Salon: If at first you don't secede

[kskiska]

Feeling they've lost any say in how the nation is run, liberals are turning to an unfamiliar philosophy: States' rights.

By Michelle Goldberg

In the days after the election, fantasies of blue-state secession ricocheted around the Internet. Liberals indulged themselves in maps showing Canada gathering the blue states into its social democratic embrace, leaving the red states to form their own "Jesusland." They passed around the scathing rant from the Web site Fuck the South, which lacerated the chauvinism of the "heartland" and pointed out that the coasts, far from destroying marriage, actually have lower divorce rates than the interior.

These sentiments were so pronounced that they migrated into the mainstream. Speaking on "The McLaughlin Group" the weekend after George W. Bush's victory, panelist Lawrence O'Donnell, a former Democratic Senate staffer, noted that blue states subsidize the red ones with their tax dollars, and said, "The big problem the country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government."

A shocked Tony Blankley asked him, "Are you calling for civil war?" To which O'Donnell replied, "You can secede without firing a shot."

For now, of course, secession remains an escapist fantasy. But its resonance with liberals points to some modest potential for constructive political action. After all, as the South knows well, there are interim measures between splitting the nation and submitting to a culture pushed by a hostile federal government. Having lost any say in how the nation is run, liberals may be about to discover states' rights -- for better or worse.

(snip)

Meanwhile, even as gay rights are preempted or rolled back on the national level -- and in some states -- Connecticut looks set to join Vermont in legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples. As the Danbury News Times reported on Monday, "Rep. Robert Godfrey, D-Danbury, and other lawmakers say it is almost inevitable that a gay union measure will become law in the 2005 session of General Assembly." If that happens, Connecticut will become the first state where the Legislature passed such a law without a court order.

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http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/11/16/states/index.html

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Somehow O'Donnell seems....

always to be able to say out loud exactly what I'm thinking... even before I realize I'm thinking it.

Except for the moral issue involved ( slavery), it probably would have been a good idea ( in retrospect, of course) to let the slave states go their own way. We are indeed two completely different cultures. Not much in common, 'cept maybe baseball and bad schools.

Paul

[The Zanti Regent]

2. Sounds fine to me!

I'm ready to divorce Bush in California and replace him with Paul Martin!

[BlueStatesForever]

3. Yep, we're most certainly being taxed

without being represented. I completely think it's time to leave.

It's funny, but the red states always say, "well if you left, what would you do without our corn fields?". To this I say, "what would you do if we decided to buy our corn elsewhere?"

[stilpist]

4. Read "Take it to the Blue States" in the current (11/29) The

Nation for some ideas on how to beat the red states without seceding. Unfortunately it can't be linked, but you can buy it or read it at the library. Author Thomas Geoghegan has some great ideas about using state laws to win back the people who vote against themselves.

[Demeter]

5. You Know, States' Rights Isn't Unfamiliar or New to Us

It's just that we think individual rights come first. And there have been too many "States' Rights" issues that were anything but...

If people are going to argue a principle, then they must define it. And States' Rights as used by the GOP has always meant abuse of power to subvert some portion of the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

[CaptainCorc]

6. Well put n/t