does want to take away many of my rights. We’ve seen a lot of that. Calls to ban “hate speech”, impose political correctness, all from the Left. Reductions of my economic freedoms – all from the Left. Deciding what I should be able to eat, what I can drive, and where I can live using faux environmentalism – all from the Left. Gun control has been a big issue for the Left – that its been abandoned as a political issue in the last year or two does not change that.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 5:55 pm#170 Anne:
Yes, you are. And had I an inkling that you weren’t just a drive by, I might have been more circumspect in pointing that out.
You are asking me to support your beliefs and causes, from my pocket book, regardless of whether or not I share the same ideas. And I don’t.
You damn well ought to resent paying your taxes…not minding paying your taxes is downright un-American. Not to mention just blindingly stupid: it is the same as saying that you do not mind being mugged or robbed.
Sigh. You know what? This is the one thing that the Commies and Big Business always agreed on: the need for an “educated” workforce; in order to continue the enslavement of the proletariat.
I don’t want an “educated workforce.” I want a people that understand economics, so that they can make themselves wealthy and retire from the “workforce” by the time they are 35-45, so that they can then pursue those philanthropic leisure pursuits than make their little hearts go all aflutter.
And you aren’t going to get that with the Communists firmly in control of the schools, as they are now with the NEA and AFT in charge. Not to mention how incredibly wasteful it is to have apparatchiks stealing your tax moneys that are supposed to be used for teaching the young, and instead used primarily for featherbedding.
In fact, it was your vagueness and self identification as a proud blue state resident that leads me to apprehend that you place some confidence in the oft tried but never successful plan to “stimulate the economy” with some government spending.
The most effective government is that which spends the least. Is that fundamental American principle so foreign that you cannot comprehend it? We have a government that is taxing for and spending on things that are completely outside the charter of activities allowed to it.
Frankly, I am damn tired of it, and think we ought to trim the government back to its chartered activities…forcefully if necessary.
No there aren’t. I was simply pointing out that you are looking in the wrong end of the telescope: it isn’t the ill advised social spending that makes your local economy fruitful, it’s your local economy that makes the ill advised social spending possible despite its deleterious effect on the economy.
As SPQR notes, your insertion of a reference to nuclear waste at this point is just downright … weird. And you really must explain at some length why you think it incumbent upon you personally to cover the cost of nuclear waste disposal. Are you in the habit of using radioactive nucleotides in your home, or something? If not, then wouldn’t it be better to leave the problem of disposal to those who have a genuine financial stake in the matter? Wouldn’t they be more motivated than you to find sound solutions?
Yes, it does make a difference. Many of the warm, fuzzy, ill-defined goals that you have expressed are based on the idea that we should make life more “fair,” to those less fortunate … less fortunate than what remains rather ill defined, but no matter. We’re gonna make things more fair! To do that, we are gonna make decisions for other people based on our idea of what is more fair!
Now, let me ask you. Do you know what your unemployed friends had for dinner last night? How about for breakfast? How about the six closest households? And if you do happen to know all that, not only is that very weird, but the list gets longer. Do you know what brand of detergent they use to get their clothes clean? And what prompted them to make the decision to buy that brand?
The point is that you don’t know enough to make all the decisions that make a handful of households around you function (or dysfunction, as the case may be). Nobody does. Not for half a dozen households, and certainly not for half a million or a third of a billion.
Does any one person have all the requisite knowledge needed to make life “fair” for all those households? Of course not. It would be like me telling you how to raise your sheep to get the best result from them. Nevermind that I don’t even know why you raise sheep…whether for wool or mutton. Who knows, maybe you just like having them around.
And that is the problem in a nutshell: when you cede control of your money to others, it gets used for bullshit. There is just no way around that, because nobody but yourself knows how to make your life the best it can be.
Now, your unemployed friends may be everything that you say they are~hardworking, and deserving of your help. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I do have friends of my own…some of whom also need help. And I would be much more comfortable if you help your friends, and leave me be to help mine. What’s that you say? You don’t really have the resources to help them? Well, wouldn’t you be in a better position to help them if your resources hadn’t been stolen from you in the form of punitively levied taxes?
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 5:58 pmAs for the question about the military, who has benefitted the most from the wars?
Bevorzugen auf Deutsch sprechen?
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:11 pmWell, MD in Philly, I was looking forward to exploring just how it was that the “right” had benefitted from “the wars” … given that most of the wars that America has conducted were started by Democrats.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:15 pm#173 Anne:
That is exactly backwards. The “right,” or conservatives, are about human rights, those rights that are unalienable. The “left,” unfortunately also mistakenly called liberals, are about civil rights, the rights allowed and assigned by a government whether they infringe on someone elses human rights or not.
