Reply #15: The issue of secession was settled in a fairly important war in the 1860's [View All]

[QC]

Sorry, but I think that all the secession threads, and there have easily been a hundred or more since the election, are pointless, since there's no way it's going to happen, and divisive, since they lead to all kinds of smug self-righteousness on the part of those whose states went to Kerry by a few points.

The reality of the situation is that the states are all various shades of purple. The red state/blue state construct benefits the Republicans at our expense, because it feeds the notion that their support spans the country while ours is limited to narrow strips along the coast and a couple of enclaves in the urban midwest, when that is not the case at all. It also downplays the power of the reactionaries in "blue states," like Santorum, Pataki, Arnold, Romney, etc.

And, of course, there's the issue of how quickly many liberals have embraced "states rights," which is troubling in itself.

The sooner we drop the media-created and Rove-endorsed red/blue paradigm, the better for us.