Boy, North Carolina Republicans are really going straight for the insaneotrons, aren’t they.
A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.
The bill grew out of a federal lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. In the lawsuit, the ACLU says the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers.
But FREEDOM and DON’T TREAD ON ME so we’ll ignore the First Amendment part that says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” and all that. But it gets even more awesome, now with LIBERTY:
House Bill 494, filed by Republican Rowan County Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford, would refuse to acknowledge the force of any judicial ruling on prayer in North Carolina – or indeed on any Constitutional topic:
“The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people,” the bill states. “Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion.”
The Tenth Amendment argument, also known as “nullification,” has been tried unsuccessfully by states for more than a century to defy everything from the Emancipation Proclamation of the Civil War to President Obama’s health care reforms to gun control.
So yeah, Tenth Amendment nullification, the South’s favorite “I can’t hear you Washington lalalalala” argument since 1828. At this point we’ve got people actively saying that the Union doesn’t matter, that 150 years of precedent and a war fought over the issue doesn’t matter, and that states can do what they want so screw you.
It doesn’t actually work this way. Or at least it didn’t before President Thugheart X Reparations came to power in his illegal Kung-Fu and waffles junta. Now all of a sudden we’re dusting off the Fort Sumter gameplan again. Sure, let’s keep up that outreach, GOP.
[UPDATE] And lest we think this is a nowhere bill written by a couple of dinks from Salisbury who will get politically disappeared, it seems the GOP here is quite serious about passing this, as we see at the end of the article:Eleven House Republicans have signed on to sponsor the resolution, including Majority Leader Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, and Budget Chairman Justin Burr, R-Stanly.
This one could get ugly.
jibeaux
My fair state is just thoroughly, thoroughly fucked. This is one of the most embarrassing, but other things the lege is doing right now will do a lot more substantive damage, and they’ve gerrymandered real good and are working on suppressing the vote. Ironically, the tremendous overreach is the only hope we have of actually booting them from office. Get involved, Tar Heels.
Walker
As a son of an 200 year old NC plantation family that supported the Union, I say it is time to occupy the suckers again.
prufrock
Looks like John C. Calhoun’s ghost gets around, given all the people who seem to be channeling it. Maybe we can get Bobby Jindal to perform an exorcism.
Central Planning
I bet those guys would go out of their minds if one of the counties in NC decided they didn’t have to follow state law for anything they didn’t like, and the state supreme court has no authority to decide what is constitutional vis a vie their state constitution.
I wonder if they have any constitutional law background on which they base their legal claims about the US Constitution too.
TomG
Unsurprisingly, NC is also one of those states that bars atheists from holding public office.
(See section 8 below, unless it has been repealed quite recently):
http://www.ncleg.net/Legislation/constitution/article6.html
Face
The level of cognitive dissonance required to pen this screed is off the charts. The level of flat-out wrong is comical.
dmsilev
On that subject, President Thugheart made some progress this week in his nefarious campaign to erase Ronaldus Magnus from history:
(I work a couple of blocks from the site in question. I can confirm first-hand that the wrecking balls have already taken large bites out of the building.)
am
We delivered for Obama in 2008. The Rs doing this know their time is limited. In the meantime, sympathize for those of us down here.
4tehlulz
If our laws aren’t good enough for North Carolina, then our money isn’t either.
Pee Cee
Hey, North Carolinians! You’ve now got South Carolinians pointing at your idiocy and laughing!
…
(That ought to sober them up a bit…)
cleek
it’s good to see that their misunderstanding of the Constitution is comprehensive, and not just limited to one or two amendments.
Schlemizel
Nullification? Hmmmmm, seems we have been down this road before. Anyone in the Carolinas remember ow that worked out for them?
I may be in my 60’s but I have had quiet enough of this shit for one lifetime. If Billy comes looking for bummers I’ll volunteer!
Hill Dweller
NC, with its great universities and the RTP, had become one of the more forward thinking states in the southeast in the last 20 years, but the wingnuts are going to destroy everything.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT: Happy Fish Fingers and Custard Day!
cleek
@TomG:
also: Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
For all the purity trolls out there, NC is a classic example of what happens when we lose a firewall in state gubmint. Case in point, here in Misery, we would be essentially NC if it weren’t for our moderate, Republican governor, Democrat Jay Nixon.
Sure, he is who is is but given the wingnuts who control the legislature (believe me, they are every bit as batshit, insane as their brethren in NC are), he’s the only thing keeping us from turning into NC.
NC is another example of how we as a party have failed to play the long game by focusing almost exclusively on elections at the Federal level.
cleek
@Hill Dweller:
indeed.
but i’d bet that a lot of people here who voted ‘R’ last election did so not knowing just how insane the latest batch of R’s really were. this isn’t your father’s GOP.
Older_Wiser
I’m embarrassed. But not surprised that these two in Rowan County proposed that bill. If by some fluke it passes, they’ll have their asses handed to them by the Supreme Court. Here’s another story: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/04/02/lawmakers-introduce-bill-knocking-down-first-amendment/ Obviously, it’s a feint concerning the court case alluded to in this story. Trying to use “states rights” to circumvent federal law. We’re beginning to see quite a few of these types of “nullification” bills.
Teabagger: All about Carl Ford: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/04/02/lawmakers-introduce-bill-knocking-down-first-amendment/
Corporatist: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2011/02/09/the-new-crop-rep-harry-warren/
Both: Fascist-minded.
rikyrah
this shyt is fucking crazy
DFS
This will get worse. The NC state legislature is run by an army of unreconstructed dingbat crackers and there aren’t enough college kids in the Triangle or hippies in Asheville to change that in the face of Art Pope’s money. Personally my hope is that the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area will eventually declare itself an independent city-state.
greennotGreen
We liberals are missing the joke. All of these radical right wing state legislatures are in a contest to see which one can cause the greatest number of lefties to lose our shit. Beer and pizza for the winners.
Meanwhile, thanks North Carolina, for taking the spotlight off Tennessee for awhile. On the other hand, you’ve just raised the bar, so I’m afraid my state legislature is going to have to see you and raise you a new monkey trial.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
Unsympathetic
I have relatives in that state. North Carolinians deserve better.
Cassidy
I’m really wondering how many of these jackasses are actively hoping to start another civil war. WTF?
RaflW
I’m pretty ready to grant secession to the whole damn South. But they have to take it as a package deal, NC right on over to Texas, and not one friggin dime of tax transfers from the blue states.
These takers and moochers can go it alone and see how it is to live in broke-ass liberty.
Don’t let the screen door hit ya on the way out, jackasses…
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
@Face:
A Hellfire missile will disabuse them of this notion.
Fuck these fucking traitors.
Pongo
It always astounds me that these Constitutional ‘scholars’ fail to comprehend the supremacy clause. Let them pass their little laws. The state will go bankrupt defending them in federal court.
balconesfault
Kind of gives you more of an appreciation for Heath Shuler, eh?
balconesfault
@greennotGreen: yep … legislative trolling.