The other reason for calling the right “conservatives,” is that we are generally reluctant to toss out the good things that have worked in the past. Now, if you could point out a past civilization that is still around or has made such significant contributions that they continue to be remarked upon today and that has embraced gay marriage, we might have a starting point for discussion. As it is, though, I am frankly tired of special interest groups demanding special civil rights that apply to nobody else. And make no mistake, goverment recognition of marriage is a civil, as opposed to human, rights issue.
What a load of hogwash. The Soviet Union used to have many a pedagogical institute where people were taught that black was white, and the socialist synthesis of the Democrats and the communists has been very effective at pushing that same line here.
It is very much in the Left’s interest to take away guns…because freedom and the Left do not mix. It wasn’t Dick Cheney that established an email address at the White House for you to report that your neighbors didn’t like the President, a lá East German Stasi.
Somebody has been very effective in teaching you that up is down.
I suggest you do some reading on the subject: an historical treatise on the subject may be helpful. Perhaps A Patriot’s History of the United States might be an enjoyable place to start.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:18 pm#177 SPQR:
I was gonna leave that particular to Dave Surls, as he handles it so well; and I always learn something.
No doubt Anne might, too.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:24 pmSuch as … if it is so obvious and so easy for you to see, it should be equally easy for you to point out my racisms.
JD (3dc31c) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:32 pmHow about this, if there are countless things that I post that are racist, it should be really easy for you to identify the Top 10 racisms I have typed.
JD (3dc31c) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:34 pmJD, it is racist of you to describe such a deep intellectual exercise as “easy” … thereby disparaging the accomplishments of those unable to do so.
Racist.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:38 pmConsider yourselves denounced.
/Freakin’ Trotskyites. All racists.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:43 pmMenshevik.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:45 pmSome of you seem to think that the left wants to take away your rights. Really, the left is all about “live and let live”.
If leftists are “live and let live,” they sure have a schizophrenic way of demonstrating it. I don’t see conservatives arguing for the nationalization of businesses. I don’t see many conservatives supporting anti-smoking laws on private property. And just try telling the government that you’d rather invest your social security taxes in the way you see fit rather than contributing to the SSI fund. The left, furthermore, has been so successful over the last 40 years of convincing families that the state is more capable of raising their children the parents are, that parents now treat schools as glorified babysitting services and the quality of education has gone down the toilet.
Let’s not even get into the “speech codes” that are SOP on college campuses, which have provided succor for leftists, social engineers, and communist sympathizers for about 100 years now. Ask the members of the Duke lacrosse team how “tolerant” the left is when it comes to respect for individual rights and the rule of law.
Conservatives certainly wouldn’t, say, sue a hippy photographer for refusing to take pictures of their wedding, but leftists apparently have no such compulsion for violating people’s freedom of association:
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/357084.aspx
You honestly want to argue that liberals are “live and let live”? What a load of nonsense.
They don’t want to take away guns or any of that other crap.
Gotta call bs on this one. Oh, they’ll use weasel words to get around their hatred of citizens owning handguns–Obama is famous for this–but at the heart of it, leftists would love nothing more than to eliminate firearm ownership completely.
http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_14911501
Another Chris (2e9afa) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:48 pmLive and let live, but they want to regulate Happy Meals, individual salt intake, where one can smoke, what one can say, nationalizing healthcare …
JD (3dc31c) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:52 pmPerhaps A Patriot’s History of the United States might be an enjoyable place to start.
Paul Johnson’s Modern Times is the best overview of the century-long (and counting) social engineering fetish of the left and the various dicators, criminals, and psycopaths its followers acted as apologists for during the late, unlamented 20th century. Intellectuals is another good one, if nothing else for showing how Karl Marx’s inherent laziness, exploitative nature, and contempt for the lower and middle class, came to fruition the philosophy of today’s “progressives.”
Another Chris (2e9afa) — 8/22/2010 @ 6:55 pmEach of the issues you mentioned is a valid concern. It’s not easy to find a balance that works for everyone. Some of these issues limit my options more than they take away my rights. To me, It seems like the rights they’re trying to preserve outweigh any rights that might be taken away. I see it more as a trade-off instead of losing something. That doesn’t mean I always agree with them – I don’t. But I don’t see it as them trying to control my life either.
Anne (92200f) — 8/22/2010 @ 7:05 pmAnne, when one “right” is being balanced against another, then there is no such thing as rights.
