@geg6: Particularly, I think, when he is very, very angry!
11.
beltane
Instead of secession, how about we try expulsion? Are these people so debased that their culture’s pinnacle of achievement was to fight a losing war over the evil and disgusting institution of slavery? If committing treason over the right to own other human beings is all these creatures have to be proud of then it must really suck to be them.
The state highway that runs near my house is named “The Grand Army of the Republic Highway”. Usually I don’t give too much thought to this, but today I’ll give my kids a little history lesson when we drive to the store later.
12.
Trinity
Damn. TNC is one of the best.
13.
matt
I don’t see the point of this post. It is already self-evident to those that can be swayed.
I’m kinda getting tired of all this preaching to the choir. Republicans are nasty bitter clingers, we get it. I’m getting bored of hearing about it. I know this in 800 different angles and for hundreds of different reasons. This isn’t really insightful.
14.
El Cid
I’m not denying that there aren’t some Confederate-Americans who truly believe that the Civil War wasn’t ‘about slavery’, but (a) a whoooooole lot of them that I’ve known knew it was and just play a public game because of updated mores, and/or (b) think it ‘wasn’t about slavery’ in the sense that of course denying African-Americans rights was OK but, you know, the focus was on higher level stuff.
Actually, the “hair tonic” quote is, in its entirety, so brilliant, that I’mma lay the whole thing on y’all:
If you believe that if we still had segregation we wouldn’t “have had all these problems,” this is the movement for you. If you believe that your president is a Muslim sleeper agent, this is the movement for you. If you honor a flag raised explicitly to destroy this country then this is the movement for you. If you flirt with secession, even now, then this movement is for you. If you are a “Real American” with no demonstrable interest in “Real America” then, by God, this movement of alchemists and creationists, of anti-science and hair tonic, is for you.
The man’s just that good.
16.
Brian J
OT, but still worth linking to. Absolutely fantastic post by Ryan Chittum at CJR’s The Audit blog on how Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase deserves to be pushed down a flight of stairs (my words, not his). Incredibly, the guy is a Democrat.
You figure out how to “sway” someone who believes we walked the earth with dinosaurs and that the fact that it snowed in February in Sweden means global warming is a hoax, you let us know, mmkay?
18.
Ash Can
TNC is a national treasure. And he’s right; this really is what the GOP has become.
Well, I suppose you could avoid anything that smacks of preaching to the choir.
Personally, I find it heartening to talk to others who find this stuff as nuts as I do and I find a lot of good points and well written things like this, much like the TNC post referenced. If it wasn’t for BJ and a few other places online, I would never have survived beyond 2000 because it has never been easy finding like-minded, well educated, well spoken people here in my little corner of Western PA/Appalachia. Perhaps you aren’t surrounded by the stupid every single goddam day the way I am. Perhaps if you were, you’d appreciate knowing there are others out there who find this shit as appalling as you do.
21.
bemused
I’d like to send this to every wingnut I know. Dog knows, they feel free to try to show me the error of my ways at every opportunity.
22.
dr. bloor
If you flirt with secession, even now, then this movement is for you.
Uh oh, I could be in trouble here.
23.
gex
Why do so many take the time to read a post and comment on how tired they are of the subject of the post? Isn’t it actually just easier to skip the post?
Actually, ignorance, like other great forces of nature, does not recognize geographical or political boundaries. I live somewhere else entirely and I imagine your neighbors would like my neighbors.
Although to be fair, my congressional district voted overwhelmingly for Obama. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
But the original point, that ignorance is everywhere, still stands.
I was hoping it would add something new. I was sad that it didn’t.
I enjoy military grade ownage and snark just like the rest of you, but its growing slightly tiresome as it doesn’t get any result other than making us feel better about not being them.
Reminds me of the biker’s post “at least we’re better than republicans…”
edit:Unrelated, but, I’m a census worker and i’m looking forward to going out there and indoctrinating thousands into the secret obama army.
29.
Joel
Ken Rudin just got smacked down on NPR for one of his nonsense political factoids.
Aren’t you in Cleveland? Heh. If I lived just 20 miles southeast (Allegheny County or downtown Pittsburgh), I could say that my district went for Obama, too. Unfortunately, I live in Beaver County, where proud Palin bumperstickers blossom and thrive and one local high school football field has what I can only describe as a shrine to the day in 2008 when both Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity were there. And where, when Obama and Biden came to our county seat the day after they accepted the nomination at the DNC, two people were arrested for insisting on being allowed to open carry at the rally to show the Kenyan that he would only take their guns from their cold, dead hands. And who have whined in the local paper almost every day since about how persecuted they were that the SS wouldn’t let them into the rally.
One suspects they’re reconsidering their endorsement of McDonnell for governor.
p.s. I notice it’s 90 degrees there. Maybe McDonnell can claim he was krazy from the heat when he issued this mess?
32.
someguy
He disparaged alchemists, yet he failed to indict the church which has 2000 years of willful ignorance to build upon.
That’s because the Republicans have a long history of hatin’ on the Catholics. They tend to vote Dem, you know, though most of them are ashamed to admit it. Admit being Catholic that is.
@matt: I’m not being snarky, but how can it add something new to a mentality that is pretty much static? I enjoy reading it from TNC because he’s so expressive and has a way with words. And, if you read the comments, there are some good dialogues happening there.
Personally, I think all this shit needs to be pointed out more and more because it’s toxic, and it’s at the base of much of the fear and loathing done by the Teabaggers and other so-called real Americans. It’s the same with the biker’s essay. That pinpointed a mentality that is not often expressed in day-to-day culture.
Besides, over at The Atlantic, chances are there are people who might read TNC’s post who might not otherwise have thought so deeply about these issues.
I regret to say many, if not most of the Palinistas I know are Catholic. I’m trying to maintain my presumption it’s strictly coincidental.
38.
Catsy
It’s Like These Guys Take Pride in Being Ignorant
Fixed.
39.
Sherrell
which is why Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are their perfect spokeswomen.
40.
trollhattan
I notice they’ve rearranged the “Voices” photos on The Atlantic Web site so that McMegan’s and TNC’s are nearly touching. Isn’t that incredibly dangerous–allowing antimatter and matter that close to one another? I’m envisioning some sort of Wingnut Large Hadron Whoopsie here.
41.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Last Sunday – Easter – I visited Gettysburg with my 30 year old son. We bought a CD package that talked while we drove the battlefield, getting out to walk at many of the sites. Took us about three hours.
Anyway, the one thing that struck me was the fact that, seemingly anyway, the North was on its last legs after incurring a humiliating loss at Fredricksburg in Virginia, and if Lee had prevailed at Gettysburg, it was thought that Lincoln might sue for peace. And let the South go through with Secession. As we drove around, I thought about how different – and probably better – it would have been had we divided into two countries. A lot of initial problems, sure, but maybe fewer problems down the road.
Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
Oh, and by the way, if you visit Gettysburg, you can also hire, for about $50, a certified guide to travel around with you. I wish we had done that, though the CD was good.
@matt: Honestly, I think for those of us who follow politics fairly closely or have given a great deal of thought to these issues, we forget that not everyone else has. My brother is in the nascent stages of recovering from being a Republican, and I have to keep reminding myself that things that are elementary to me (why would having the president talk in school to kids about staying in school be a bad thing?) are totally new to him.
44.
Fergus Wooster
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Unfortunately, a peace allowing secession wouldn’t have been the end of it. In order to be viable, the slave trade needed expansion for momentum. The CSA was planning on expanding – westward into the territories, and southward into Latin America, where they would have allied with slave states (Brazil among them).
As ugly as American imperial policy in the Southern Hemisphere has been, imagine if it were driven by the need to maintain and expand the slave trade. And imagine the USA and CSA having constant border and territorial disputes, with European powers split in their alliances between the USA and CSA.
I think we’d be pretty screwed.
45.
moe99
Hey, and it’s not confined to VA and adulation of a non existent past.
Good Housekeeping deserves our scorn and condemnation these days, as well.
Check out the home page for Sons of Confederate Veterans, which pushed for the Confederate History Month. It’s not subtle:
“The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.” http://www.scv.org
Of course, it’s just tiresome to have to ask, fight for whose freedom? Fought for constitutional rights guaranteed to whom? Etc., etc.
There’s no pretense at all: They’re claiming that the South was right, morally, constitutionally, and in every other way.
A lot of initial problems, sure, but maybe fewer problems down the road.
Unless you were black.
I understand your point, but that would have meant that we would have ended up with the Western Hemisphere’s South Africa on our border (do you seriously think they would have effectively gotten rid of slavery by now if they were a seperate country?).
I suspect we’d have been relegated to an extended period of war over the settlement and control of the rest of the continent, and the various pieces would have been susceptible to invasion from elsewhere, European-style.