They’re all Rush Limbaugh now.
cleek
@DFS:
if the GOP keeps-up this kind of crazy, it could do serious damage to the financial health of the state. they’re making the state more and more unattractive to the kind of people who work at all those high-tech and university jobs. even if this shit doesn’t pass, just having it in the news sends a bad message.
or, maybe they’d like it if NC was nothing but pig farmers and tobacco pickers.
Walker
The ironic thing about this, if you ever studied NC state history…
NC was the last state to succeed. The majority of the populous did not want to succeed. But they felt they had no choice being sandwiched between Virginia and SC.
Seems like they have decided to make up for lost time.
Gin & Tonic
@Unsympathetic: Maybe. But this is who they elected.
maya
I thought NC’s state religion was pig farming? Looks like a bumper crop this year.
amk
Deport all the wingnutz into TX and FL and force them to secede.
Schlemizel
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Perhaps you have not heard – there is no difference between the Dems and the goopers! I just read this several times in comments on some of my favorite blogs recently. People even mourning the lose of the great Ralphie Nader who could have saved us all if not of that evil Al Gore and his just-the-dame-as-Bush policies.
My comment about Bumming with BTS? This time lets not stop with the SOuth as there are large swaths of the country that need a cleansing fire
300baud
I think we should be less shy about calling these people traitors. The 1850s batch were self-interested traitors, and I see no reason not to consider the current bunch the same.
Cassidy
@amk: We have nice beaches. Just send them to TX.
balconesfault
So this started because the Board of Commissioners in a county where all of 17% of the adult residents have a bachelors degree wanted to say Jesus in their invocation, and the ACLU took offense.
raven
It’s like trying to reason with treason season.
S-Curve
@Hill Dweller:
FTFY.
NC resident here. The best thing we can do is point out that all of these goobers were elected to fix the economy and increase employment, but once elected they ran straight toward abortion, secession, and vote suppression.
DanF
Patience. Rising sea water due to global warming will eventually drown much of the state.
boctaoe
@300baud: Calling them traitors is one thing, but let’s follow it up with sedition charges and bring it to trial. That might stop some legislative trolling.
S-Curve
@Gin & Tonic: I live in a county that went 65% for Obama and Dems, and my district has solid progressive state reps and sens. I sure as fuck didn’t elect these assholes.
That’s like blaming people in Northern California because Bush et al. were elected in 2004.
S-Curve
@DanF: Haven’t you heard? These same champions of the common man also banned rising sea levels: http://www.ecology.com/2012/07/03/north-carolina-ignores-sea-level-rise/
Bobby Thomson
Fixed. Not even Fat Tony would uphold that law, and if they want to solidify their reputation as the Confederate party, they can go right ahead.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
This! Having the White House and a narrow majority in the Senate doesn’t amount to as much as it should when the Republicans have a gerrymandered House majority.
JR
Someone needs to remind these idiots that, when it comes to federal-state relationships, the courthouse they should be remembering is Appomattox.
amk
@Cassidy: rick & rubio beats the beaches hands down. Sorry.
Rommie
So the states are sovereign again? Have fun cleaning up the next hurricane on your own, Johnny.
The nightmare is the Fab Five of the Supreme Court deciding we’ve been reading the 10th amendment wrong for 226 years. That would certainly get them into the history books. It would also many anyone owning pitchfork and firearm stocks filthy rich. Nobody would believe them to be that insane right up until they did it.
And yeah, if Uncle Billy needs to make another demonstration, I’m there, even though I look terrible in blue. DennisG needs to bust out his Scolding Sherman graphic again.
raven
@JR: My wife is from there! Her dad rebuilt the McClain house.
Omnes Omnibus
@S-Curve: Canute immigrated to NC?
bemused
@Unsympathetic:
So do I. It’s very upsetting to read all the batshit crazy stuff Republicans are doing. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The Wake County School Board mess was just the start.
bigbee51
Our unanimous affirmance of the Court of Appeals’ judgment concerning 16-1-20.2 makes it unnecessary to comment at length on the District Court’s remarkable conclusion that the Federal Constitution imposes no obstacle to Alabama’s establishment of a state religion. Before analyzing the precise issue that is presented to us, it is nevertheless appropriate to recall how firmly embedded in our constitutional jurisprudence is the proposition that the several States have no greater power to restrain the individual freedoms [472 U.S. 38, 49] protected by the First Amendment than does the Congress of the United States.
Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 48-49 (1985)
QED
Mike in NC
In other news, in SC Mark Sanford won the GOP contest to run for the US House seat vacated when Tea Party nutjob Tim Scott was appointed to replace Jim Demented. He’ll win easily unless the imbecile voters can be convinced Elizabeth Colbert Bush is actually Dubya’s sister.
Also, too, the NC legislature has just voted to require criminal background checks for anybody applying for food stamps or welfare. But they neglected to fund the program. How does that work?
Summer
@jibeaux: I’m from NC too and am alarmed, embarrassed, and ready to stand up against this. Maybe we should start with a Durham BJ meetup!
S-Curve
@Omnes Omnibus: At least Canute was a king, not the third-in-command in some Christianist backwater.
quannlace
And why am I sure that N. Carollina is one of the states that gets more federal dollars then it pays out in taxes?
The Moar You Know
@Hill Dweller: Truth. It’s the only Southern state I can stand.
But it’s still the South. You drive fifteen minutes outside of Raleigh, Davidson, or any of the unis, and you’re right in Deliveranceville all over again.
Had quite an experience there about a decade ago walking in on a bluegrass jam, being asked to play, opening their songbook and seeing nothing but religious tunes and realizing I didn’t know a one of them from start to finish. I figured since I was in over my head anyway, I might as well go out with a bang and did “The Old Rugged Cross” (you Southerners will get the significance). They were pleased.
Schlemizel
@S-Curve:
We go through this every time some hemorrhoid on the anus of America tries this shit. We do not hold you personally responsible for the behavior of the entire state. We are painfully aware that not everyone living in state that are currently behaving this was is an asshole who deserves to DIAF. You have our deepest sympathy, you and everyone else who tries to do better.
But look at the facts. You and people like you are the minority of voters in the state. The majority of the voters in the state seem to be happy to elect morons, assholes, fundies and fascists. We have to call them out, we have to call them out by name. In doing so your state is going to be maligned. Deservedly so even if you and yours are not deserving.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rommie:
Won’t happen. Among other things, it would severely diminish the power of the Supreme Court. Can you imagine a majority of justices signing onto a decision with that effect?
ericblair
@Omnes Omnibus:
Even worse, it would make Congress not worth lobbying, and they might actually get together and impeach the moron justices that basically dissolved the country.
quannlace
Great Forget electing their next Governor, they should just appoint King Canute.
Cacti
Seems the new state leg is trying to turn North Carolina into upper South Carolina.
Davis X. Machina
@Pongo: Justice Thomas at least, IIRC, is so anti-incorporation that he is open to the possibility of state-but-not-federal establishment of religion.
? Martin
I guess the NC GOP really does want it to be a blue state. None of these moves expand their party and they only drive up Dem turnout.