Something that most Leftists do not understand, but the leadership of the Left has always exploited.
Basically, you have just decided that if something is not important to you it is not a “right” and you’ll ignore its infringement. Not really a stance that leads me to think you really care about “rights”.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/22/2010 @ 7:12 pmTaxes help support my state’s colleges and technical schools, makes them affordable, and provides an educated workforce for the region.
Taxes make college more affordable?
http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/2010/06/8-reasons-college-tuition-is-the-next-bubble-to-burst/
Money quote: “On average, college tuition increases at around 8 percent per year, which means the cost of college doubles every nine years. Because colleges know that students will simply borrow more money to cover tuition increases, colleges have been relying on steady tuition hikes to solve all of their money problems. If this continues a college degree will soon cost as much as a house.”
In some cases, it already does, especially if you go to grad school–a friend of mine and her husband, after getting two PhDs in history, owe around $200K to various student loan agencies; she owes about $150K just by herself.
The biggest problem with tuition costs isn’t that the schools aren’t getting enough money. The universities today spend ridiculous gobs of cash building new facilities and upgrading things like dorms with the latest in technological features, and pay various deans and administrators wages north of $50K for what in many cases is redundant work.
The biggest problem with tuition costs is that the government backs most of these loans, so colleges feel no hesitation whatsoever about raising tutition fees. The colleges know they are getting their money, who cares if we leave students in massive debt for 20 years or more after they graduate? And the government benefits from this parasitic relationship, too–student loan debt can’t be discharged in a bankruptcy, which provides yet more incentive for the government to continue backing these loans and make college graduates debt slaves.
Another Chris (2e9afa) — 8/22/2010 @ 7:17 pmAnne, when one “right” is being balanced against another, then there is no such thing as rights.
Bingo. Rights are inalienable–they are ours by natural law, and while they can be suppressed by a regime for various reasons, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
The notion that rights should be balanced against each other is merely a reflection of the “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” mentality.
Another Chris (2e9afa) — 8/22/2010 @ 7:23 pmThank you for your comments. I even agree with many of them, so I know we can’t be all that different. I will check into the books you mentioned – they sound interesting. Thanks again!
Anne (92200f) — 8/22/2010 @ 7:36 pm#188 Anne:
These are not “valid concerns.” Many of them are direct violations of Constitutional rights. That’s not something to be “concerned about,” that is something resulted in a call to arms two hundred and some years ago…and will eventually again if unchecked.
Yes, it is. You keep your government nose out of my beeswax, I will pay the minimal amount of taxes that I can, and we will both be happy.
Uhn. Let’s go back to that part above, where I called out the difference between fundamental human rights, and civil rights?
A fundamental human right is life~mkay? Working in a smoke free environment is a civil right: and one that could be afforded by either an employer who forbade their employees to smoke on the premises, or a government that is overstepping its charter.
Liberty is a human right. It’s okay to defend yourself if slave traders come to your house and try to kill you or take you away into slavery. A free public education is a civil right, one that entails enslaving others to pay for it. The government might not send someone around right away to cart you off into servitude, but if you refuse to pay the taxes to educate someone else’s children, they eventually will knock on your door.
Having arms, whether firearms, swords, tanks, scimitars or whatever, is a human right. It’s one that follows from the rights to life and liberty: you have a right to protect your life, and your liberty. If this right is taken from you, then you end up living under someone else’s thumb who has arms. The right to get married, and force others to subsidize your marriage partner in case of an adverse circumstance, is a civil right.
Then you aren’t paying attention. The same folks who brought us a hundred and some million dead people, who had their most fundamental of all human rights violated in the most egregious manner possible in the last century, are still at it. Using the same old lines, and pushing the same old story. And all they need to succeed and to do it again is to convince folks like you that they are on your side.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 7:48 pm“A fundamental human right is life~mkay? Working in a smoke free environment is a civil right: and one that could be afforded by either an employer who forbade their employees to smoke on the premises, or a government that is overstepping its charter…
Having arms, whether firearms, swords, tanks, scimitars or whatever, is a human right. It’s one that FOLLOWS FROM the rights to life and liberty: you have a right to protect your life, and your liberty. If this right is taken from you, then you end up living under someone else’s thumb who has arms. The right to get married, and force others to subsidize your marriage partner in case of an adverse circumstance, is a civil right.”
