U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida rivals even Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Deadbeat Dad, in personal and political assholery. Having been booted out of the Army for a harsh interrogation incident in Iraq, West went on to win a House seat during the 2010 election.
Since then, he has consistently hit every wingnut pleasure center, comparing Democrats to Joseph Goebbels, styling himself a modern-day Harriet Tubman sent to lead African Americans off the liberal plantation and accusing President Obama of playing the race card while speculating that a prospective Democratic opponent “likes running against black guys.” Here’s Rep. West, R-Plantation (honest to god!), last night telling President Obama, Nancy Smash, et al, to “get the hell out of the United States of America.”
The teahadists eat that sort of thing up with a spoon, naturally. But the Florida GOP, which has a supermajority in the state legislature and is headed up by GOP Governor Rick “Voldemort” Scott, has undertaken a project to redraw the state’s districts — after being compelled to do so by votes on a ballot initiative in 2010. And it looks like Mr. West might be headed south.
Who would rob the nation of such a fiery demagogue? Wingnuts can’t pin this one on the Dems, who are pretty much powerless in Florida. But Colonel Mustard has a clue:
One of the rising stars of the Tea Party is about to be sacrificed by the Republican establishment in Florida, led by someone spinning for Mitt Romney.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
It was Will Weatherford in the Conservatory with a wrench! Well, the truth is, West was in some trouble with voters anyway. I don’t live in his district, but from what I understand, voting in a certified loon like West was something of an aberration for that area, and it’s possible they find West’s constant grandstanding a bit embarrassing.
Also, the state GOP had to be prepared to shed a few seats while still stacking the deck in their own favor. So, tough luck, West. The extent to which this develops into a Tea Party-Establishment flap is just warm, rich, savory gravy.
[X-POSTED at Rumproast]
Shawn in ShowMe
Shorter Allen West: What’s good for rich white men, is good for America. I can see why he compares himself to Harriet Tubman. They have so much in common.
Spaghetti Lee
Ha ha, good fucking riddance, Westy. Of course, I shouldn’t say that, because he’ll probably land at Fox or get a radio show or something.
Martin
Florida is also going to come under DOJ scrutiny for their redistricting map, so expect this one to show up in the courts as well.
Shirt
Savory? you meant frothy, didn’t you.
At what point do you lock up paranoid psychotics like that?
Bubblegum Tate
@Spaghetti Lee:
There’s no “probably” about it–it’s guaran-fucking-teed. This guy’s gonna live the good life on the wingnut welfare circuit. He’s total teabagger fapbait, and plus, he’s black, so TEABAGGERS NOT RACIST!
dmsilev
RedState is also all a-lather about this issue.
Sweet, sweet wingnut tears.
JoyceH
Ugh – “Democrat Party” – that’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. Do these clowns know how ignorant and illiterate they sound when they say that? I know they do it to annoy us; maybe we should start a rumor that the way to really annoy liberals is to pick your nose in public.
Mark S.
It scares the hell out of me that Allan West has ever been put into any position of authority. The man’s a fucking lunatic.
AB
West is one of the more amazingly self-unaware individuals I’ve ever seen. He spends all his time railing against government spending, but doesn’t appear to have received a capitalist paycheck in his life. He spent 20 years in the army, worked for defense contractor, worked as a unionized public school teacher, and served in congress. Is it too much to ask that he spends 1 day in private enterprise before he threatens to go Galt? I wonder if it takes a lot of effort to maintain that denial, or if its easy at this point?
Villago Delenda Est
@JoyceH:
Mission accomplished. You identified the reason for it in your next sentence. You’re annoyed. They revel in that.
If we all proclaimed Jesus is Lord, they’d denounce Jesus as Satan incarnate. Just to be contrary.
dmsilev
@JoyceH:
That’s thinking small. I’ve been advocating for a series of public-service announcements by the Obamas about the dangers of drinking bleach, licking live power outlets, and jaywalking across interstate highways.
It doesn’t matter that wingnuttia doesn’t’ believe in Darwin. Darwin believes in them.
gwangung
But, of course, there’s no difference between Bush and Obama, yadda yadda yadda.
Jennifer
WIN.
Sammi
I’m in broward county, FL, which is Fort Lauderdale and neighboring cities, in between Miami and Palm Beach. The county is the most Democratic in the state with about 67% registered as Dems. I was upset to find out recently that my neighborhood may go from being represented by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Debbie-smash) to being in West’s district.