Schlemizel
Ash Can
I’d point and laugh except for the fact that, if this bullshit actually passes, NC is going to flush a whole lot of cash down the crapper for unsuccessful court defenses that could otherwise go toward providing some actual services to people in that state. As it is, this silliness has to be giving pause to anyone who might be considering attending any institutes of higher learning there. After all, what’s the future of a state school that’s at the mercy of a state government populated with morons like this?
Cacti
@Ash Can:
Duke and Wake Forest are both private.
Bendal
@jibeaux:
This isn’t the half of it. So far our legislature has begun implementing Voter ID laws, fired all the regulatory commission members so the governor can hire like-minded cronies immediately instead of waiting for them to retire, is in the process of taking authority from the cities (they voted Democrat the last few times, you know) such as where to build schools, managing their airports, removing ETJ’s and stopping them from annexing property, reduced the length of early voting and eliminating same-day registration, implemented noxious anti-abortion laws similar to those Virginia passed last year, support offshore drilling and in-state fracking without any significant regulation, extend the divorce waiting period from 1 to 2 years, eliminate the state income tax and expand the state sales tax, and I read this morning they are so concerned over UNC’s coed dormitory rule that they may pass a bill banning the practice.
All of this after the current crop of legislators ran on a jobs platform, yet none of the above has much impact on our very high unemployment rate. I’ve been looking at my original state of TN and thinking “man am I glad I don’t live there” but NC is rapidly starting to approach TN’s level of oppression.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@The Moar You Know:
Drive inland from any point on the California coast and it’s Rush Limbaugh Time.
NCSteve
@Schlemizel: For some reason, Sherman eased up when he hit the North Carolina border. I think Johnston was retreating too fast for his army to spread out and wreck the place the way it did in Georgia and South Carolina.
cleek
@Schlemizel:
Obama (2008): moron, asshole, fundie or fascist ?
Kay Hagan: moron, asshole, fundie or fascist ?
cleek
@The Moar You Know:
You drive fifteen minutes north of NYC, South of Rochester, South of Buffalo, East of Albany, or any of the unis, and you’re right in Deliveranceville all over again. And PA outside of the big cities? whew.
1badbaba3
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Can’t see the crazy if they aren’t in power. Here’s the rope, Boys. Get swingin’.
NCSteve
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: And most places fifteen minutes outside Raleigh are more liberal than Raleigh. Like, say, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the burbs of those towns.
I don’t know what it is about urban dwellers in certain parts of the country that make them believe the urban/rural divide is actually a north/south thing.
Cassidy
@amk: True, but if we’re deporting wingnuts, then all we have left is the beaches. it’s win-win. Seriously, though, I don’t feel like moving. It’s hot as all get out down here, but has it’s good parts.
S-Curve
@? Martin: This, exactly. They know it, too, hence the vote suppression efforts.
Schlemizel, my point earlier was to critique the use of “they” (who elected these idiots). NC is a fairly purple-headed-toward-blue state, population-wise. Similar to Colorado, maybe, in that the cities and larger towns (e.g., Greensboro) tilt strongly blue and the small towns and rural areas remain fairly bright red. There are a LOT of us (49.5%) who aren’t in league with the sub-ordinary gentlemen.
I think NC will end up blue in 5 to 10 years, with people continuing to move out from the cities into neighboring towns (in the Triangle, that’s happening in places outside Raleigh like Fuquay-Varina, Apex, and Holly Springs). Hopefully soon we’ll get more progressives in other districts as well.
The Moar You Know
@Schlemizel: It is far more of an urban/rural thing these days. There’s rural parts of New York state and California I wouldn’t even drive into for cash money, out of fear that my decent haircut and Costco “business casual” wardrobe would get me lynched as a potential liberal or homosexual.
I get what drives these people. Some part of my family are those people. They’re scared shitless that the people who used to run from them in terror are now running the country instead.
RSA
@quannlace:
Yes, NC is currently a taker state. Longer-run data I’ve seen (i.e., an average from 1980 to 2005) has NC moving back and forth over the line.
I’ve never thought of Raleigh, where I live, as an oasis of liberalism (and given that it’s the seat of state government, that would have been wrong in any case) but this is nuts.
maya
@Schlemizel: That’s a new BJ/WP feature. When a comment is so awesome as to merit individual attention it automatically frames it.
However, it should really be a blue border like wunderground.
catclub
@Hill Dweller: ” more forward thinking states in the southeast in the last 20 years,”
Actually, it goes back about 70 years, I remember an Alabama governor in his memoir writing that after WWII, NC decided to
go the route of modernization, with better schools and universities. Alabama did not.
One example I know about is that Western Electric ( manufacturing arm of AT&T) was able to buy land and move there in the late 40’s, early 50’s, and the politicians decided not to be ‘all cotton ( and cheap labor for mills) and tobacco are king here’. WE was a pretty high tech manufacturer for the time.
Or at least that is the story I have heard.
Hill Dweller
@? Martin:
They’re also doing their best to suppress voting by cutting the early voting period in half, eliminating voting on the Sunday before election day(popular with African-American churches), and implementing some voter-ID bullshit.
Cacti
@S-Curve:
If I recall correctly, hasn’t NC’s Hispanic population also doubled since 2000?
catclub
@The Moar You Know: “There’s rural parts of New York state and California I wouldn’t even drive into for cash money, ”
cash money,… hm… marijuana farms and meth labs. rural.
Funny old world.
Bubblegum Tate
Constitutional Conservatism!
MCA1
@Ash Can: Well, they wouldn’t really, though. For one thing, attorneys already in the state government apparatus would be the ones defending the law in federal court. It would be a waste of their time, and take them away from more useful purposes, but they wouldn’t get paid any more than they already are. It would, of course, be a waste of federal government legal resources, as well.
But more importantly, the Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction here, as the United States would bring suit against the State of North Carolina. So it wouldn’t spend two years going through the District Court and 4th Circuit and then waiting for certiorari to the Supreme Court.
catclub
@Cacti: Don’t leave out Davidson!
But they all have much smaller student populations than UNC or NC State, or all the other State Universities.
The Moar You Know
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: If you’re lucky.
I’ve lived here all my life, and the sum total of my life I’ve lived out of view of the ocean was less than a year, and all that before I was age 8. There aren’t too many non-coastal parts of California that don’t exist in dire poverty – Palm Springs is the only place I can think of off the top of my head, and only certain parts of it at that.
I won’t even address the terrifying place that is inland Northern California. Yeah, it’s gorgeous. Wait until you meet the locals.
MCA1
@cleek: Ummm, point taken, but 15 minutes north of New York City? New Rochelle is like backwoods Appalachia, but with a million country clubs? Maybe let’s say two hours, and change it to northwest?
S-Curve
@Cacti: Yes, that’s true too. The Latino population has gone from 0.5% to 8.4% in NC in the last 30 years.
The last figure I saw said that around 30% of Latinos in NC were US citizens, so I’d bet on my fair state being at the forefront of the “no illegals” wing of the GOP in the future. If the percentage of Latino US citizens rises to about 60%, we’ll see a lot fewer Republicans winning elections, whether at the local, state, or national level.
chris
@S-Curve:
Same here. Screw these bastards..Where’s WT Sherman when you need him? Damn I hope we boot these mofo’s out next time. NC people used to be pretty reasonable and expected govt that worked..and good universities..and being able to point and laugh at SC also too..Shoe’s on the other damn foot now.