49.
beltane
@phoebes-in-santa fe: It would have been better for the North in the long run. In the century and a half since the Civil War, the South has consistently been like a diseased limb we must drag around with us wherever we go.
I suppose that the enslaved people of the South might have had a different view of a Southern victory. As might the abolitionists of the North.
While it is nice to think how convenient it would now be to be rid of the South, imagine a belligerent, militaristic nation just across an ill-defined border from the United States for the last century and a half, and I’m not sure that the picture is so nice.
It;s 90 degrees here in NJ and 93 down in DC. So, where’s Al Gore’s igloo today, Mr. Inhofe?
I try to resist feeding the conflation of weather with climate, but maybe we should go ahead and hammer them with this anyway. Maybe we’ll catch an enraged teabagger on camera screaming “Weather is not climate!”
52.
Fergus Wooster
And to stretch the counter-factual, whose side do we think the CSA would have taken in WWII? The Japanese wouldn’t have had to preemptively strike us – the CSA probably would have Anschlussed the North with the support of their Teutonic brothers-in-spirit.
Hasn’t there always been an element of ‘don’t need no fancy book-learning!” in this country? Course, it’s a little different than having pride in ‘coming from the school of hard knocks.’
55.
bemused
@moe99:
omg, what we’re they thinking? She is naturally beautiful but that cover looks like a 60’s Barbie Doll. It looks suspiciously like their aim was to make Michele look odd & fake.
56.
Comrade Jake
By the way, I’m reading TNC’s book these days, and it’s damn good.
As we drove around, I thought about how different – and probably better – it would have been had we divided into two countries. A lot of initial problems, sure, but maybe fewer problems down the road. Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
Speaking for myself only*: It would suck. One of the arguments I’ve heard against any move to extend rights to minorities includes a reference to the South. It goes something like this: “Forcing the the end of slavery and then desegregation in the South resulted in a violent backlash. Therefore we should slow down to avoid [blah blah blah].”
The few all too many, the proud, the ignorant. The Real ‘Murkans.
Fixt.
59.
LuciaMia
GOP strategist Christie tells Erickson to “grow up” after his “pretty stupid” and “irresponsible” shotgun remark.
I’m curious. Why his ‘wife’s shotgun?’ Doesn’t he have one? Maybe it’s in the shop?
60.
call_me_ishmael
Notice it took a whole 2 posts before an AGW flat-earther weighed in.
They are everywhere, like cockroaches. I suspect after the inevitable nuclear Armageddon, the only thing that survives will be roaches and Republicans.
61.
beltane
@Fergus Wooster: You have a point there. However, being that treason against the United States is a way of life there, it seems wrong that they get to vote in federal elections.
I’m curious. Why his ‘wife’s shotgun?’ Doesn’t he have one? Maybe it’s in the shop?
I figured it’s because he thinks it shows his family’s gun cred, you know, even his wife has a shotgun. Maybe the kids, too.
63.
Waynski
@Fergus Wooster: and @Napolean. This. And the “diseased limb” comment by Beltane upthread was great also. The South is maddening but as another famous Southerner once said, “better to have them in the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
I think the separation would have invited invasion. The South was economically and militarily helpless without the North, and as soon as a European power realized it, a bigger, better army would have invaded to take their share of the Northern Hemisphere.
Even before the end of the firing, the South was already denuded of its resources. It had little railroad stock, little mining or manufacturing capacity, and fewer free white men. The North was able to bring in thousands of immigrant laborers, annex California, and settled the West-all resources that the Confederate Army never was able to even begin to contest for.
Slaves would not have stayed. Millions had already left for the North, and the remaining would have left as soon as it was clear that the North was truly a separate nation, the same way they left for Canada, which never recognized slavery at all. So the bulk of the South’s labor would have gone with no real replacements to be had.
imagine a belligerent, militaristic nation just across an ill-defined border from the United States for the last century and a half
Makes it easier to empathize with the Canadians, at least.
66.
Mark S.
On a related note, David Boaz makes the obvious argument that conservatives and libertarians pining for good ol’ days tend to leave out the fact that the good ol’ days were pretty terrible for everyone except well-to-do white men. He also posits that some government regulation and welfare programs are less onerous than, say, slavery.
The Reason commentariat for the most part are not convinced.
67.
Fergus Wooster
@beltane:
Great point (although I live in Texas). It seems to me only decades ago that belonging to an organization purportedly dedicated to the overthrow of the US Government was cause for formal ban from government employ and blacklisting from most private employment.
I guess It’s Okay If You’re A Neo-Confederate (IOKIYANC).
It pains me these people can vote, but more crucially that they can hold elected office. I would be totally in favor of requiring a civics test for all candidates – if you believe Jesus dictated the Constitution to tongue-speaking Founding Fathers, you’re out.
I’d add a loyalty oath, but they already pledge to uphold and defend the Constitution, so why make them lie twice.
68.
dmsilev
@phoebes-in-santa fe: On the same day as the end of the battle of Gettysburg, Grant accepted the surrender of Vicksburg. This completed the Union conquest of the Mississippi River, and essentially chopped the Confederacy into two pieces. From there, things went downhill for the Confederacy in the west, culminating with Sherman’s March.
If Gettysburg had gone for the Confederacy, it probably wouldn’t have made that much difference in the long run, barring a Lincoln loss in 1864. There was just too big a disparity in strength between the two sides.
-dms
69.
cat48
May 10 is Confederate Memorial Day (official state Holiday) here in SC. Transferred here several yrs ago and I still haven’t figured out exactly what the holiday is supposed to represent. Afraid to ask actually…….but at least it is not an entire damn month.
70.
beltane
@Carol: Does this mean that the South would have been starved until it was small enough to drown in a bathtub?
That would probably already have happened in WWI. Which might also have gone a bit differently with the US smaller than it was then and engaged in conflicts with the CSA over the preceding 50 years.
If the North had to sue for peace, and the US would have split up, the South would probably have demanded all territories south of the Mason-Dixon line as part of the settlement.
And to stretch the counter factual again. People who complain about big government note that the Civil War
foreshadowed, if not started, all of the bad big government trends in the US. They do not, however, criticize the South for seceding, and thus bringing on all those changes.
A big whocouldanode must apply, right?
If only the south had not seceded, we would not need an income tax and federal reserve…
73.
Ash Can
Nice formatting. I wonder if entering an html unstrike code would work…
The South would have restarted the slave trade (abolished in the US in 1808), and gotten into a war with Britain, who were actively fighting that, for their troubles. And that war they surely wouldn’t have won.
I think so. Thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation, Britain as already using cotton from India and Egypt, and Cuba probably would have done in a pinch. Britain had already banned slavery about 30 years previously (and most of the world was following) and wouldn’t have openly purchased supplies from a slave state.
Free laborers supported the Union and went up north because they didn’t want to compete with slave labor. Needless to say, that meant that few immigrants wanted to go South, and the skills they had stayed up north along with the population increase.
And the South was married to slavery, unlike the North which invested in modern farming and manufacturing. Which meant the South was stuck relying on commodities and the less diverse economy it created. So losing slaves was a great deal more important than even some people realized. Nobody else was going to work for free or wages too low to measure or set up shop in a place where slaves already taught some skills would compete against your free labor. There was no chance for small farms that would make the South food-independent either because small farmers couldn’t get good land.
So the South’s population would never really have grown much. Nobody would have immigrated, the slaves remaining would have left for Canada if nowhere else, and there would have been no pressure to diversify their economy until there was tremendous disaster.
In short, the South would have remained so poor that the North, or someone else, would have recaptured it in a few decades.
76.
licensed to kill time
@Ash Can:
Is the site looking wonky again? I don’t see it on Firefox..
77.
goblue72
@Mark S.: Your average Reasonoid is just a right-winger who enjoys eating arugla and French cheese.
78.
Mark S.
I have a feeling the CSA wouldn’t have lasted and would have splintered several times. Once you get secession fever, it’s hard to stop! They weren’t very united even during a war of survival.
79.
Fergus Wooster
@Calouste: Great point. I think Harry Turtledove has a series where the USA allies with the Germans in WWI and the CSA with the UK. Counterfactuals are dangerous things. . .
Also, I cannot stress enough how expansionist the South was, and how instrumental it was to maintain the institution of slavery. The South had no banking centers, no stock or bond markets, no manufacturing infrastructure. The closest proxies it had for measuring wealth were land and slaves, and only slaves were liquid. Take away the slaves and they’d have nothing – as more or less happened when they lost.
All the apologists who insists the South would have ended slavery eventually need a punch in the neck. Not only would the CSA have maintained the institution, they would have expanded it westward and southward as aggressively as possible.
I would be totally in favor of requiring a civics test for all candidates – if you believe Jesus dictated the Constitution to tongue-speaking Founding Fathers, you’re out.
I would like all candidates for governor or for national office to pass the AP US History and US Government exams. Those in high office should be able to prove they have at least as good a grasp of the facts as a bright high school junior.