Spaghetti Lee
@Sammi:
Hey, at least you’ll get to vote against him, right?
Brian R.
@Sammi:
Why be upset? I’d be delighted to have the chance to canvass my neighborhood for a Democrat running against that psycho.
Sammi
Judging from my 2008 canvassing, my neighbors may be just as motivated to vote against West as they would be to vote for Obama.
Brian R.
Funny that a blogger named Colonel Mustard is on the case, as Allen West is more like Colonel Retard.
John - A Motley Moose
@JoyceH: I really don’t understand why Dems haven’t slapped down any Goper that says this. It would be so simple to turn to the moderator of a news show and say, “Do you really expect me to discuss politics with someone that doesn’t even know the proper names of the major political parties in this country?”
mdblanche
@efgoldman: Well, this is a new experience for them. The first four rounds of preclearance were conducted under Nixon, Reagan, Bush Major, and Bush Minor. Now is literally the first time they’ve ever actually had to deal with a DOJ that isn’t going to look the other way on this.
c u n d gulag
When they say “Democrat” Party, they do sound stupid.
That’s because the ARE stupid!
I usually counter that and say “RepubLIC” Party.
Or, sometimes, RepubliKlan Party, or RepubliConfederate Party.
Ben Cisco
Probably too rich, here’s something to wash it down.
OzoneR
Somebody on Facebook sent this to me
We’re fighting a civil war and we don’t even know it. How the hell can we exist as a nation, we hate each other.
OzoneR
@John – A Motley Moose:
Harry Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley responded with “you first, asshole”
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: I think Limbaugh started that whole “Democrat Party” thing, along with pronouncing Al Gore’s name as “Algore.” In a way it saves time — not for the speaker, for me. As soon as I hear someone say that, I can safely conclude he or she is a brainless ditto-head and back slowly away…
pseudonymous in nc
While the teahadist wing of the GOP encompasses a lot of relatively harmless whackadoodles, West’s rhetoric comes from the original German.
JWL
West is the “odds are good he’ll use it one day” type of nut who carries a gun.
jimmiraybob
Well, I applaud West’s freedom to be on equal footing with other fascist assholes in wishing that leading liberal Dems, and presumably liberals in general, take themselves to the bottom of the Sea (in shackles perhaps?).
I wonder if he ever stops to ponder the fact that this liberty to speak freely as a black man in the south is due solely to the liberal impulse and that it is only this and interference with the sacred free markets that he is not just another voiceless commodity. And by commodity I’m not speaking metaphorically.
Sammi
During 2010, there were a lot of tea party rallies on certain busy intersections holding up “Go West” signs. I thought that there was no way he could win here but apparently I was wrong. The TP rallies were going on for a while every weekend after the 2010 election but I haven’t seen them in several months.
West wanted to hire local wingnut, Joyce Kaufman, as his chief of staff but negative publicity from her anti-immigrant stands and her “If the ballots don’t stop them, the bullets will” speech made her unacceptable. You can youtube her. She still has a local radio show so she can rally up the West faithful.
Betty Cracker
@Sammi: I’m still in shock that Rick Scott won. WTF? WTF?!? WTF??!!?? Oh, and Kaufman: a low-rent version of Pam Geller, and that’s pretty low.
mdblanche
@Ben Cisco: Never been a fan of drinking that stuff. Too bitter for my tastes.
Groucho48
Tweety generally mocks a guest or clip when they say Democrat Party. Gotta give him that.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i wonder how allen west voters would have polled on herman cain?
that is why i wanted cain to stay in. a battle with the gop establishment will make for some strange bedfellows.
trollhattan
@c u n d gulag:
That’s my go-to as well. “Beekauze it/she/he drives lybruls krazy” covers a vast sea of behavioral sins.
OzoneR
@Sammi:
A common mistake made by liberals.
MacKenna
“wingnut pleasure centre” is not something you want to visualize unless you enjoy maggoty rotting corpses.
Ben Cisco
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. The fact that the Army cashiered him out should have been a clue, but he was willing to go the “everyday I’m shuffling” route, so the NeoConfederates gladly snapped him up as an example of a “good” near. He will reap what he has sown, Faux gig or no.
John S.
Especially given that in 2010, we the voters of Florida overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure requiring districts to be drawn fairly, using natural or geographic boundaries. And governor fucking dickhead arbitrarily decided that yet again, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what we think (see: classroom size amendment) and will just do whatever he pleases.