Bubblegum Tate
@Cassidy:
Oh, a bunch of them are, but most of them back away from that fact when confronted. Just this morning, one of my wingnut barometers said, “I’m not sure exactly when or where the tipping point will be, but Americans, especially in flyover country, have armed in the last 6 months in preparation for conflict.” He’s been saying that shit since, oh, January of 2009. But every time he’s confronted with his desire to, in his own words, “fight to the death,” he punks out. “Oh, I’m not saying I WANT it [even though I clearly want it], I’m just PREDICTING it–and when it happens, it’ll be ALL YOUR FAULT.”
The pathology is pretty amazing.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
And we were behind only Texas in job creation. Guess how much longer that’s going to last.
RSA
@catclub:
There’s a nice history of RTP (the Research Triangle Park) here. Here are a few quotes that I think are striking, about what happened in the 1950s and 1960s:
“UNC Sociology Professor George Simpson becomes Executive Secretary for the Research Triangle Development Council. Proposed cooperative research centers that could combine the strengths of the region’s universities.”
“Carl Robbins, a retired NC textiles magnet, agreed to invest $1M for land near RDU. ”
“Archie Davis, Chairman of Wachovia Bank, took the charge to sell land and changed the Park to a non-profit designation.”
“It was announced that RTP had been selected for the US Environmental Health Center…”
Basically you have cooperation between universities, state and federal government, and business interests to build something worthwhile. How common is that today? That is, without someone trying to suck enormous profits out in the near-term?
TOP123
@cleek: Fifteen minutes north of NYC? By car you’re in Bronxville, by–what, helicopter? Still Bedford Hills? You need to get a bit farther to get to ‘Deliveranceville’ by that route here, friend. Though there is plenty of weird Limbaugh culture in Westchester County, I’ll give you that!
Bostondreams
I work for North Carolina’s department of public instruction. A few weeks ago, my section got a ‘request’ from a legislator that asked where in the American History One course we teach about religion. We had to compile a document that pointed out all the places it could be taught using the standards.
Any guesses what he was fishing for, hmm?
daniel thomas macinnes
Can’t wait until they start jailing Catholics and Jews for not supporting the Official State Religion. Pass the popcorn!
J.D. Rhoades
@Unsympathetic:
We are paying the price in North Carolina for having some of the worst leadership I’ve ever seen in the Democratic Party. Bev Perdue was fucking useless, and Mike Easley wasn’t much better. They would sell out progressives here in a hot second as well. GOD, I miss Jim Hunt.
cleek
@MCA1:
well, yeah. that was a bit of hyperbole, in NYC’s case. it does go on… forever.
but even in the case of Raleigh (per the OP), 15 minutes in any direction and you’re still in suburbs. i’m 35 minutes out from Raleigh, and that’s where things start to look solidly rural.
but, ten minutes north from my house gets me to the small-but-very-liberal oasis of Chapel Hill.
Mike E
@Pee Cee: Nope, no competition there. If anything, we here in NoeCack are gonna show you how to do “it”, the whole Southern dumbass self-immolation routine.
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Who’s “we”? Local NC politics is immune from modern science AKA 50 state strategy. Being Dem here doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s where you’re from moar than what quaint party you affiliate with.
@Unsympathetic: Thanks for the, umm, sympathy! NC deserves it, and we’re gonna get it good.
@raven: yup.
@balconesfault: Fuck Heath Schuler.
@Cacti: Nope. North Mississippi.
@RSA: Raleigh seems to cling to the DC model of being obstinately conservative despite its status as a capitol.
Petorado
I certainly hope NC legislators have the balls to pick out one official state religion, and not fall back on some mealy-mouthed “we’re a christian state” declaration. After all, Catholics will tell you they are the “one true church,” but these guys might cringe at obeisance to a foreign potentate.
The Church of Republicans Being Dicks is their state religion in practice, but that won’t sound so good when the Governor reads the proclamation.
J.D. Rhoades
@cleek:
cleek, you in Chatham County? You’re just north of me, if so.
Here in Moore County (home to the Golf Capital of the World) it’s less “Deliveranceville” than it is “Enraged Old White Fox-News Watching Retiree From Ohio/New York/Jersey-ville.” Now, get up around Westmoore and Robbins, and you’re looking at something very much like “Winter’s Bone”-ville.
Bobby Thomson
@NCSteve:
It was deliberate. There were a lot of Union supporters in NC.
South Carolina, on the other hand, was fair game. Stupid mother fuckers.
RSA
@Summer:
I didn’t realize there were so many NC readers on BJ. (Doubtless due to how fucking awesome John is.) I could be up for a Triangle meet-up, depending on where and when.
J.D. Rhoades
There were a lot of Union supporters in NC.
Yep. IIRC, we were the last state to secede, only going after SC and Virginia. At one point prior to that, a secessionist militia took over Fort Caswell, down on the coast near Southport. The governor made them give it back.
Hey, it’s something.
J.D. Rhoades
I could be up for a Triangle meet-up, depending on where and when.
Me, too.
Robert
If they honestly believe the Supreme Court can’t tell them to pounce off, won’t they just enact and enforce the law anyway if it passes?
Mike E
Iz stuck in modderayshun! I think I overdid’d the reply thingie–how many per comment can I haz?
Davo
@Gin & Tonic: I assume Unsympathetic was reffering to North Carolinians like myself. This is NOT who we elected and we most certainly do deserve better..
I weep for this state right now…
Trakker
Please, can we just tell the counties and states who want to secede that we will let them go, and set a date for their leaving? Then we can finally, FINALLY, act like a normal country again and begin to repair our lives? FCKem! I’m just so sick of their stupidity. I’ve got rights too.
shortstop
@rikyrah: I know, that was a damn good one. And the next line was just about as excellent.
ruemara
It’s not the South, it’s urban vs rural. Making it endemic to the entire nation. These people are insane, looking to cause a civil war and hoping liberals and moderates will be cowed enough to go quietly into slavery. These are idiots, but powerful, armed and willing to destroy anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
Davo
@Summer: Raleigh progressive here. Count me in!
Wally Ballou
@The Moar You Know: Stuck in Lodi again?
Mike in NC
@J.D. Rhoades:
I wonder if Moore County has more golf courses than Brunswick County, where the typical resident is a retiree from New Jersey who hates paying taxes and resents Welfare Queens, but loves whacking those little white balls around.
J.D. Rhoades
@Mike in NC:
There are 43 courses here. How many in Brunswick?
shortstop
@ruemara:
Sure, that’s most of it, but the situation is definitely exacerbated in the south. Any time there’s a poll about attitudes, preferences, etc., the highest numbers for rank viciousness and idiocy come out of the deep south, followed by the middle south and border states. The plains states and the non-coastal west, both of which are hugely rural, can’t begin to compete.
You and I and everybody here (and Republicans west of the Mississippi) don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the Civil War. It’s amazing how many southerners are still willfully living it.
gene108
@bemused:
No. WCSB mess was started by NJ transplants. This is native NC’er shit.