82.
Paul in KY
@phoebes-in-santa fe: Just how do you think we would have helped to defeat Nazism/Japanese Militarism if we’d had 2 countries? Keep in mind that the Southern one would have supported Nazi Germany.
83.
Bob L
Of course the American civil wasn’t about slavery; it was about the South’s rights to force Northerners to roundup and return escape slaves in their states under the fugitive slave act which Lincoln refused to enforce. Conservative in action; it is all about protecting their right to force us to do something we find unethical.
Well, yeah. I agree with you that it’s not particularly productive, but there’s a difference between doing this on a weblog, which draws mainly those who agree with it already, and doing it in some sort of national media medium (even though magazines generally also draw only those who agree already). It’s just a tiny bit harder for Major Media forces to overlook The Atlantic than Balloon Juice, although they can and undoubtedly will airily dismiss this column as ‘just another one of those typically hate-filled leftist screeds’ from that 60’s-style radical Coates.
The fact that I think he’s pretty accurately describing it is nice, but more to the point is that these sorts of things have to build up a bit before the Important, Serious Commentatoriat begin to feel the push to join in. Hopefully, this marks a beginning of sorts and and we’ll start to see this sort of thing popping up here and there more and more now and then (more or less).
85.
Fergus Wooster
@Carol, Mark S:
Good points. Re: Mark’s comment, maybe it would be more gratifying had the CSA started fracturing from secession fever (splitters!), and been taken down from within by a Nat Turner-style rebellion.
I think the battle for the West was already won by the North. California was admitted as a free state, the farmers out west did not want to compete with slave labor. Even without that, the grassy plains were too arid to support the kind of cash crops that slavery would have demanded or slaves. One thing I remember from my Catton was that 6 slaves were imported to Nevada, and there were no more after that-the climate was simply too arid for that sort of farming.
Mexico would have fought bitterly against annexation, and the South would not have won without the military resources of the North-or anywhere else.
One feature that is seldom mentioned about the Civil War was that Europe had a drought during it, and Northern Wheat fed Europe during that time. Nations can postpone buying cotton: wheat and the food shortages without it create riots. So Europe stayed out of our Civil War so it could eat. The South only provided cotton, not an essential product and one that could even be bought more cheaply if the South lost from planters who had to sell what they had to pay back debts.
I don’t see the point of this post. It is already self-evident to those that can be swayed.
—
I’m kinda getting tired of all this preaching to the choir. Republicans are nasty bitter clingers, we get it. I’m getting bored of hearing about it. I know this in 800 different angles and for hundreds of different reasons. This isn’t really insightful.
The more people talk about it, the more it gets pushed up the food chain. Eventually Serious People may pay attention. And then it’s “news.”
Then, instead of “Wow! Look at all those tea partiers! This movement is important!” stories you get, “Tea partiers and racist groups: There’s a connection,” and “Why tea partiers want to secede” type stories.
Hatred isn’t geographical of course: but only the South makes a fetish of it. There were no segregated buses in Chicago or separate water fountains or any of that stuff, at least a black person could walk around relatively freely. And the North doesn’t go out of its way to commemorate the Civil War either: no self-justifying holidays or screeds. Civil War veterans are quietly rolled into the roll of all veterans of all our wars.
This. Regardless of what fantasies others have posited here, the realities say that the South would never have won in what would have been a continual border struggle, would never have stayed united, and would have begged to come crawling back into the Union, one by one.
It’s ridiculous on its face. There is nothing in the record to support the idea that the CSA could have lasted any longer than it did. Yes, they wanted to expand aggressively, but exactly HOW would they have managed it? Almost no railroads to speak of, almost no manufacturing (and that which existed was subpar at best), a very small and mostly uneducated population, and no money. With Mexico, at the time a pretty tough customer militarily, just itching to take Texas back.
The South and its military might was never anything but a myth and the idea that they would have ever won a protracted battle with Mexico or the Union is laughable, IMHO.
Mexico would have fought bitterly against annexation, and the South would not have won without the military resources of the North-or anywhere else.
Mexico was in the middle of fighting off a French occupation. It is hard to believe the CSA could have successful annex Mexico when the second most powerful country in the world at the time couldn’t.
The CSA would probably quite soon go for conquering Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico (not like the USA didn’t have a go at that themselves later), and then set their eyes on Central America. Kind of like Lebensraum avant-la-lettre.
98.
RSR
Wait, he’s black?
99.
Violet
Wow, I just opened up IE to check the site there – everything after dms’s post all has lines through it. Nightmare!
100.
Nellcote
The great Mississippi River flood of the 1920’s would have wiped out the south.
Sorry, but these fantasies do not take into account the fact that you have no idea how they would ever have been able to do these things. They had no economy, no population, and no manufacturing or infrastructure. Exactly how does a poor, mostly illiterate, agrarian country with very few inhabitants propose to take on Spain, Mexico, and France, in addition to the Union?
This stuff is driving me crazy! Facts, people. They are stubborn.
103.
licensed to kill time
@Violet:
Uh-oh. I hope John doesn’t revoke our reply arrow privileges again.
(Not seeing the strikethroughs in FF or Chrome or Opera)
What I meant was that at least you could use the public library, go downtown shopping, ride on a bus that wasn’t officially segregated, use the public facilities, vote for someone without much impediment. Sure there were neighborhoods you dare not go after night or even in the daytime, but that was unofficial. And the nightriders weren’t riding through your neighborhood. There was room for some civic life, some entertainment, some activity without the constant reminders of subjugation.
Compared to the more restrictive South, it was freer. Think of the Harlem Renaissance, of Washington in the glory days, of other places where there was a least a little space for dignity and creativity.
105.
jenniebee
@trollhattan: hehe, and this is the amount of crazy McDonnell and Cuccinelli have released in just three months in office!
The next three years and nine months are going to be mighty interesting here in the ol’ Vah-jin-ya.
106.
dmsilev
@Allan: Heh. Deeply ingrained habit, that is. It was just a hyphen anyway. I’ll try to remember not to put it in, but I’ve got a pretty strong muscle memory on that set of keystrokes, so apologizes if I forget.
“We can’t chastise the south for being a bunch of racist super dickheads until we clear out the racist dickheads in our own backyards”
Fuck that. The people of the south institutionalized slavery, fought a fucking war over it, institutionalized racism, fight every effort to redress 400 years of human rights violations, and make sure that they support the confederacy every chance they get overtly and in code. Heritage my ass.
I have no problem saying that the South’s persistent desire to make sure black people can be discriminated against certainly gives the rest of the country’s rednecks some cover. Otherwise, why the fuck do I see confederate flag bumper stickers on trucks in upstate NY?
108.
dmsilev
@Violet: It was just one little hyphen. Who would have thought that one little hyphen could bring down an entire blog?
That, and IE sucks.
dms
109.
Fergus Wooster
@Geg6: Noooo! Don’t take my counterfactual fantasies away!
I do agree that the CSA would have collapsed under its own contradictions, unless it pulled off the (unlikely) feat of getting a major European sponsor. It would have caused a bit more damage before it collapsed. Some border disputes, some attempts at expansion. And several years (or a decade or two) of continued misery for the slaves.
Actually the thought of them trying to invade Mexico and being humiliated by brown people makes me happy. The thought of them coming back into the Union, state-by-state, hat-in-hand, even more so.
110.
Violet
@licensed to kill time:
Looks fine in FF for me, but others were mentioning it so I went to check it out. Looks terrible in IE – hardly readable.
The fact is, the South lost. And they were sore losers. The descendants of those sore losers are today’s teabaggers. Still sore losers.
The link goes to the Strib. I’m not clicking on that streaming link from work. No way.
112.
jenniebee
no more strikes?
113.
stuckinred
@Carol: I thought that till I moved down here and officiated high school basketball in small towns. Black and white people actually LIVE in the same places unlike much of the midwest. My mom was from Southern Illinois and my dad told me about the sing on the county line that said “the sun never sets on a n)(*&’s back” in Williamson County. My main point is that we have a huge problem with institutional racism everywhere in this country and to narrow it to the south is . . . .narrow. IMHO
Hasn’t there always been an element of ‘don’t need no fancy book-learning!” in this country? Course, it’s a little different than having pride in ‘coming from the school of hard knocks.’
My hubster and I talk about this often and have come to an untested conclusion: that, in the past, most Americans farmed, worked for themselves or for small companies. They might have been ignorant, but they dealt with the real world on a daily basis — the school of hard knocks — so they were grounded to a certain extent and responsible for themselves and their families. Now, most Americans work for others, often government or giant corporations. So they are still ignorant, but are very unconnected with the realities of life. You can see the end result in the likes of Sarah Palin, James Inhofe and Michelle Bachmann. No book learning and no common sense neither.