The only silver lining is that the backlash will be so severe that we will have our first Democratic governor in quite some time.
Betty Cracker
@John S.: Yep. I have no idea who the Dems will put up, but I hope it’s someone really good, because he or she will almost certainly win. They could do a lot worse than former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, but she lacks statewide name recognition and may not want the job.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Ben Cisco:
There’s a new tag for ya, Cole. Of course, since there are only 7 black Republicans, it would be used sparingly.
John S.
@Betty Cracker:
Rick Scott barely edged out Alex Sink and won with less than 50% of the vote. Turnout was pretty low (which favored the more enthusiastic Republicans), but most importantly, Sink screwed herself royally when she got caught cheating in a debate. I still have no idea what possessed her to do that, but the last 2 weeks of the campaign, Scott ran endless commercials beating her up over it, and in the end it sunk Sink.
shortstop
Why didn’t this guy get court martialed? Someone explained it to me once, but I’ve forgotten.
I once had a hilarious conversation with a wingnut who insisted, “Just because you guys WISH your party were named the Democratic Party doesn’t mean you can go changing it from Democrat Party now.” So some of them are doing it to bug us and some of them are doing it only because they’re totally, irredeemably, bone-crushingly stupid.
Sammi
Betty Cracker @ 30
I, too, was in shock over Rick Scott’s win in 2010. I’m consoled by the buyer’s remorse that the whole state of FL is feeling. Today’s paper says that Rick Scott hasn’t endorsed anyone for the FL GOP primary and I’m sure that all camps told Scott to “stay the fuk away from me with your sorry-ass poll numbers and sub-zero approval ratings.”.
Older
Well, whodathunkit, there is something good about global warming after all. The water’s gonna rise, and Florida, and all its Republicans, including this guy, THEY are gonna be at the bottom of the sea.
John S.
@Sammi:
I mostly agree with you, my fellow Broward Democrat. Unfortunately, Scott’s hostility towards education has been a real disaster for our family since my wife is a teacher here and has been struggling to stay employed since that piece of shit took office. Our new superintendent isn’t helping much, either, being that he thinks schools should be run like businesses. It’s a sad state of affairs when Miami-Dade actually looks like they have their shit together compared to us.
suzanne
I am still in a degree of shock over Jan Brewer’s win here in Crazy-ville. I mean, the woman got elected to her previous office, and then had to ask what her job was. Like, holy shit. I mean, I know that AZ is full of gun nuts, but that’s outside the realm of everything I understand about the universe.
I’m not sure if she’s Professor Umbridge (absolutely the character I hate the most in the HP books) or the Wicked Witch of the West.
feebog
John S. @ 38:
All very well and good to pass a referendum, but it has to be done right. Telling the legislature, especially a Republican run legislature how re-districting should be accomplished doesn’t mean they will follow the will of the people.
I am proud that we did it right in California. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth from the professional left when the Citizens Commission on redistricting was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with a few independents as well. But they drew the lines fairly, and it is now Republicans who are wailing , because it looks like Dems are going to pick up seats in the Assembly, State Senate and in congress.
Violet
@dmsilev:
Ha! I just glanced at the first few comments in that thread:
It’s not just dumb and dumber, it’s insane and insaner.
Brian S
@Sammi: I lived down there at the time and can tell you why it happened. West ran in a district that was pretty even against a freshman Democrat who’d spent a boatload of money in 2008 (with Obama on the ticket) to beat a moderate (by Florida standards) Republican in a district which contains a lot of wealthy people from Palm Beach county. It would have been a tight but winnable race in most years, but 2010 was a rebellion year and Klein got swept out. West won because of the R by his name, but he needed a safe seat to stay in for the long haul, and this seat was never going to be that, even if there hadn’t been a redrawing of the maps.
Brian S
@suzanne: She’s not smart enough to be Umbridge. Liz Cheney, now…
Martin
@John S.:
Should have done it as we did in CA. Commission drawn from the voters with strict limits on party involvement. It’s not perfect, but it looks quite a lot better, and the state politicians are effectively carved out of the process.
The revealed problem seems to be that when the commission went back to community groups, that provided an opportunity for the parties to put forward members as representatives of demographic groups. They didn’t really check or block the ‘I’m here on behalf of the vietnamese community’ person from being someone speaking on behalf of the party.
But if that’s the worst problem here, we’ve made a lot of progress already.