MCA1
@cleek: No worries, just teasing mostly. I think the Triangle’s a little different than the norm, in that it’s chock full o’ Duke and UNC and their research arms and close enough to State, too. That’s going to bring some liberalism to what otherwise would be cracker country. In my four years in the area, I didn’t venture outside 15-501 or the interstate all that much, but I remember taking the back roads route to Charlottesville for a weekend once, and you’re definitely in a different world before you even get north of Orange County.
To the main point a lot of people are making through the thread – yes, it’s urban/rural (just as to a large extent it’s socioeconomic class as much as racial resentment) that drives a lot of our political tribalism, rather than North/South. But it’s always been thus, at least to a degree. The whole country was more rural 150 years ago, but the North decidedly less so than the South. So, the two are intertwined, perhaps. By “South” we don’t just mean “former slave states” – we mean, to a large degree, a region where provincialism; a lot of small, isolated communities; suspicion and defiance of centralized control and governance; and some clinging to an ideal Jeffersonian model of agrarian small r republicanism, still drive political values. I don’t for a second buy the Southern revisionist history that says it was anything other than slavery that was the primary cause of the Civil War, of course, but the other things they put forward as cover for their inability to confront the guilt of slavery, like anti-federalism impulses, and the idealized vision of small landholding rural farmer as the backbone of society (the actual “Southern way of life” for most whites in 1860, as opposed to slaveholding plantation owner), did and do exist.
catclub
@Unsympathetic: “I have relatives in that state. North Carolinians deserve better. ”
Do you mean North Carolinians deserve better, than to have your relatives in the state?
JGabriel
@Ash Can:
Defending God in court is the greatest service any man could perform for the paupers and peasants! How dare you impugn our Conservative Christian Moral Values!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@NCSteve:
It is a cultural branding thing. Crackerville is found outside of the city limits all over the USA (“What kinds of music do you usually play here? Oh, we have both kinds: Country and Western!”), but not every state has allowed its sense of cultural identity which is self-defined by the dominant majority and then projected out to the rest of the world, including to Americans in other parts of the nation, to be captured and defined by Crackerville.
Mike in NC
@J.D. Rhoades: At least 35, per Yahoo. Maybe three times that number in neighboring Horry County, SC (part of the open-air insane asylum).
Mike E
IMHO Raleigh clings to the DC model of being obstinately conservative despite its status as a capitol, sorta like N. Va.
GOP transplants come here and think they can gain acceptance by being conservative, but they’re nuthin but carpetbaggers in the eyes of native NoeCackers. Useful idiots, but Yankees.
Natives know it isn’t about DEM/GOP but where you’re from. Eastern rural dems are conservative as hell. Some city repubs could be seen as reasonable when it came to progressive growth issues, but Art Pope/John Locke/ALEC/TEA have driven most of them from office (or scared them into not running).
NC v SC is quaint BS, especially when it’s North Mississippi we are aspiring to become. Piss off a librul, updated daily.
Yutsano
test
celticdragonchick
@Unsympathetic:
I happen to live here, and my family does deserve better. Honestly, this level of bug fuck insanity took me by surprise, and that is saying something. Claiming that the SCOTUS has no power to interpret the Constitution?
cleek
@J.D. Rhoades:
cleek, you in Chatham County?
yep. a new arrival. quite a change from Wake co.
MCA1
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I don’t think that’s quite it. The rural North has been dwindling in population for about four generations now, and its population is primarily concentrated in large urban, industrialized centers. This has happened to some degree in the South, but not as much. Most of the new urban areas of the South, like Charlotte, for instance, have been filled up with Northerners, not Southern farmers leaving the lifestyle. Crackerville doesn’t have the numbers necessary to do anything about the self-projected image of Illinois or Massachusetts or Minnesota or anywhere else with large cities anchoring the state. Georgia and Texas are the only two Southern states where the urban elite could theoretically change the projected image of the states from the goober stereotype – the rest are still primarily small town to small city, and not large exporters of big city culture of any sort.
celticdragonchick
@RSA: I’m in Greensboro. I’m game for a meet.
elmo
My experience is the inverse of yours: I lived in California for 30 years, but never in view or even scent of the ocean. Never less than 20 miles, and for 10 years, I was on the East side of the Sierra crest.
Inland San Diego County isn’t in dire poverty by any stretch. Of course the mountain resort towns of the Sierra aren’t either. But right wing? Hell, yes.
gene108
@Davis X. Machina:
I thought the 14th Amendment put an end to state religions/religious tests, which used to exist, as well as nullify many of the 10th Amendment arguments people made/make.
Yutsano
@elmo: Fresno isn’t poor but it ain’t exactly rich either. Helps to have a university and a HUGE IRS office located there though.
ericblair
@shortstop:
I ran the numbers from the census bureau, and it correlates with urban percentage, but there are significant differences. Here are the most rural states:
Vermont
Maine
West Virginia
Mississippi
South Dakota
Arkansas
Montana
Alabama
Kentucky
North Dakota
New Hampshire
and the most urban:
Illinois
Arizona
Utah
Florida
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
Hawaii
Nevada
New Jersey
California
Also, Iowa and Wisconsin are pretty rural, and Texas is pretty urban. So there are other forces at work here.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MCA1:
I think we are saying more or less the same thing. My comment was about the how and your followup comment was about the why, in terms of demographics and the history of the state in question. Having said that, cultural influence and power don’t always have a simple and direct relationship with population, in some states a demographic minority has a larger influence over how the state defines itself than just pure numbers of people would reflect.
Paul in KY
@balconesfault: Hee hee!
J.D. Rhoades
@cleek:
yep. a new arrival. quite a change from Wake co.
Pittsboro seems to be developing a pretty cool vibe, though. Unless I’m misreading it.
cleek
@shortstop:
but again, rural v urban probably has a lot to do with that. the big cites of the NE dominate their states’ politics. give NYC to NJ and what’s left of NY isn’t so blue any more.
even in much of the south, the big cities (Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, etc.) reliably vote Dem but there are enough rural GOP voters to outnumber them.
Brendan in NC
@S-Curve: The Guv is already hard at work pissing off the Ltinos in NC.
He just closed the Latino outreach office – redundant, he says.
And since the state’s AG -(a real Dem)- decided that illegals need ot be issued driver’s licenses, he’s made them with a pink header (Arpaio, anyone?)and the words “No Legal Status” in bold red type on the license as well.
marshall
@dmsilev:
Good. The sooner we get his name off of National Airport, the better.
J.D. Rhoades
even in much of the south, the big cities (Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, etc.) reliably vote Dem
Does Charlotte? My in-laws live there and as near as I can tell, it’s in the running for the Capital of Jesusland. And the new Republican gov. used to be the mayor there.
Zandar
FTFY.
gVOR08
Is there anything left of conservatism except, “You’re not the boss of me”?
cleek
@J.D. Rhoades:
yeah, i really like Pittsboro. it’s got a kind of an eclectic tiny town thing going on. still too small to be a ‘destination’, but it’s good to live near.