My main point is that we have a huge problem with institutional racism everywhere in this country and to narrow it to the south is . . . .narrow. IMHO
But here’s where your point runs into the problems of today. Every time a poll comes out showing the approval rating for President Obama, or his favorable/unfavorable rating, every region of the country gives him exceedingly high marks…except for the South. And it’s not just that they kind of don’t like him; his approval rating in the South is the direct inverse of the rest of the country. You take away those numbers, and the guy is still riding pretty fucking high.
Yes, there is institutional racism all over the country. But what you’re doing in the above example really isn’t all that different from the false equivalency bullshit we complain about the Village doing on a regular basis. To compare the legacy of institutional racism in the South today versus the rest of the country isn’t even close. The South is like it’s own different world at this point.
Few people have noted that BET billionaire Sheila Johnson was a proud supporter of this treason-bagger – because he hates unions.
121.
beltane
@Dave: It’s the official name of Route 15 in Vermont, runs east-west across the northern quarter of the state.
122.
ChrisS
No book learning and no common sense neither.
The problem I’ve come across is that “common sense” is defined by the rubes as simple answers to complicated questions.
“Ha, that guy with his fancy degree, thinks he’s better than me, can’t even fix his own car.” and “Stupid liberals think they can fix everything, but I bet they couldn’t build a house like I can. chortle, probably can’t even run a table-saw without taking their fingers off.”
Additionally, “politically incorrect,” a term I absolutely loathe, is defined as hate speech.
“Now, I may be a little politically incorrect, but I think that if women couldn’t vote, the country would be a lot better off.”
So, the end result is that all the country’s problems could be solved by people with a little common-sense who aren’t afraid to be a little politically correct. And probably 66% of the country think that this is an accurate description of themselves.
While it is nice to think how convenient it would now be to be rid of the South, imagine a belligerent, militaristic nation just across an ill-defined border from the United States for the last century and a half, and I’m not sure that the picture is so nice.
What’s there to imagine? You just described India and Pakistan.
“Suspect Anthony Pacherille, 16, of Cooperstown, has a Facebook account. On Friday, the day he is suspected of shooting Wesley Lippitt, 16, in the hallway in front of the Cooperstown Police Station, that account listed his Facebook groups as “il fascismo,” “HATE Obama,” “Mussolini Benito” and “obama sucks,” according to information obtained by The Daily Star.”
126.
bemused
@Svensker:
I think you & your hubster are on to something. It sure applies to my grandparents & their generation in the rural/small town midwest.
127.
BR
That’s a direct quote of Obama from back during the infamous “we won’t inflate our tires properly because Obama said it was a good idea” incident of 2008.
the North was on its last legs after incurring a humiliating loss at Fredricksburg in Virginia, and if Lee had prevailed at Gettysburg, it was thought that Lincoln might sue for peace.
Not really. Lee didn’t have a supply line to Pennsylvania. After the battle of Gettysburg, his army was just about out of ammunition. So even if Meade had gotten smacked around, Lee would have had to retreat and the Union could trumpet that as a victory. The North had plenty of manpower. I don’t think public opinion in the North was particularly weak in 1863, New York draft riots notwithstanding.
130.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but WaPo reporting that the FBI has arrested the guy who was sending death threatsa to Nancy Pelosi.
131.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Thanks all who answered my somewhat flaky question about two countries if the South had separated completely. Counter factuals are very interesting.
Touring Gettysburg really was thought-provoking. I’d advise any of you who haven’t done it to put it on your “to-do” list.
132.
Nick
Like? They ARE proud of being ignorant. The right is very anti-intellectual.
133.
The Populist
I heard some ignant cracker on Howard Stern’s show today. I was flipping around Sirius and heard a guy using the N word. I know, I know it’s Howard but this fella Glenn Miller is running racist ads in Missouri as a tea bag candidate.
I heard him and I realize Stern was giving him the rope but it’s sad this idiot really believes the nonsense he spouts. Man.
134.
giltay
@Carol: Canada as a nation never had slavery, but colonial Canada did, although it was eradicated by the time of the US Civil War. The slave trade was abolished in Upper Canada (Ontario) in the second session of Parliament in 1794, and in all British colonies in 1807. No slaves could be imported, so slaves who escaped into British North America became free. Existing slaves in BNA mostly remained slaves until the abolition of slavery in the Empire in 1833.
(I apologize for the pedantic history lesson.)
135.
Fergus Wooster
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Thanks for bringing it up! You really stirred up the thread. It’s good to see people get heated around counterfactual wars.
Spain was also a poor, mostly illiterate, agrarian country with few inhabitants at that point in time. It took the US only 4 months to beat them in 1898 and that included taking the Philippines and building an army from scratch.
And I didn’t suggest they would take on Mexico or France, just Spain and a few small independent nations like Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua.
So the South’s population would never really have grown much. Nobody would have immigrated, the slaves remaining would have left for Canada if nowhere else, and there would have been no pressure to diversify their economy until there was tremendous disaster.
I’ve seen this mentioned in a couple of posts as though slavery was some kind of picnic and blacks could just pick up and leave if they had a hankering to see what was up North.
Had the South won or agreed to a truce, they would have sued to have slaves returned, or be paid reparations (see the aftermath of the Revolutionary War as an example). The South would have sought some treaty version of the Fugitive Slave Act and some recognition of segregation and discrimination by the North, which would inevitably have poisoned whatever the North believed that it stood for.
And no doubt, the South would have unleashed all kinds of horrors to punish blacks for defiance and to crush any impulses to flee.
There is little doubt, as other posters have noted, that the South would have sought to expand slavery by annexing Cuba or even parts of Mexico (there were wild plans about this floating around the Confederacy).
And who knows the degree to which various European and South American governments would have recognized the Confederacy even if they abhorred its policies.
Well, 1898 was 37 years in the future, Spain had a pretty formidable navy and a steel industry making the finest steel in the world in the 1860s, and if you’re taking on Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua, you’re going to be taking on Spain, France, and Mexico all at once. With the Union as their ally.
Conservative in action; it is all about protecting their right to force us to do something we find unethical.
I’m trying to imagine — and having a difficult time of it — the evolution from a CSA with the continued slave trade … to the insistence of being The One True Standard-Bearer of “The Culture of Life.”
No book learning and no common sense neither.
The problem I’ve come across is that “common sense” is defined by the rubes as simple answers to complicated questions.
The “common sense” I’m talking about here is that which is learned by actually doing things — like taking care of your own farm, or running your own company and making a payroll. Experience in the real world, not just punching a time clock at WalMart or being the 82nd accountant at mega-corporation. Not that I’m denigrating those jobs, just that I think a world made up of “yeoman farmers” and small shopkeepers is a very different world than one made up of salaried employees.
Good post. Agreed. I do not understand why people like that support ANYBODY who would make it easier for them to lose a job or lose money in the markets.
People in this country truly believe they, too, can be rich like Warren Buffett or famous like any number of “celebutards”. The realism of the past (which had firm regulations that still allowed companies to grow and America turned into an economic powerhouse) where the GOP usually is leading us into negative economic times (look it up rightie trolls, it’s so true) by taking away regulations and making capitalism into a contact sport where only the strong survive.
It’s time Teddy Roosevelt get reincarnated and take that fucking big stick and beat down on the greedy and stupid.
142.
gmd
I can dream can’t I. And apologies to the genius who wrote this. I would like to give credit but I do not know who the author is.
“Dear Red States,
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us.
In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the former slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get Enron and WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.
We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we
get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources there.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
The Red States, on the other hand, will have to cope with 88 % of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 % of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite , thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11,and 61% of you crazy assholes believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
By the way, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Peace,
Blue States”
143.
DPirate
You know they can’t read, jeez.
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Svensker
If they don’t have ignorance, they don’t have nothin’ at all.
MattF
“Anti-science and hair tonic”– that’s good, if a little nasty to the straight-haired.
Linda Featheringill
Great post.
You get kind of tired explaining things to some of these ignorant people.
Can we just step around the ijits and try to get something done in spite of them?
The parents and grandparents of the current crop interfered mightily with my childhood. Why should I let their ilk mess up my old age as well?
There must be something I could agitate for that would piss these bastards off. Let me think . . . . .
Pigs & Spiders
Something something TNC is black something something socialist.
/winger
geg6
I swooned when I read that this morning. TNC really has a knack of finding a phrase that perfectly encapsulates the truth, doesn’t he?
Pigs & Spiders
Something something TNC is black something something Forefathers!
/winger
licensed to kill time
The few, the proud, the ignorant. The Real ‘Murkans.
Mudge
He disparaged alchemists, yet he failed to indict the church which has 2000 years of willful ignorance to build upon.
Zifnab
Hehe, hair tonic indeed.
ellaesther
@geg6: Particularly, I think, when he is very, very angry!
beltane
Instead of secession, how about we try expulsion? Are these people so debased that their culture’s pinnacle of achievement was to fight a losing war over the evil and disgusting institution of slavery? If committing treason over the right to own other human beings is all these creatures have to be proud of then it must really suck to be them.