Bruce S
This sonofabitch was told in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of the United States Army. He’s a thug. The GOP crowds are welcome to lionize scumbags. Actually, that sorry state of cynical calculation, demagogy, dishonesty and moral degradation is exactly who they are.
smintheus
It was a mock execution, preceded by physical abuse. The term for that under law is “torture”.
dmsilev
@Violet: Gingrich/West would be a great ticket….
….for Barack Obama.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Sammi: Didn’t Rick Scott campaign and win the fact that he was a businessman and had never held elective office? And then tried to run the state like a business and fucked it up?
Isn’t there someone running for President who also claims that being a businessman is good training for high office?
Dear God in heaven, can you imagine what the country will look like if Romney wins?
Davis X. Machina
@smintheus: We went ballistic when the released Teheran embassy hostages told how some of them were subject to mock executions….
American exceptionalism….
Sammi
BTW, I have to say that I especially appreciate the intelligent posts by Betty Cracker and Kay since they cover the on-the-street reporting from battleground states this election year.
ruemara
@Sammi: We expect you guys to do us proud in electing the biggest EFF YOU to teabaggers you can find for your new district. Make them *Suck*On*This for a few decades.
Violet
@dmsilev:
I clicked through to that Legal Insurrection link in the post and there in the comments was the Gingrich/West ticket mentioned again. Followed by:
Good stuff!
And this was also delicious:
And then discussion of a brokered convention. Good stuff!
General Stuck
Wingnuts started the “Democrat Party” nonsense most likely cause someone like Frank Luntz advised them it was word wise because using “democratic party” made it sound too much like the small d democracy, that polls really well.
They destroyed the “liberal” term, but have had the dickens doing the same with the Democratic Party. While they are stuck with Republican that sounds too much like the Roman Empire pols in togas, or some other authoritarian system. So they use “Democrat Party” in all cases of reference to the democrats in their party.
It doesn’t bother me much, cause it is so fucking stoopid on its face, and makes them look stoopid doing it. I sometimes, have used democrat party cause it’s shorter and I am lazy, word wise. Democrats would be wiser imo, if they quit whining about the “democrat party” nonsense, and start using the term liberal liberally to describe themselves, and stop running from the ghost of Ronald Reagan.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Backlash midterms. They do indeed suck.
Palli
@AB:
West was a school teacher!
john b
@mdblanche:
is that right? wouldn’t clinton have been in charge of it in 2000?
ETA: I guess i would happen in the year or two after a census?
Meaning 2001 or 2002, 1991 or 1992, 1981 or 1982.
if so, i concede my point.
Montysano
@dmsilev:
Consider that
borrowedstolen.geg6
@General Stuck:
I couldn’t agree more about proudly reclaiming the term liberal, Stuck. I absolutely refuse to call myself a progressive because that is just weaseling out of claiming what you really are and you are buying into their demonization of the word. I say it all the time. Loud and proud. Drives the wingnuts around here absolutely crazy.
And to all the Floridians in this thread, please don’t tell me that West represents the Stuart/Fort Pierce/Jensen Beach area. My sister lived there for ten years and I still have friends there. I have fond memories of the area and I will feel badly if I have to be embarrassed for my friends who still live there.
General Stuck
@geg6:
My belated condolences about your doggie Otis.
sloan
Sean Quinn of 538.com (where is he now?) wrote a great column on the whole Democrat/Democratic thing a few years back.
He pretty much nails it here:
Southern Beale
Holy fuck. Reince Priebus just compared Obama to Captian Schettino, the guy who captained that doomed Italian cruise ship.
Un fucking believable.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Southern Beale:
According to a recent NBC poll, 48% of news watchers believe that Reince Priebus is a new Decepticon in the 2014 Transformers sequel.
Suffern ACE
@Southern Beale: Yeah, I figure we’ll get more of that. Trying to make the fact that he is running for an office into something weird and unprecedented and a power grab-as Congressmen themselves leave town for weeks on end to run for office. “Why isn’t he presidenting? How dare he run for the office. He’s like a power hungry dictator in the way that he is looking for voter approval all the time.”
Egg Berry
@Southern Beale: I prefer to think of Obama as the coast guardsman who kept telling the GOP to get back on the ship of state and do their fucking job. And the GOP response is just like the captain’s.