Gus
@prufrock: I want Obama to go all Andy Jackson on their asses.
Yutsano
@gVOR08: Cleek’s definition still applies.
burnspbesq
@Unsympathetic:
No they don’t. This is their punishment for being Tarhole fans.
Anna in PDX
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Yes, I actually am painfully aware that Oregon is the most polarized state in the nation and we don’t have no southern drawls. We don’t need them. Our rural folks are all tea partiers or Bircher loonies. I was raised in southern Oregon, on the coast, and I still have Facebook acquaintances who are from there and have these kinds of views. I am just glad i am in Portlandia, Little Beirut, Ecotopia, whatever it is being called these days.
Mike E
@J.D. Rhoades:
Or, that could be vibration from the distant rumblings of invading frack trucks )-:
cleek
@J.D. Rhoades:
yep. this says Mecklenburg Co went for O with 60.8%, last year.
there’s a huge sea of red surrounding it, though.
Gus
@Unsympathetic: I have relatives in that state, too. Unfortunately, they’re undoubtedly cheering this on.
gene108
@S-Curve:
I would go further to point out that NC was probably the last Southern state standing, with regards to a functional state level Democratic party.
There’s a school of thought that the GOP got put into power as a reaction to Democratic scandals involving what basically amounted to a “good old boy” network for those with connections. Evidence for this is the close Lt. Governor’s race, along with the fact a Democrat is still Sec. of State.
In short, it may well be the Republicans are on borrowed time and if they may well realize it, which is why they are trying to do the most harm as quickly as possible.
@Bendal:
I get the feeling Republican voters don’t really care about the economy. The Republican Congressional wave was all about jobs, but they didn’t introduce any jobs bill and have worked to block Obama’s/Democrat’s jobs bill, but they still got sent back to Congress.
I really think Republicans talks about jobs to keep the press napping, but they and their voters both know the job of elected Republican officials is to muck around with social issues, voter ID laws, etc., when elected.
ericblair
@Mike E:
Northern Virginia has been reliably blue for several cycles now. It’s Metro DC far more than it is part of Virginia, and for those of you who are keeping track, the pickup trucks and Waffle Houses don’t start appearing in earnest until after you’ve crossed the Rappahannock. Elections are a race as to whether the blue of NoVA and Tidewater outweighs the red of the rest of the state.
Mike E
@J.D. Rhoades: Charlotte is the prong of the buckle of the Bible Belt. Scary Jeebusland.
eta @ericblair: Well, sure, with your fancy facts and things, but my gut tells me there are some right repub assholes afoot! They are outnumbered, but not outmoneyed when it comes to stirring up local shit.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Conservatives luurrve the constitution so much they’re always trying to amend it.
Betsy
@J.D. Rhoades: Heart your comment. Jim was the man.
celticdragonchick
@Mike E:
Charlotte is all NASACAR and Billy Graham. Winston Salem is not much better. Greensboro is reliably liberal, as is the Triangle.
Betsy
@Mike E: That’s nonsense. If Raleigh and Wake County had determined the state’s electoral votes, Al Gore would have been President. The Congressional delegation from Raleigh is as liberal/Democratic as any other place’s in the nation.
Tonal Crow
This is yet another reason I love me some ACLU. They kick ass and take names, year after year, no matter who’s in office, and goad the tyrants to out themselves in ever more outrageous ways. Please consider supporting the ACLU’s work.
Gus
@Bendal:
Maybe this bodes well for you. Republicans took over both houses of the Minnesota legislature in 2010 on a jobs platform, then proceeded to put constitutional amendments on the ballot for voter ID and against gay marriage. Both failed in ’12, and the Dems took both houses of the lege back.
Betsy
@burnspbesq: dookie
Tonal Crow
@Schlemizel:
Lincoln used too much Grant and not enough Sherman.
Mike E
@celticdragonchick:
Love me some rocket racin’, WOOHOO! (-;
I kinda like W-S, and Greensboro too…my Miss E (a native Charlottean) will be starting at UNCG this Fall, inshallah.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tonal Crow: It is where I send all my Partners in Giving money.
Tonal Crow
@Walker:
Yes, the south is having a great many problems succeeding at anything but high-level wingnuttery. On the other hand, they did attempt to secede from the United States, at which they also did not quite succeed.
Mike E
@Betsy: Umm, yeah, no kidding. Again with the voting facts! Like I said to ericblair, local righties do live for stirring up as much local shit as they can. Algore is fat btw. :-p
ETA Just pray the courts strike down the latest gerrymander, or this too shall pass.
grandpa john
@NCSteve It gives them the opportunity to hurl gratuitous remarks at the south without observing that the same conditions of nuttiness are to be found in many states not part of the south.
Tonal Crow
@DanF:
But the state senate banned accelerating sea level rise! It can’t happen you libtard!
Mnemosyne
@grandpa john:
We have the same conditions of nuttiness in California, but we didn’t hand the levers of government over to those people. In fact, the nuts have been so marginalized that they’re now less than 1/3rd of our legislature.
That seems to be the Northern/Southern divide — we all have crackpots in our home states, but (pace Wisconsin and Michigan) it seems to be primarily in the South that the crackpots are put in charge.
Tonal Crow
@Omnes Omnibus: Well done!
Jasmine Bleach
@ruemara:
Even urban vs. rural is not a firm dividing line. Take, for example, Wisconsin, which has a slew of very Red rural counties, and a slew of very Blue rural counties. The dividing line there seems to be background of origin. The Red counties are mostly Germanic, and the Blue counties are mostly Scandinavian.
Just pointing out that there are, actually many rural areas that are solid blue. Not everywhere, of course, but it’s hard to paint with such a broad brush (even if your statement is generally accurate).
johnny aquitard
@Cassidy: That desire has been like an ear-worm since Appomattox. But it has become more insistent in the last 40 years. The increasing prosperity of the region in the 80’s also ramped it up, when the Sunshine States began to enjoy an influx of commerce, corporate HQ’s (along with educated people), and of course federal dollars in the form of defense contracts and highway improvements. For it appeared that the South indeed was rising again. Economically, culturally and politically the South was gaining in influence.
But the disaster of the Bush years and a black president has really brought that tune to their lips. They’re openly mouthing the words now.
They’ve taken a big hit as a result of the policies and politicians they’ve supported but they refuse to acknowledge that their dimmer future is their own doing. The black guy is to blame, for everything.
If only they were free of nigger rule and ran things by the bible, they’re certain they’d prosper.
Another Halocene Human
I would encourage the NC GOP to spend as much time and energy and media space as possible on this issue. Not only will they alienate younger voters, and keeping busy on this will keep them from getting into other, more pernicious forms of trouble, but any attempt to enforce this “law” will be the proverbial bug hitting the windshield.
*rubs hands*
Oh, this is gonna be good.
Another Halocene Human
@johnny aquitard: That works until some of the yanquis don’t go along with the plan… Once upon a time most of the Northerners who settled there had Gone With The Wind fantasies and were more racist than the Southerners. But that has changed and the old guard faces the horror of being outnumbered at the ballot box. VA, NC, GA, and FL, all the same story.