The state highway that runs near my house is named “The Grand Army of the Republic Highway”. Usually I don’t give too much thought to this, but today I’ll give my kids a little history lesson when we drive to the store later.
Trinity
Damn. TNC is one of the best.
matt
I don’t see the point of this post. It is already self-evident to those that can be swayed.
I’m kinda getting tired of all this preaching to the choir. Republicans are nasty bitter clingers, we get it. I’m getting bored of hearing about it. I know this in 800 different angles and for hundreds of different reasons. This isn’t really insightful.
El Cid
I’m not denying that there aren’t some Confederate-Americans who truly believe that the Civil War wasn’t ‘about slavery’, but (a) a whoooooole lot of them that I’ve known knew it was and just play a public game because of updated mores, and/or (b) think it ‘wasn’t about slavery’ in the sense that of course denying African-Americans rights was OK but, you know, the focus was on higher level stuff.
ellaesther
Actually, the “hair tonic” quote is, in its entirety, so brilliant, that I’mma lay the whole thing on y’all:
The man’s just that good.
Brian J
OT, but still worth linking to. Absolutely fantastic post by Ryan Chittum at CJR’s The Audit blog on how Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase deserves to be pushed down a flight of stairs (my words, not his). Incredibly, the guy is a Democrat.
With Democrats like that, who needs Republicans?
jibeaux
@matt:
You figure out how to “sway” someone who believes we walked the earth with dinosaurs and that the fact that it snowed in February in Sweden means global warming is a hoax, you let us know, mmkay?
Ash Can
TNC is a national treasure. And he’s right; this really is what the GOP has become.
matt
@jibeaux:
You can’t, That’s my point.
This whole exercise just ends up in being an exercise in SICK BURNS BRO.
We’re just the onlookers going OH SNAP.
It feels great, but nothing is accomplished by it.
geg6
@matt:
Well, I suppose you could avoid anything that smacks of preaching to the choir.
Personally, I find it heartening to talk to others who find this stuff as nuts as I do and I find a lot of good points and well written things like this, much like the TNC post referenced. If it wasn’t for BJ and a few other places online, I would never have survived beyond 2000 because it has never been easy finding like-minded, well educated, well spoken people here in my little corner of Western PA/Appalachia. Perhaps you aren’t surrounded by the stupid every single goddam day the way I am. Perhaps if you were, you’d appreciate knowing there are others out there who find this shit as appalling as you do.
bemused
I’d like to send this to every wingnut I know. Dog knows, they feel free to try to show me the error of my ways at every opportunity.
dr. bloor
Uh oh, I could be in trouble here.
gex
Why do so many take the time to read a post and comment on how tired they are of the subject of the post? Isn’t it actually just easier to skip the post?
Susan Kitchens
aaaand to all the others mentioned by TNC, there’s anti-census. (Which makes this OT post on-topic)
I hafta post a win-the-thread comment from elsewhere — a TPM story on Census Paranoia.
The setup:
The thread-winner:
LuciaMia
Like the FL urologist whose panties are in a twist over the Healthcare bill while admiting he doesn’t know what’s actually in it.
It;s 90 degrees here in NJ and 93 down in DC. So, where’s Al Gore’s igloo today, Mr. Inhofe?
licensed to kill time
@Susan Kitchens:
V. good! Even better if it was the full quote:
Linda Featheringill
To geg6:
Actually, ignorance, like other great forces of nature, does not recognize geographical or political boundaries. I live somewhere else entirely and I imagine your neighbors would like my neighbors.
Although to be fair, my congressional district voted overwhelmingly for Obama. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
But the original point, that ignorance is everywhere, still stands.
matt
@gex:
I was hoping it would add something new. I was sad that it didn’t.
I enjoy military grade ownage and snark just like the rest of you, but its growing slightly tiresome as it doesn’t get any result other than making us feel better about not being them.
Reminds me of the biker’s post “at least we’re better than republicans…”
edit:Unrelated, but, I’m a census worker and i’m looking forward to going out there and indoctrinating thousands into the secret obama army.
Joel
Ken Rudin just got smacked down on NPR for one of his nonsense political factoids.
I liked that.
geg6
@Linda Featheringill:
Aren’t you in Cleveland? Heh. If I lived just 20 miles southeast (Allegheny County or downtown Pittsburgh), I could say that my district went for Obama, too. Unfortunately, I live in Beaver County, where proud Palin bumperstickers blossom and thrive and one local high school football field has what I can only describe as a shrine to the day in 2008 when both Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity were there. And where, when Obama and Biden came to our county seat the day after they accepted the nomination at the DNC, two people were arrested for insisting on being allowed to open carry at the rally to show the Kenyan that he would only take their guns from their cold, dead hands. And who have whined in the local paper almost every day since about how persecuted they were that the SS wouldn’t let them into the rally.
trollhattan
The Richmond Times-Dispatch weighs in.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/editorials/article/ED-HIST07_20100406-175603/335431/
One suspects they’re reconsidering their endorsement of McDonnell for governor.
p.s. I notice it’s 90 degrees there. Maybe McDonnell can claim he was krazy from the heat when he issued this mess?
someguy
That’s because the Republicans have a long history of hatin’ on the Catholics. They tend to vote Dem, you know, though most of them are ashamed to admit it. Admit being Catholic that is.
asiangrrlMN
@matt: I’m not being snarky, but how can it add something new to a mentality that is pretty much static? I enjoy reading it from TNC because he’s so expressive and has a way with words. And, if you read the comments, there are some good dialogues happening there.
Personally, I think all this shit needs to be pointed out more and more because it’s toxic, and it’s at the base of much of the fear and loathing done by the Teabaggers and other so-called real Americans. It’s the same with the biker’s essay. That pinpointed a mentality that is not often expressed in day-to-day culture.
Besides, over at The Atlantic, chances are there are people who might read TNC’s post who might not otherwise have thought so deeply about these issues.
matt
@asiangrrlMN:
Fair enough, and well said!
Nellcote
I’m not a neo-confederate but I do have to confess to day dreaming about a 150mile wide strip of the west coast seceeding ocasionally.
jibeaux
@matt:
So, we don’t sway, and we shouldn’t talk amongst ourselves ……BUT THE TOOBZ WILL BE EMPTY.
trollhattan
@someguy:
I regret to say many, if not most of the Palinistas I know are Catholic. I’m trying to maintain my presumption it’s strictly coincidental.
Catsy
Fixed.
Sherrell
which is why Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are their perfect spokeswomen.
trollhattan
I notice they’ve rearranged the “Voices” photos on The Atlantic Web site so that McMegan’s and TNC’s are nearly touching. Isn’t that incredibly dangerous–allowing antimatter and matter that close to one another? I’m envisioning some sort of Wingnut Large Hadron Whoopsie here.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Last Sunday – Easter – I visited Gettysburg with my 30 year old son. We bought a CD package that talked while we drove the battlefield, getting out to walk at many of the sites. Took us about three hours.
Anyway, the one thing that struck me was the fact that, seemingly anyway, the North was on its last legs after incurring a humiliating loss at Fredricksburg in Virginia, and if Lee had prevailed at Gettysburg, it was thought that Lincoln might sue for peace. And let the South go through with Secession. As we drove around, I thought about how different – and probably better – it would have been had we divided into two countries. A lot of initial problems, sure, but maybe fewer problems down the road.
Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
Oh, and by the way, if you visit Gettysburg, you can also hire, for about $50, a certified guide to travel around with you. I wish we had done that, though the CD was good.
rikyrah
they are who we thought they were.
anyone who actually researched this mofo during the election canNOT be surprised.
nothing he has done has shocked me in the least.
asiangrrlMN
@matt: Honestly, I think for those of us who follow politics fairly closely or have given a great deal of thought to these issues, we forget that not everyone else has. My brother is in the nascent stages of recovering from being a Republican, and I have to keep reminding myself that things that are elementary to me (why would having the president talk in school to kids about staying in school be a bad thing?) are totally new to him.
Fergus Wooster
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Unfortunately, a peace allowing secession wouldn’t have been the end of it. In order to be viable, the slave trade needed expansion for momentum. The CSA was planning on expanding – westward into the territories, and southward into Latin America, where they would have allied with slave states (Brazil among them).
As ugly as American imperial policy in the Southern Hemisphere has been, imagine if it were driven by the need to maintain and expand the slave trade. And imagine the USA and CSA having constant border and territorial disputes, with European powers split in their alliances between the USA and CSA.
I think we’d be pretty screwed.
moe99
Hey, and it’s not confined to VA and adulation of a non existent past.