Dee Loralei
@Southern Beale: Maybe that was his way of deflecting what looks like the shit train headed straight towards him in some of the dirty Walker Wisconsin stuff. See he gets out in front of people labeling him an alleged criminal, by calling the President a manslaughter-er, or something. I can’t think wingnut.
Ohhh EggBerry@73 Amen to that!
Uriel
@Southern Beale: That doesn’t even make sense on it’s own terms- if anything, running means Obama’s willing to expend an enormous amout of effort and money fighting to stay on the ship.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
@efgoldman:
This might be a good time for a reminder that the consonants in his name spell RNC PR BS
Ain’t it the truth!
MikeJ
@Uriel: Republicans are people who don’t understand Emerson.
JPL
@Southern Beale: This is from CBSnews.com
see both sides do… because extreme is the same as a coward and a murderer.
smintheus
@Davis X. Machina: I’d forgotten about that, good point.
OzoneR
@Brian S:
Ron Klein won in 2006 against GOP incumbent Clay Shaw. He won reelection by 10 points in 2008 against West in a district that didn’t vote for Obama by any bigger margin than it did Kerry.
this was a Hillary/PUMA district, old white people who didn’t like the fact that the Chicago Kenyan Muslim n*gg*r beat the Clinton, that’s why West won.
gene108
@shortstop: I had one right-winger explain it to me that they use Democrat Party because there’s nothing democratic about Democrats.
I guess it jibes with the right-wing belief Democrats are the foot soldiers for the Bolshevik revolution that liberals want to unleash on America.
Benjamin Franklin
@smintheus:
mock execution
I’ve used that same example when explaining how ‘water-boarding’ can be compared because the subject, in both instances, truly believes they will die.
Hey, but no physical harm was in evidence
gnomedad
@OzoneR:
What gets me is each serving of that drivel is passed around as if they have just discovered the ULTIMATE PWNAGE AGAINST LIBERALS and if they can just get it in front of enough eyes liberalism will be dead.
JPL
@gene108: Have your friend look up the word democracy and explain what for the common good means. It certainly doesn’t mean libertarian.
JPL
@gnomedad: Romney is preaching what Cameron has put into effect. That is working out so well in England. Gosh, I wish we had a real media.
Brian S
@OzoneR: Shit, you’re right. Faulty memory on my part. Sorry.
chrome agnomen
@General Stuck:
i only ever refer to myself as a liberal. will never run from it.
General Stuck
@chrome agnomen:
Same here:)
Suffern ACE
@JPL: She should have compared him to an Iranian Mullah and lit up a cigarette. Bob would then go “OOOOH Snap!” Good times would be had by all.
Samara Morgan
here is my alla time numbah one Allen West statement.
West is talking about the Iraqi Rape Squad.
the nine-man squad that gang raped a 14-yr-old Iraqi child, slaughtered her family including her baby sister, and burned the house down to cover up their actions. When the US occupation government refused the tribal council’s accustions, the council turned to local jihadiis for justice.
The Menchaca/Tucker (ritual punishment for rape) multilation video caused the other squad members to confess in pantswetting terror that they would be next….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
“little”?
Samara Morgan
and they were not just “gutted”. their dicks were cut off.
hopefully after they were dead.
whoever did the autopsy would know, because of serontonin levels.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Pretty sure that was just a typo. Fixed it so you wouldn’t have to.
BGinCHI
Anyone else wondering if Tunch is holding all the front pagers at gunpoint?
Raven
@BGinCHI: Yea cuz I was expecting a Pro Bowl thread!
JPL
@Raven: I’m hoping for a Downton Abbey thread myself.
BGinCHI
@Raven: This blog needs a DIY button.
What could possibly go wrong?
Raven
Killer dog/star wars/dog singin VW commercial! The Bark Side!
Raven
@JPL: The are showing that Secrets of the Manor House right now. We watched Young Victoria earlier, not bad.
Suffern ACE
@BGinCHI: Usually a discussion on voting on something gets a front pager or two back. I make a motion for readership capture and appointing Sooner blog Ombudsman. A position that has been vacant for quite some time.
OzoneR
@gnomedad:
I responded with a simple “you’re right, but I get the social security and medicare in the divorce, you can have Texas and Florida”
Raven
Hey, check out this story about an Indian dude here in Athens that ran a credit card ripoff ring by crusiing S&M chatrooms, having the people perform, taping it and then using them to buy good with the stolen numbers.
Raven
Read this salacious story out of Athens. The description got it medded.