GA isn’t very swingy yet, but it will be. The outer suburb hard righters know it, that is why they are trying to hamstring attempts to improve Atlanta. But it’s like turning back the tide. Young people are moving in, the streetcar project (tying the Black ‘hood to downtown which was once divided, purposely, by the building of a highway) is going forward full steam, and in ten years those college students who tried and failed to get a college to college commuter rail will be 30yo, making good money, and if they’re still in GA ready to try again. A few might even be conservative and in the lege, if GA is anything like FL. Atlanta will have a new Amtrak station and will be running more regional transportation than it currently does, including Thruway bus.
Btw, if you have any interest in MLK, 2014 will be your year. You can take the Southern Crescent train from Washington, DC (and the DC King monument) to Atlanta, then take MARTA to the streetcar to the 4th Ward. Visit all the museums, walk the ‘hoods, eat the food. Then continue on the Crescent to Birmingham for more history.
Right now (2013) this trip has some issues. The current Amtrak station is in a bad location so the Southern Crescent from DC to Atlanta is expensive and full. The streetcar is under construction. The current station is a long walk from any MARTA although it does have a weekday bus. I would definitely encourage any liberal to make this trip next year and spend some money inside the city limits. Especially because it will make Ewick Ewickson cry. The outer suburbanites have apoplectic rage when people come and visit and enjoy inner urban Atlanta.
In the end, the plantation model will be broken, and rural GA will get dragged along by its biggest city, kicking and screaming.
Watch.
johnny aquitard
@cleek:
The incorrigible cracker does not like the damn yankees living in the land of his father and father’s fathers. He wants their money of course, the investment and economic stimulus that such immigration provided. But he’s telling himself the South doesn’t necessarily need that from them anymore. The South will manage its own economy just fine without them and be able to better manage its negroes and other institutions the way it was intended to be…
So, yes, they would like it if NC was nothing but ‘their kind of people’. Which may or may not be pig farmers and tobacco pickers, but it likely won’t be many of people in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle.
lojasmo
Who knows of a good drone program?
grandpa john
@Mnemosyne: well lets not forget Arizona, Pennsylvania,,Ohio, and Indiana, Kansas, North and south Dakota,Idaho, Montana and Nebraska among others as not exactly southern
Another Halocene Human
@grandpa john: The northern western states were Republican strongholds back when that meant something different. Washington State was staunch Republican for a long time (which is part of why they are so unequal despite the ‘liberal’ politics). Southern Ohio and Indiana are clan territory. Arizona was settled by racist whites from the Midwest who are trying to stave off the Hispanic voter wave that is coming. Also seems to attract dumb libertarian young people, but probably not that many of them because I’ve heard there is nothing to do and everyone just drinks alone in their apartment. Idaho is a white nationalist/christian identity stronghold.
The South has a bad hangover from the plantation days. It’s ridiculous to try to pretend otherwise. Just like Oklahoma is a shithole due to its peculiar history. The #1 difference between the Midwest and the South is how land was doled out and who has control over it. Sharecropping vs. homesteading. Some of the shittiest stuff that goes on in the Midwest has to do with relations with the Native American Indian tribes who still live there and guess what, MOST of the bullshit is about LAND!
Betsy
@johnny aquitard: That’s just not an accurate characterization at all. Many of the yankees moving to NC are pretty conservative. For example, it’s the northern Catholic white New Jersey folks who are used to Balkanized local school district that tried to stop the (very successful) busing in schools for diversity in Wake County.
They came from viciously racist enclaves in New Jersey and they were horrified that their little white kids might experience black people in school.
Betsy
@Another Halocene Human: Yeah, but North Carolina was never a plantation dominated state. It was scratch farmers and yeomanry here. And craftsmen and shopkeepers from the German immigrants. Also an early Quaker beachhead.
Also, the mountain part of the state was never under effective Confederate control.
Some of my friends there are still Republicans (it used to mean “liberal” up there).
S-Curve
@Brendan in NC: Yes, I think that’s part of a long-range GOP plan. Marginalize and demonize Latinos, and then it’ll be easier to gain (white) support for measures to make obtaining citizenship harder, if not impossible.
S-Curve
@Betsy: And they were also elected for a completely different reason, i.e., a lot of parents were horrified at the prospect of some schools becoming year-round. Then when the new Board went after integration, many of those same parents were even more horrified, and voted the creeps out. Hoping that happens on a broader scale in the state legislature.
johnny aquitard
@Another Halocene Human:
I would say they were more vicious or overt. But not necessarily more racist. The old school is so steeped in it, it’s a way of life not a lash-out or wear it on your shoulder thing. That in a way is even worse. Because it is so woven into everything, not in a frothing-at-the-mouth way, but suffused throughout everything. They don’t wake up angry and brimming with white-hot hate. Their world is settled, mostly. It’s the peacefulness of it, the lack of venom, that is terrifying. It’s the way the sun rises in the east, and they are just as calm about it.
I hope you are right about GA. I used to live on Edgewood near Inman Park. Used to ride MARTA every day until I got a job in Buckhead. At the time it took close to 2 hours to get up there. Switch trains to reach Midtown, then 2 buses. And I had to walk the last 1/2 mile. Nothing direct, by design. And people in Buckhead didn’t like pedestrians, even more than usual for suburbs. I’d walk on the sidewalk during my lunch break, wearing my suit jacket and tie, down some residential streets and someone would call the cops. They’d come cruising by and demand I explain what I was doing there and where I was going. Happened 3 or 4 times, then I stopped walking on residential streets. Some public sidewalks in Buckhead are less public than others.
They’ve been hamstringing attempts even back when I lived there. MARTA, as I’m sure you’ve heard, means Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta to those folks. A generation ago I was one of those hopeful young people who had moved in. I moved out 5 years later. Now some 20 years gone, and I hear the same hope. Hope it happens this time.
John 2.0
@J.D. Rhoades: Honestly, I get really tired of the Hunt vs. Everyone else that gets tossed around in NC. Hunt was a good Governor, and he did a lot of great things for NC, particularly in education. It’s been swept down the memory hole now, but in the last two budget cycles of the 90’s during Hunt’s last term he cooked the books so he could both cut taxes and increase spending in order to raise his national profile to hopefully be Gore’s VP candidate (this was back when the conventional thinking was that centrist charismatic southern governors were the Dem’s path to electoral success). This left Easley with a $2 billion structural deficit in a $14 billion biannual budget. It took Easley nearly the entirety of his first term (and the establishment of a State Lottery for education) to dig out of the hole Hunt’s ego left.
Of course, Easley wasn’t a progressive, and never claimed to be. He was a technocrat, and a good manager, or at least, he hired people who were good at their jobs. He also lead the charge on some major internal reforms that get forgotten, like a massive progressive tax reform/modernization program and a complete overhaul of mental health reform in the state. And lets not forget a sea change in the way the budget is enacted (so much that the entirely of the Executive Budget Act was recodified). But liberals in the state only remember that he “wasn’t Hunt” so he never gets any credit for the things that he did do. Like More @4, etc.