Good Housekeeping deserves our scorn and condemnation these days, as well.
http://jezebel.com/5511687/good-housekeeping-gives-michelle-obama-a-photoshop-facelift
EconWatcher
Check out the home page for Sons of Confederate Veterans, which pushed for the Confederate History Month. It’s not subtle:
“The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.” http://www.scv.org
Of course, it’s just tiresome to have to ask, fight for whose freedom? Fought for constitutional rights guaranteed to whom? Etc., etc.
There’s no pretense at all: They’re claiming that the South was right, morally, constitutionally, and in every other way.
Napoleon
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Unless you were black.
I understand your point, but that would have meant that we would have ended up with the Western Hemisphere’s South Africa on our border (do you seriously think they would have effectively gotten rid of slavery by now if they were a seperate country?).
trollhattan
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
I suspect we’d have been relegated to an extended period of war over the settlement and control of the rest of the continent, and the various pieces would have been susceptible to invasion from elsewhere, European-style.
beltane
@phoebes-in-santa fe: It would have been better for the North in the long run. In the century and a half since the Civil War, the South has consistently been like a diseased limb we must drag around with us wherever we go.
David in NY
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
I suppose that the enslaved people of the South might have had a different view of a Southern victory. As might the abolitionists of the North.
While it is nice to think how convenient it would now be to be rid of the South, imagine a belligerent, militaristic nation just across an ill-defined border from the United States for the last century and a half, and I’m not sure that the picture is so nice.
gnomedad
@LuciaMia:
I try to resist feeding the conflation of weather with climate, but maybe we should go ahead and hammer them with this anyway. Maybe we’ll catch an enraged teabagger on camera screaming “Weather is not climate!”
Fergus Wooster
And to stretch the counter-factual, whose side do we think the CSA would have taken in WWII? The Japanese wouldn’t have had to preemptively strike us – the CSA probably would have Anschlussed the North with the support of their Teutonic brothers-in-spirit.
licensed to kill time
GOP strategist Christie tells Erickson to “grow up” after his “pretty stupid” and “irresponsible” shotgun remark.
Ha.
LuciaMia
Hasn’t there always been an element of ‘don’t need no fancy book-learning!” in this country? Course, it’s a little different than having pride in ‘coming from the school of hard knocks.’
bemused
@moe99:
omg, what we’re they thinking? She is naturally beautiful but that cover looks like a 60’s Barbie Doll. It looks suspiciously like their aim was to make Michele look odd & fake.
Comrade Jake
By the way, I’m reading TNC’s book these days, and it’s damn good.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Speaking for myself only*: It would suck. One of the arguments I’ve heard against any move to extend rights to minorities includes a reference to the South. It goes something like this: “Forcing the the end of slavery and then desegregation in the South resulted in a violent backlash. Therefore we should slow down to avoid [blah blah blah].”
Utter garbage.
*And my family and many of my friends…
Roger Moore
@licensed to kill time:
Fixt.
LuciaMia
I’m curious. Why his ‘wife’s shotgun?’ Doesn’t he have one? Maybe it’s in the shop?
call_me_ishmael
Notice it took a whole 2 posts before an AGW flat-earther weighed in.
They are everywhere, like cockroaches. I suspect after the inevitable nuclear Armageddon, the only thing that survives will be roaches and Republicans.
beltane
@Fergus Wooster: You have a point there. However, being that treason against the United States is a way of life there, it seems wrong that they get to vote in federal elections.
licensed to kill time
@LuciaMia:
I figured it’s because he thinks it shows his family’s gun cred, you know, even his wife has a shotgun. Maybe the kids, too.
Waynski
@Fergus Wooster: and @Napolean. This. And the “diseased limb” comment by Beltane upthread was great also. The South is maddening but as another famous Southerner once said, “better to have them in the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
Carol
I think the separation would have invited invasion. The South was economically and militarily helpless without the North, and as soon as a European power realized it, a bigger, better army would have invaded to take their share of the Northern Hemisphere.
Even before the end of the firing, the South was already denuded of its resources. It had little railroad stock, little mining or manufacturing capacity, and fewer free white men. The North was able to bring in thousands of immigrant laborers, annex California, and settled the West-all resources that the Confederate Army never was able to even begin to contest for.
Slaves would not have stayed. Millions had already left for the North, and the remaining would have left as soon as it was clear that the North was truly a separate nation, the same way they left for Canada, which never recognized slavery at all. So the bulk of the South’s labor would have gone with no real replacements to be had.
Ash Can
@David in NY:
Makes it easier to empathize with the Canadians, at least.
Mark S.
On a related note, David Boaz makes the obvious argument that conservatives and libertarians pining for good ol’ days tend to leave out the fact that the good ol’ days were pretty terrible for everyone except well-to-do white men. He also posits that some government regulation and welfare programs are less onerous than, say, slavery.
The Reason commentariat for the most part are not convinced.
Fergus Wooster
@beltane:
Great point (although I live in Texas). It seems to me only decades ago that belonging to an organization purportedly dedicated to the overthrow of the US Government was cause for formal ban from government employ and blacklisting from most private employment.
I guess It’s Okay If You’re A Neo-Confederate (IOKIYANC).
It pains me these people can vote, but more crucially that they can hold elected office. I would be totally in favor of requiring a civics test for all candidates – if you believe Jesus dictated the Constitution to tongue-speaking Founding Fathers, you’re out.
I’d add a loyalty oath, but they already pledge to uphold and defend the Constitution, so why make them lie twice.
dmsilev
@phoebes-in-santa fe: On the same day as the end of the battle of Gettysburg, Grant accepted the surrender of Vicksburg. This completed the Union conquest of the Mississippi River, and essentially chopped the Confederacy into two pieces. From there, things went downhill for the Confederacy in the west, culminating with Sherman’s March.
If Gettysburg had gone for the Confederacy, it probably wouldn’t have made that much difference in the long run, barring a Lincoln loss in 1864. There was just too big a disparity in strength between the two sides.
-dms
cat48
May 10 is Confederate Memorial Day (official state Holiday) here in SC. Transferred here several yrs ago and I still haven’t figured out exactly what the holiday is supposed to represent. Afraid to ask actually…….but at least it is not an entire damn month.
beltane
@Carol: Does this mean that the South would have been starved until it was small enough to drown in a bathtub?
Calouste
@Fergus Wooster:
That would probably already have happened in WWI. Which might also have gone a bit differently with the US smaller than it was then and engaged in conflicts with the CSA over the preceding 50 years.
If the North had to sue for peace, and the US would have split up, the South would probably have demanded all territories south of the Mason-Dixon line as part of the settlement.
catclub
@Fergus Wooster: #52
And to stretch the counter factual again. People who complain about big government note that the Civil War
foreshadowed, if not started, all of the bad big government trends in the US. They do not, however, criticize the South for seceding, and thus bringing on all those changes.
A big whocouldanode must apply, right?
If only the south had not seceded, we would not need an income tax and federal reserve…
Ash Can
Nice formatting. I wonder if entering an html unstrike code would work…
…Nope.
Calouste
@Carol:
The South would have restarted the slave trade (abolished in the US in 1808), and gotten into a war with Britain, who were actively fighting that, for their troubles. And that war they surely wouldn’t have won.
Carol
I think so. Thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation, Britain as already using cotton from India and Egypt, and Cuba probably would have done in a pinch. Britain had already banned slavery about 30 years previously (and most of the world was following) and wouldn’t have openly purchased supplies from a slave state.
Free laborers supported the Union and went up north because they didn’t want to compete with slave labor. Needless to say, that meant that few immigrants wanted to go South, and the skills they had stayed up north along with the population increase.
And the South was married to slavery, unlike the North which invested in modern farming and manufacturing. Which meant the South was stuck relying on commodities and the less diverse economy it created. So losing slaves was a great deal more important than even some people realized. Nobody else was going to work for free or wages too low to measure or set up shop in a place where slaves already taught some skills would compete against your free labor. There was no chance for small farms that would make the South food-independent either because small farmers couldn’t get good land.
So the South’s population would never really have grown much. Nobody would have immigrated, the slaves remaining would have left for Canada if nowhere else, and there would have been no pressure to diversify their economy until there was tremendous disaster.
In short, the South would have remained so poor that the North, or someone else, would have recaptured it in a few decades.
licensed to kill time
@Ash Can:
Is the site looking wonky again? I don’t see it on Firefox..
goblue72
@Mark S.: Your average Reasonoid is just a right-winger who enjoys eating arugla and French cheese.
Mark S.
I have a feeling the CSA wouldn’t have lasted and would have splintered several times. Once you get secession fever, it’s hard to stop! They weren’t very united even during a war of survival.
Fergus Wooster
@Calouste: Great point. I think Harry Turtledove has a series where the USA allies with the Germans in WWI and the CSA with the UK. Counterfactuals are dangerous things. . .
Also, I cannot stress enough how expansionist the South was, and how instrumental it was to maintain the institution of slavery. The South had no banking centers, no stock or bond markets, no manufacturing infrastructure. The closest proxies it had for measuring wealth were land and slaves, and only slaves were liquid. Take away the slaves and they’d have nothing – as more or less happened when they lost.
