Tuesday, November 09, 2004
That secession talk
One of Instapundit readers emails Glenn: "You have not commented on the secession meme that is all over the place this week... its all over the internet(s) and you should comment on it." Glenn replies: "It seems too obviously idiotic to merit comment."
Well, nothing's too obviously idiotic for this blog to comment upon.
Isn't it ironic that a hundred and forty four years later the Dems are still talking about secession? Except that now it's red and blue instead of blue and grey, and it's the (now) Democratic north which wants to call it quits - and presumably join Canada.
Powerline reports on the crazy Lawrence O'Donnell advocating the secession over the next twenty years "because the red states are welfare recipients without supporting the federal government." I'm glad to know that Lawrence is so concerned about the unsustainable costs of the welfare state, but I have a feeling that his separatist urges have more to do with the gun-totting, Bible-thumping, sophistication-eschewing Southern culture, or at least the Northern caricature thereof.
There's more secession talk here and there and everywhere (some of it serious, some not), and as Dean Esmay notes, the silliness is not restricted to the Dems. Dean points to Mike Thompson's piece in the "Human Events Online" advocating for a change "expulsion" of blue states from the union.
Some people really take politics too seriously. Not to mention their totally myopic perspective. They lose two elections in a row and suddenly they are ready to say goodbye to this whole pesky democratic thing, pack up their toys and walk away. Wasn't it only the last decade (the last millennium might sound too cruel) that a very popular and charismatic Democrat triumphed twice at the polls? And what about the Democrat stranglehold on politics in the 1960s? Not to mention the twenty year Roosevelt/Truman reign. Get the picture? Politics is cyclical - once your side is up, then it's down, and then it's up again. Throwing a tantrum if the things don't go your way for a while is a sure sign of immaturity - ironic, since it comes from our moral and intellectual betters in liberal America.
There are, of course, other reasons why it's not 1860 again (what is it about liberals and the '60s?):
1) the North and the South are considerably more evenly matched than originally. In 1860, the Union had quite overwhelming superiority over the Confederacy, both in terms of manpower and industrial output. This isn't so anymore, despite whinging from the "Boston Herald"'s Brett Arends that "[o]f the Dow's 30 members, 23 are from blue states" and that "[p]er person, blue America outproduces red America by 21 percent. That's $6,700 per person per year" and that (repeating Lawrence O'Donnell's charge) "the [welfare] transfers [between red and blue states] amounted to $136 billion [in 2002]." As Arends admits, however, in 2001 the blue states produced $5.4 trillion in goods and services, which is only $700 billion more than the red states. Doesn't sound like much of a difference.
2) As Blackfive notes, "I have to mention that the military supports the President. And most military bases are in Red states." Red states have real soldiers, blue states have actors who play soldiers and intellectuals who spit at soldiers.
3) Secession would be the ultimate cop-out for the liberals, and very much against their character, as Andy Nowicki notes:
Update: Powerline blogs about the secession meme - do yourself a favour and read the whole thing; it's just bursting with insight, as a Powerline post usually does:
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Well, nothing's too obviously idiotic for this blog to comment upon.
Isn't it ironic that a hundred and forty four years later the Dems are still talking about secession? Except that now it's red and blue instead of blue and grey, and it's the (now) Democratic north which wants to call it quits - and presumably join Canada.
Powerline reports on the crazy Lawrence O'Donnell advocating the secession over the next twenty years "because the red states are welfare recipients without supporting the federal government." I'm glad to know that Lawrence is so concerned about the unsustainable costs of the welfare state, but I have a feeling that his separatist urges have more to do with the gun-totting, Bible-thumping, sophistication-eschewing Southern culture, or at least the Northern caricature thereof.
There's more secession talk here and there and everywhere (some of it serious, some not), and as Dean Esmay notes, the silliness is not restricted to the Dems. Dean points to Mike Thompson's piece in the "Human Events Online" advocating for a change "expulsion" of blue states from the union.
Some people really take politics too seriously. Not to mention their totally myopic perspective. They lose two elections in a row and suddenly they are ready to say goodbye to this whole pesky democratic thing, pack up their toys and walk away. Wasn't it only the last decade (the last millennium might sound too cruel) that a very popular and charismatic Democrat triumphed twice at the polls? And what about the Democrat stranglehold on politics in the 1960s? Not to mention the twenty year Roosevelt/Truman reign. Get the picture? Politics is cyclical - once your side is up, then it's down, and then it's up again. Throwing a tantrum if the things don't go your way for a while is a sure sign of immaturity - ironic, since it comes from our moral and intellectual betters in liberal America.
There are, of course, other reasons why it's not 1860 again (what is it about liberals and the '60s?):
1) the North and the South are considerably more evenly matched than originally. In 1860, the Union had quite overwhelming superiority over the Confederacy, both in terms of manpower and industrial output. This isn't so anymore, despite whinging from the "Boston Herald"'s Brett Arends that "[o]f the Dow's 30 members, 23 are from blue states" and that "[p]er person, blue America outproduces red America by 21 percent. That's $6,700 per person per year" and that (repeating Lawrence O'Donnell's charge) "the [welfare] transfers [between red and blue states] amounted to $136 billion [in 2002]." As Arends admits, however, in 2001 the blue states produced $5.4 trillion in goods and services, which is only $700 billion more than the red states. Doesn't sound like much of a difference.
2) As Blackfive notes, "I have to mention that the military supports the President. And most military bases are in Red states." Red states have real soldiers, blue states have actors who play soldiers and intellectuals who spit at soldiers.
3) Secession would be the ultimate cop-out for the liberals, and very much against their character, as Andy Nowicki notes:
"Seceding, after all, means departing from the people you don't like and promising to leave them alone so long as you are left alone. And liberals don't want to leave their enemies alone; instead, as their track record shows, they want to take over the government in order to force their enemies to endure perpetual sensitivity training for being such racist, sexist, homophobic, 'closed-minded' boors, i.e., for disagreeing with them."Can you really see a crusading liberal ever really giving up on his/her civilising mission to bring light to us primitives? Neh, neither can I. I think the house divided against itself is quite safe for the time being.
Update: Powerline blogs about the secession meme - do yourself a favour and read the whole thing; it's just bursting with insight, as a Powerline post usually does:
"[The three alternatives considered by the Democrats - secession, disenfranchisement of the unenlightened and assassination of the president] suggest that the Democrats are thinking their way back to their roots as the party of John Calhoun and the Confederacy, if not of the Klu Klux Klan and John Wilkes Booth."
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