OzoneR
@JPL:
God I love Maggie Smith in that show. Comic relief at its finest.
My girlfriend calls it “the British Dynasty”
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
From your linked article:
Holee SHIT! Twelve terabytes of pr0n?? I’ve known a couple of quirky dudes in my time, but . . . Just boggling, the mind is.
Raven
@SiubhanDuinne: The whole thing is really whacked!
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
If you get desperate, Patton Oswalt live-tweets “Downton Abbey” and doesn’t care who knows it.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@c u n d gulag: I figure leaving out the “l” works pretty well.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@OzoneR: I’m curious who is going to pay for their cops.
amk
@OzoneR: white flight ?
Mustang Bobby
@Sammi: At least you get a chance to vote against that dude. I’m in Miami-Dade, and my rep is Lincoln Diaz-Balart and there’s no way they’re gonna vote that chingadero de puerco out of office.
Origuy
@Suffern ACE: Since when did Face the Nation turn into The Dozens?
gvg
“but doesn’t appear to have received a capitalist paycheck in his life. He spent 20 years in the army, worked for defense contractor, worked as a unionized public school teacher, and served in congress.”
Defense contractor is a capitalist paycheck, believe me. Cut throat business. My dad worked for defense contractors most of his career. The employees have no security as they are hired for the duration of a project-say design night vision for helicopters…as the project nears completion, engineers at least look to find other projects to be invited to work on. I have no idea how the projects actually get finished. If the pentagon/defense department or congress decide they don’t like the idea it dies abruptly along with 100’s or 1000’s of jobs. total employed in one of the plants/cities go through dramatic boom bust cycles. I can’t think of a way to change that either without making waste worse. As a result this group of people is totally committed to their investment portfolio’s. they know the company has no loyalty. All the companies from what I heard.
piratedan
@Martin: it helps if you have a Dem governor to backstop it Martin. Az voted in the same kind of non-partisan redistricting commission because the State lege couldn’t do their job. Cactus Barbie has impeachment proceedings against the head of the commission because she is an independent and the maps drawn up weren’t partisan enough
here’s the NYT spin…. she attempted to oust her on violation of the open meetings law….
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/us/chairwoman-of-arizona-redistricting-commission-ousted.html
OzoneR
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
They’ll be taxes, just not on the
successfuldisgustingly rich.Mike G
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. — H. L. Mencken
Allen West proves that nobody so worthless ever lacked a career for serving the interests of the rich and powerful.
mdblanche
@john b: Yes, redistricting is always in the year or two after the census. Last time around they only got around to releasing how many seats each state would have before Clinton had finished packing his bags. W had already been in office several months before the states had been provided with all of the data they needed to begin redistricting.
Mike G
@OzoneR:
“If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d rent out Texas and live in Hell” — General Sheridan
Chris
@OzoneR:
Depends what you mean by “we.” I’d argue that the hard right is perfectly aware of it and has been for decades. Exactly how far back you go is a matter of opinion, but for some of them it goes all the way back to the last civil war and beyond. By and large, it’s only people on our side of the aisle who cling to the “why can’t we all just get along? We’re all in the same country!” myth.
Existing as a nation isn’t as important to them as having The Right People in control of said nation. If they can’t have it all, then nobody will.
geg6
@General Stuck:
Thanks, but Otis is fine. It’s Henry who passed. But really, thanks. All the good wishes from BJ have been very helpful in dealing with it.
Chris
@OzoneR:
Addendum:
Also send him a map of which states of the Union pay more into the treasury than they get back (hint: they tend to be blue), and which states get more than they put in (hint: they tend to be red. No, not all of them, but hey, they support profiling – they’ll understand).
And then tell him to enjoy living in a trailer park for the rest of his life while we get the suburban mansion. Without the faggy elitists on the West and East coasts and the lazy bureaucrats in the federal government to foot their bills, red states would start to feel the effect in weeks, if not days. Give them a few years and they’ll be the world’s newest Latin American country. That’s the real jewel that we’d get in the divorce.
General Stuck
@geg6:
Oops, sorry. I can be such a space cadet sometimes.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
There was a proposal recently here in California for some red counties to break away and form their own state. Then someone pointed out to them that they’re in the fucking desert and don’t have anything resembling a tax base or economy that would let them support themselves as a state, and that idea died down right quick.
It was basically the equivalent of a five-year-old dragging his teddy bear to the front door and announcing that he was running away, except it was purported adults making the announcement.