All the apologists who insists the South would have ended slavery eventually need a punch in the neck. Not only would the CSA have maintained the institution, they would have expanded it westward and southward as aggressively as possible.
Liz
@Trinity:
Yes, he is.
R-Jud
@Fergus Wooster:
I would like all candidates for governor or for national office to pass the AP US History and US Government exams. Those in high office should be able to prove they have at least as good a grasp of the facts as a bright high school junior.
Paul in KY
@phoebes-in-santa fe: Just how do you think we would have helped to defeat Nazism/Japanese Militarism if we’d had 2 countries? Keep in mind that the Southern one would have supported Nazi Germany.
Bob L
Of course the American civil wasn’t about slavery; it was about the South’s rights to force Northerners to roundup and return escape slaves in their states under the fugitive slave act which Lincoln refused to enforce. Conservative in action; it is all about protecting their right to force us to do something we find unethical.
JohnR
@matt:
Well, yeah. I agree with you that it’s not particularly productive, but there’s a difference between doing this on a weblog, which draws mainly those who agree with it already, and doing it in some sort of national media medium (even though magazines generally also draw only those who agree already). It’s just a tiny bit harder for Major Media forces to overlook The Atlantic than Balloon Juice, although they can and undoubtedly will airily dismiss this column as ‘just another one of those typically hate-filled leftist screeds’ from that 60’s-style radical Coates.
The fact that I think he’s pretty accurately describing it is nice, but more to the point is that these sorts of things have to build up a bit before the Important, Serious Commentatoriat begin to feel the push to join in. Hopefully, this marks a beginning of sorts and and we’ll start to see this sort of thing popping up here and there more and more now and then (more or less).
Fergus Wooster
@Carol, Mark S:
Good points. Re: Mark’s comment, maybe it would be more gratifying had the CSA started fracturing from secession fever (splitters!), and been taken down from within by a Nat Turner-style rebellion.
Elvis Elvisberg
Ignorance in defense of slavery is no vice.
Carol
I think the battle for the West was already won by the North. California was admitted as a free state, the farmers out west did not want to compete with slave labor. Even without that, the grassy plains were too arid to support the kind of cash crops that slavery would have demanded or slaves. One thing I remember from my Catton was that 6 slaves were imported to Nevada, and there were no more after that-the climate was simply too arid for that sort of farming.
Mexico would have fought bitterly against annexation, and the South would not have won without the military resources of the North-or anywhere else.
One feature that is seldom mentioned about the Civil War was that Europe had a drought during it, and Northern Wheat fed Europe during that time. Nations can postpone buying cotton: wheat and the food shortages without it create riots. So Europe stayed out of our Civil War so it could eat. The South only provided cotton, not an essential product and one that could even be bought more cheaply if the South lost from planters who had to sell what they had to pay back debts.
stuckinred
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
I do I do, my favorite quote in this kind of conversation is from Dr Martin Luther King
I’m from Chicago and have lived in Georgia for 25 years. If you think this shit is geographical you are dreaming.
Violet
@matt:
The more people talk about it, the more it gets pushed up the food chain. Eventually Serious People may pay attention. And then it’s “news.”
Then, instead of “Wow! Look at all those tea partiers! This movement is important!” stories you get, “Tea partiers and racist groups: There’s a connection,” and “Why tea partiers want to secede” type stories.
stuckinred
Listen to King’s remarks after you watch the crowd
Chicago_King 1966
Carol
Hatred isn’t geographical of course: but only the South makes a fetish of it. There were no segregated buses in Chicago or separate water fountains or any of that stuff, at least a black person could walk around relatively freely. And the North doesn’t go out of its way to commemorate the Civil War either: no self-justifying holidays or screeds. Civil War veterans are quietly rolled into the roll of all veterans of all our wars.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Tunch sez: I’m in ur blog. Scratchin up ur postz.
stuckinred
@Carol: @Carol:
You are serious aren’t you?
geg6
@Carol:
This. Regardless of what fantasies others have posited here, the realities say that the South would never have won in what would have been a continual border struggle, would never have stayed united, and would have begged to come crawling back into the Union, one by one.
It’s ridiculous on its face. There is nothing in the record to support the idea that the CSA could have lasted any longer than it did. Yes, they wanted to expand aggressively, but exactly HOW would they have managed it? Almost no railroads to speak of, almost no manufacturing (and that which existed was subpar at best), a very small and mostly uneducated population, and no money. With Mexico, at the time a pretty tough customer militarily, just itching to take Texas back.
The South and its military might was never anything but a myth and the idea that they would have ever won a protracted battle with Mexico or the Union is laughable, IMHO.
Allan
Damn you dms and your em dashes!
Bob L
@Carol:
Mexico was in the middle of fighting off a French occupation. It is hard to believe the CSA could have successful annex Mexico when the second most powerful country in the world at the time couldn’t.
Calouste
@Fergus Wooster:
The CSA would probably quite soon go for conquering Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico (not like the USA didn’t have a go at that themselves later), and then set their eyes on Central America. Kind of like Lebensraum avant-la-lettre.
RSR
Wait, he’s black?
Violet
Wow, I just opened up IE to check the site there – everything after dms’s post all has lines through it. Nightmare!
Nellcote
The great Mississippi River flood of the 1920’s would have wiped out the south.
Allan
BREAKING: Teabagger detonates WV workplace; dozens slain
geg6
@Calouste:
Sorry, but these fantasies do not take into account the fact that you have no idea how they would ever have been able to do these things. They had no economy, no population, and no manufacturing or infrastructure. Exactly how does a poor, mostly illiterate, agrarian country with very few inhabitants propose to take on Spain, Mexico, and France, in addition to the Union?
This stuff is driving me crazy! Facts, people. They are stubborn.
licensed to kill time
@Violet:
Uh-oh. I hope John doesn’t revoke our reply arrow privileges again.
(Not seeing the strikethroughs in FF or Chrome or Opera)
Carol
@stuckinred:
What I meant was that at least you could use the public library, go downtown shopping, ride on a bus that wasn’t officially segregated, use the public facilities, vote for someone without much impediment. Sure there were neighborhoods you dare not go after night or even in the daytime, but that was unofficial. And the nightriders weren’t riding through your neighborhood. There was room for some civic life, some entertainment, some activity without the constant reminders of subjugation.
Compared to the more restrictive South, it was freer. Think of the Harlem Renaissance, of Washington in the glory days, of other places where there was a least a little space for dignity and creativity.
jenniebee
@trollhattan: hehe, and this is the amount of crazy McDonnell and Cuccinelli have released in just three months in office!
The next three years and nine months are going to be mighty interesting here in the ol’ Vah-jin-ya.
dmsilev
@Allan: Heh. Deeply ingrained habit, that is. It was just a hyphen anyway. I’ll try to remember not to put it in, but I’ve got a pretty strong muscle memory on that set of keystrokes, so apologizes if I forget.
dms
ChrisS
@stuckinred:
Oh for fuck sakes …
“We can’t chastise the south for being a bunch of racist super dickheads until we clear out the racist dickheads in our own backyards”
Fuck that. The people of the south institutionalized slavery, fought a fucking war over it, institutionalized racism, fight every effort to redress 400 years of human rights violations, and make sure that they support the confederacy every chance they get overtly and in code. Heritage my ass.
I have no problem saying that the South’s persistent desire to make sure black people can be discriminated against certainly gives the rest of the country’s rednecks some cover. Otherwise, why the fuck do I see confederate flag bumper stickers on trucks in upstate NY?
dmsilev
@Violet: It was just one little hyphen. Who would have thought that one little hyphen could bring down an entire blog?
That, and IE sucks.
dms
Fergus Wooster
@Geg6: Noooo! Don’t take my counterfactual fantasies away!
I do agree that the CSA would have collapsed under its own contradictions, unless it pulled off the (unlikely) feat of getting a major European sponsor. It would have caused a bit more damage before it collapsed. Some border disputes, some attempts at expansion. And several years (or a decade or two) of continued misery for the slaves.
Actually the thought of them trying to invade Mexico and being humiliated by brown people makes me happy. The thought of them coming back into the Union, state-by-state, hat-in-hand, even more so.
Violet
@licensed to kill time:
Looks fine in FF for me, but others were mentioning it so I went to check it out. Looks terrible in IE – hardly readable.
The fact is, the South lost. And they were sore losers. The descendants of those sore losers are today’s teabaggers. Still sore losers.
gbear
OT but proudly ignorant:
The Mpls StarTribune is streaming Bachmann’s fundraiser featuring Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty and Sean Hannity.