Now, I DO think Perdue was pretty worthless and shit the bed so badly that a GOP takeover of the Governor’s Mansion was more or less inevitable. But the DOJ passing on the GOP’s gerrymandering was the nail in the coffin of Democratic control of either house for the time being.
johnny aquitard
@Betsy: Ah, but they’re still yankees. You know that matters.
Also, I won’t disagree with you about the viciousness. Or rather I will term it, the overtness of it. ‘Viciousness’ here is at the core of all of it, and I’m opining that the other kind, the kind of the old south, is actually worse. As I wrote in my other comment, “It’s the peacefulness of it, the lack of venom, that is terrifying. It’s the way the sun rises in the east, and they are just as calm about it.”
It’s the settledness of it, the unquestioning, the right-as-rain acceptance of it I find more disturbing. I recall a conversation I had when I lived in Ga, with a woman of the old south sympathies (although she was not old herself) regarding immigrants and who was really a ‘native’.
“We are” she says, meaning of course ‘us white people’.
“What about native americans? You know the indians?” I prompted.
“They’re all dead”
I try a new angle. “What about the people who were brought here as slaves, it was 150, 200 or even 250 years ago? Those people were here way before anyone in yours and my family arrived.”
“Niggers don’t count.”
“Why not?”
“They’re not real people.”
See, all this was said without any trace of anger, hate or venom. Straight up, factual. No malice whatsoever. Like talking about the weather.
And that made it the most malicious and vicious of bigotry I’d ever heard. Topping even that cracker in a service station in Forsyth County, Ga, who, out of the blue when I stopped for gas, came over and got in my face and informed me, “I hates niggers cuz theys so stupid”. He gave it all the venomous intonation, hate energy and spittle-flecked delivery of anything racist I’ve experienced. And it still wasn’t as shocking as the calmness of the other kind.
johnny aquitard
@Another Halocene Human:
Don’t know why I find this hilarious, but dayum it made me laugh.
Ignored by the free market. Poor, poor lonely young glibertarians. Goin’ Galt in a bottle.
pseudonymous in nc
Like I said in a previous thread, the GOPpers in NC know that they’ve got but a few years to trash the joint, in the hope of driving all the sane people out. Pol Pot stuff.
Betsy
@johnny aquitard: Well, I’m sorry that happened to you.
I’ve had racist stuff happen to me in 40 years in NC / the South but not quite an episode like that.
Of course, there’s the overt racial steering I experienced in New York City, and the last two Confederate flags I saw being flown were in central New York State, but I guess it just goes to show that racism is pretty much everywhere and no region of the country gets a “pass” or all of the blame.
Betsy
@S-Curve: Let’s hope so, and I am optimistic.
From the comments on the news stories, these Teabillies have made an awful lot of enemies in their first twelve weeks in office.
North Carolinians are traditional and they don’t like to see the china broken.
pseudonymous in nc
@gene108:
The post-2010 gerrymander probably locked up the GA for half a decade, because those districts are cherry-picked for votes down to the block; Pat McGroin may not get a second term when it’s obvious that he’s not “Mr Mayor Manager” but an Art Pope puppet and a rubber-stamp for the nutjobs in the GA.
But the legislative shit over the past three months shows what a bunch of nutjobs can do when they are given absolute power. Specifically, because NC isn’t a “home rule” state in terms of municipal power, it’s easy for them to shit on cities by stripping away their assets and institutions, handing them over to boards dominated by the counties, and ultimately selling them off to their buddies. And oh, they hate cities.
pluege
isn’t declaring the right to ignore the powers given the federal government in the Constitution, effectively a declaring secession?
merrinc
@RSA:
(BJ-NC meetup) I’m in Davidson, a reliably liberal college town. For this transgression, we were redistricted out of Mel Watt’s district into Sue “I See Scary Mooslims Everywhere” Myrick’s old district which is now held by Robert “I’ll Happily Spend $2M of my own money to win a GOP Primary” Pittenger.
I was thrilled to move out of Raleigh over a decade ago but I’ll drive back that way to meet, drink, and commiserate with fellow B-J’ers. Let me know, please.
Davis X. Machina
@Betsy: For a lot of them,moving south to Brick Township and Ocean County just wasn’t moving south enough…
Summer
Yo, if anyone is coming back to check, I live about two blocks from Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, so I can attest to the fact that it’s got big tables and delicious fresh-brewed beer. Food trucks and sometimes music.
There is the Burger and Brew downtown with big tables and I think likker. Bull McCabes has a nice outdoor area. Um. There is also the “start one place downtown roving” option.
Since there hasn’t been one near here, I haven’t paid too much attention to meetup notice, but what about either next weekend 4.12(Friday or Sunday for the travelers?) or the following? Got a nice documentary film festival going on this weekend for all interested.
Darkrose
@The Moar You Know: Sacramento is very much inland, and while we’re not all rolling in dough, most folks here aren’t in dire poverty, either.
TriassicSands
I guess the only question now is when will Tony Calzone and Co. (aka the five radical right wing Supreme Court justices) decide to overturn Marbury v. Madison. After all, 210 years is hardly long enough to consider that issue as settled.
Carolina Dave
@Summer
A BJ meet up in the Bull City? Centrally located, easily accessable by train or car. Hoops are done (at least in NC) so that is probably a good thing. And finally spring is here.
Former Gov. Easley was a crook as was the former Dem speaker of the house so I blame them for part of the current state of affairs. The backlash to Obama’s election in 2008 brought a slew of tea-party crazies to Raleigh in the off-year election of 2010, who then gerrymandered the state to ensure Republican rule in the state house and in congress for the next decade.
Almost every day I listen or read state news and think, WTF?
karen
Hmmmm…..two thoughts:
1. What religion would be the state religion? Since we all know it’ll be Christianity what happens to the Jews? Muslims? Atheists? Forced conversions? Deportation to other states? Do they suddenly lose their rights and their land and get put into internment camps like the Japanese did?
2. Isn’t this whole Federal laws don’t supersede states’ rights movement a way that they can overturn the Civil Rights act so they can remove the right to vote to anyone without a dick and darker than they want, not to mention non Christians?
There is no way these things are not connected.
Big Wayne
Hi Zander,
Great post. But in regards to this:
I just happened to be doing some reading about this recently and discovered there was an even earlier case. Look up the Negro-Seamen Act of 1822.
To wit:
I must say, reading this does not make me hate the Confederacy any less.
stgoode
@celticdragonchick: I’m in Clemmons, a suburb of Winston-Salem in Forsyth County. Forsyth County as a whole went for PBO in 2012 – W-S offsets the deep red of Clemmons, Kernersville and the rest of the county. Having Wake Forest, WSSU and UNCSA in W-S helps. Here in Clemmons, the crazy is abundant. Virginia Foxx has a district office about a mile from my house.
S-Curve
@Summer: I also live in Durham and would be up for a meet-up. Not available this weekend, though.
karen
My husband’s folks live in Asheville and due to his health and our separation, he’s been living with them for three years. I’ve been taunting him that I love to live in Maryland because NC just turned super red but this is not something I can taunt him with. Ir’s too crazy.