– EW1(SG) [All emphases added]
So it’s okay to infer that a fundamental, human right to bear arms is entailed by a fundamental, human right to liberty, but it’s not okay to infer that a fundamental, human right to a healthy environment is entailed by the fundamental, human right to life? How does that work? If the right to bear arms is necessary to preserve the right of liberty (agreed), then surely the right to a healthy environment is necessary to preserve the right to life. No weapons = no liberty. Poisonous environment = no life. You may lose neither your liberty nor your life immediately in either case, but you will eventually lose each in its respective case.
These broad, fundamental human rights entail the other, more concrete rights which facilitate them. It’s just a matter of arguing where we think we ought to draw the lines in the sand. And that’s a political matter, not a Constitutional one. The Framers left the thing vague for a reason.
Leviticus (30ac20) — 8/22/2010 @ 8:23 pm#194 Leviticus:
Baloney. The argument that second hand smoke constitutes a “poisonous environment” is a load of hooey.
There is some merit to your argument: however, it’s really a property rights issue. If you engage in an activity that diminishes the value of my property (such as making it uninhabitable), then you have committed a property crime against me…which makes it a legal matter. Not a political one.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/22/2010 @ 8:30 pm“Baloney. The argument that second hand smoke constitutes a “poisonous environment” is a load of hooey.”
– EW1(SG)
That dodges the point. Change “second hand smoke” to “asbestos”, or “radioactive waste”, or “sarin gas”, or any number of other things that obviously do constitute a poisonous environment – the right to life entails a right to a healthy living/working environment. Whether second hand smoke violates that tertiary right is just a matter of where you draw the line in the sand – which is what I said before.
Leviticus (30ac20) — 8/22/2010 @ 8:57 pmSt. Anne, like most of the LibTurd trolls that cruise by, are woefully undereducated in respect to History, Economics, and and the struggle for Freedom and Liberty.
AD - RtR/OS! (84b2f2) — 8/22/2010 @ 9:27 pmShe wonders what all of the right’s wars have done for her?
I don’t suppose pointing out the fact that she is even allowed, or able to, ask that question is something she should reflect upon?
Leviticus, I hate to collapse your “second hand smoke” balloon, but the vaunted study of the deliterious effects of SHS was totally bogus, and was never peer-reviewed (an early example of what we saw with the infamous global-warming studies that used bogus data, and reasoned backwards from a preconceived conclussion), and when other researchers attempted to recreate its conclusions from the data cited, could not, because the data did not support the results.
AD - RtR/OS! (84b2f2) — 8/22/2010 @ 9:31 pmSee #195, above. I’ve got no horse in the SHS race.
Leviticus (30ac20) — 8/22/2010 @ 9:34 pm#196 Leviticus:
Didja bother to read the next paragraph?
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/23/2010 @ 11:48 amAnnie are u m’kay?
159. Sorry – Youre right. Guilty as charged. I’m operating on assumptions as well.
— Agreeing with the pee-slurper IS something to feel guilty about.
I can’t presume to speak for everyone in my state. And and I doubt these sentiments are unique to blue states.
— So limit yourself to speaking for the Smurfs in your cabeza.
Out of frustration, I’ve also thought “let’s just split us up red/blue and be done with it”. It’s an interesting intellectual exercise, and as this discussion is proving, not that easy.
— Start out slow. You don’t want to pull that mental groin by thinking too much, too fast!
However, I think there are people who want to encourage exactly this kind of thinking. They know if we’re busy squabbling among ourselves over manufactured differences, we’ll be too busy to notice that we are being played.
— Ooo! The tricksy ones. The Illuminati . . . the dark ones *gollum* *gollum*
We’ll be too distracted by “wedge” issues to realize that we are losing ground while they become richer and more powerful. We won’t notice that they are buying our government. And we’ll be too divided to fight back. Right where they want us.
— We should eliminate the word “they” from the dictionary; then, “they” will not be able to exist, and will fade into oblivion.
Maybe we should see through their tricks and focus more on our similarities than our differences, and take back our power, our rights and our lives from corporate interests.
— Ah, so “they” DO have a name. It’s good to know exactly who is co-opting my rights and my life.
My vote is that we all go “purple” and give them hell!
Icy Texan (1bfb92) — 8/24/2010 @ 12:11 pm— Yeah! Let’s go crazy!!! Rave un2 the joy fantastic, sister!
Leviticus, your comments are a prime example – working in a smoke free environment is a civil right? Horse manure.
You can’t turn every dispute of taste, policy or preference into the level of “rights” without diluting the term into utter meaninglessness.
And by so doing, destroying important and real rights.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/24/2010 @ 12:20 pm