The link goes to the Strib. I’m not clicking on that streaming link from work. No way.
jenniebee
no more strikes?
stuckinred
@Carol: I thought that till I moved down here and officiated high school basketball in small towns. Black and white people actually LIVE in the same places unlike much of the midwest. My mom was from Southern Illinois and my dad told me about the sing on the county line that said “the sun never sets on a n)(*&’s back” in Williamson County. My main point is that we have a huge problem with institutional racism everywhere in this country and to narrow it to the south is . . . .narrow. IMHO
Dave
@beltane:
Swansea represent?
stuckinred
@ChrisS: Yea that’s what I said wasn’t it?
Svensker
@LuciaMia:
My hubster and I talk about this often and have come to an untested conclusion: that, in the past, most Americans farmed, worked for themselves or for small companies. They might have been ignorant, but they dealt with the real world on a daily basis — the school of hard knocks — so they were grounded to a certain extent and responsible for themselves and their families. Now, most Americans work for others, often government or giant corporations. So they are still ignorant, but are very unconnected with the realities of life. You can see the end result in the likes of Sarah Palin, James Inhofe and Michelle Bachmann. No book learning and no common sense neither.
Liz
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Tunch sez: I’m in ur blog. Scratchin up ur postz.
I thought I did something!!
Midnight Marauder
@stuckinred:
But here’s where your point runs into the problems of today. Every time a poll comes out showing the approval rating for President Obama, or his favorable/unfavorable rating, every region of the country gives him exceedingly high marks…except for the South. And it’s not just that they kind of don’t like him; his approval rating in the South is the direct inverse of the rest of the country. You take away those numbers, and the guy is still riding pretty fucking high.
Yes, there is institutional racism all over the country. But what you’re doing in the above example really isn’t all that different from the false equivalency bullshit we complain about the Village doing on a regular basis. To compare the legacy of institutional racism in the South today versus the rest of the country isn’t even close. The South is like it’s own different world at this point.
stuckinred
@Midnight Marauder: Well excuse the fuck out of me.
rootless-e
Few people have noted that BET billionaire Sheila Johnson was a proud supporter of this treason-bagger – because he hates unions.
beltane
@Dave: It’s the official name of Route 15 in Vermont, runs east-west across the northern quarter of the state.
ChrisS
No book learning and no common sense neither.
The problem I’ve come across is that “common sense” is defined by the rubes as simple answers to complicated questions.
“Ha, that guy with his fancy degree, thinks he’s better than me, can’t even fix his own car.” and “Stupid liberals think they can fix everything, but I bet they couldn’t build a house like I can. chortle, probably can’t even run a table-saw without taking their fingers off.”
Additionally, “politically incorrect,” a term I absolutely loathe, is defined as hate speech.
“Now, I may be a little politically incorrect, but I think that if women couldn’t vote, the country would be a lot better off.”
So, the end result is that all the country’s problems could be solved by people with a little common-sense who aren’t afraid to be a little politically correct. And probably 66% of the country think that this is an accurate description of themselves.
Cain
@David in NY:
What’s there to imagine? You just described India and Pakistan.
cain
Cain
@licensed to kill time:
Someone should ask him if was goign to use gloves when he shoots it so that only his wife’s fingerprints would be on it. Asshole.
cain
ChrisS
Pleasant little Cooperstown, NY, baseball Hall-of-Fame, bucolic affluent lifestyle in the foothills of the Catskills.
http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_096040009.html
In a village where 95% of the population is white, a black teen was shot (in the arm) by white classmate in a police station with a .22 caliber rifle.
*edited to add a link to a follow-up story:
http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_097040018.html
“Suspect Anthony Pacherille, 16, of Cooperstown, has a Facebook account. On Friday, the day he is suspected of shooting Wesley Lippitt, 16, in the hallway in front of the Cooperstown Police Station, that account listed his Facebook groups as “il fascismo,” “HATE Obama,” “Mussolini Benito” and “obama sucks,” according to information obtained by The Daily Star.”
bemused
@Svensker:
I think you & your hubster are on to something. It sure applies to my grandparents & their generation in the rural/small town midwest.
BR
That’s a direct quote of Obama from back during the infamous “we won’t inflate our tires properly because Obama said it was a good idea” incident of 2008.
flukebucket
Surely we can all agree that this kicks ass.
Scott P.
Not really. Lee didn’t have a supply line to Pennsylvania. After the battle of Gettysburg, his army was just about out of ammunition. So even if Meade had gotten smacked around, Lee would have had to retreat and the Union could trumpet that as a victory. The North had plenty of manpower. I don’t think public opinion in the North was particularly weak in 1863, New York draft riots notwithstanding.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but WaPo reporting that the FBI has arrested the guy who was sending death threatsa to Nancy Pelosi.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Thanks all who answered my somewhat flaky question about two countries if the South had separated completely. Counter factuals are very interesting.
Touring Gettysburg really was thought-provoking. I’d advise any of you who haven’t done it to put it on your “to-do” list.
Nick
Like? They ARE proud of being ignorant. The right is very anti-intellectual.
The Populist
I heard some ignant cracker on Howard Stern’s show today. I was flipping around Sirius and heard a guy using the N word. I know, I know it’s Howard but this fella Glenn Miller is running racist ads in Missouri as a tea bag candidate.
I heard him and I realize Stern was giving him the rope but it’s sad this idiot really believes the nonsense he spouts. Man.
giltay
@Carol: Canada as a nation never had slavery, but colonial Canada did, although it was eradicated by the time of the US Civil War. The slave trade was abolished in Upper Canada (Ontario) in the second session of Parliament in 1794, and in all British colonies in 1807. No slaves could be imported, so slaves who escaped into British North America became free. Existing slaves in BNA mostly remained slaves until the abolition of slavery in the Empire in 1833.
(I apologize for the pedantic history lesson.)
Fergus Wooster
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Thanks for bringing it up! You really stirred up the thread. It’s good to see people get heated around counterfactual wars.
Thanks for sharing your Gettysburg trip as well.
Calouste
@geg6:
Spain was also a poor, mostly illiterate, agrarian country with few inhabitants at that point in time. It took the US only 4 months to beat them in 1898 and that included taking the Philippines and building an army from scratch.
And I didn’t suggest they would take on Mexico or France, just Spain and a few small independent nations like Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Brachiator
@Carol:
I’ve seen this mentioned in a couple of posts as though slavery was some kind of picnic and blacks could just pick up and leave if they had a hankering to see what was up North.
Had the South won or agreed to a truce, they would have sued to have slaves returned, or be paid reparations (see the aftermath of the Revolutionary War as an example). The South would have sought some treaty version of the Fugitive Slave Act and some recognition of segregation and discrimination by the North, which would inevitably have poisoned whatever the North believed that it stood for.
And no doubt, the South would have unleashed all kinds of horrors to punish blacks for defiance and to crush any impulses to flee.
There is little doubt, as other posters have noted, that the South would have sought to expand slavery by annexing Cuba or even parts of Mexico (there were wild plans about this floating around the Confederacy).
And who knows the degree to which various European and South American governments would have recognized the Confederacy even if they abhorred its policies.
geg6
@Calouste:
Well, 1898 was 37 years in the future, Spain had a pretty formidable navy and a steel industry making the finest steel in the world in the 1860s, and if you’re taking on Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua, you’re going to be taking on Spain, France, and Mexico all at once. With the Union as their ally.
What could go wrong?
Susan Kitchens
@Bob L:
I’m trying to imagine — and having a difficult time of it — the evolution from a CSA with the continued slave trade … to the insistence of being The One True Standard-Bearer of “The Culture of Life.”
Svensker
@ChrisS:
The “common sense” I’m talking about here is that which is learned by actually doing things — like taking care of your own farm, or running your own company and making a payroll. Experience in the real world, not just punching a time clock at WalMart or being the 82nd accountant at mega-corporation. Not that I’m denigrating those jobs, just that I think a world made up of “yeoman farmers” and small shopkeepers is a very different world than one made up of salaried employees.
The Populist
@Svensker:
Good post. Agreed. I do not understand why people like that support ANYBODY who would make it easier for them to lose a job or lose money in the markets.
People in this country truly believe they, too, can be rich like Warren Buffett or famous like any number of “celebutards”. The realism of the past (which had firm regulations that still allowed companies to grow and America turned into an economic powerhouse) where the GOP usually is leading us into negative economic times (look it up rightie trolls, it’s so true) by taking away regulations and making capitalism into a contact sport where only the strong survive.
It’s time Teddy Roosevelt get reincarnated and take that fucking big stick and beat down on the greedy and stupid.
gmd
I can dream can’t I. And apologies to the genius who wrote this. I would like to give credit but I do not know who the author is.
“Dear Red States,
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us.
In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the former slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get Enron and WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.
We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we
get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources there.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
The Red States, on the other hand, will have to cope with 88 % of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 % of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite , thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11,and 61% of you crazy assholes believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
By the way, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Peace,
Blue States”
DPirate
You know they can’t read, jeez.