Remember all that bullshit during the run up to the Iraq War about love it or leave? A lovely holdover from the Vietnam clusterfuck, carefully designed and tested to silence anyone who points out a policy happens to be both insane and deadly on a mass scale. Not to mention an economic super-massive black-hole. Secession compares with the best of that compartmentalized genre and, once again, rears its ugly head, this time in northern Colorado, where locals are whining they should be allowed to become a land-locked, insular state in the middle of the US — I dearly that wish could be granted as an example and warning to all future confederate wanna-bees.
Thankfully, I don’t have to link it, because Mistermix did that and succinctly summed up this nasty intersection between Teabilly politics, wealthy sociopaths, and traditional media dutifully posting some rotting online-chum:
BJ — … There are hundreds of other federal programs tailored specifically to make sure that Americans in rural areas have all the accoutrements of civilization that city and suburb dwellers enjoy. … Instead of using the pie holes that Baby Jesus gave them to thank urban states for their clean water, well-maintained roads, electricity and telecommunication, they choose to forcefully eject verbal diarrhea like this secession talk. And the media laps it up mainly because it pisses off their urban/suburban audience, and pissed off people click on stories.
Indeed they do, and I hope some of my pissed off readers click on that link and reward Balloon Juice with some traffic. Oh, and my apologies to the talented Mr Beatty (DS) and anyone who finds it offensive. It’s not solely my doing. The fact is, no matter how bright he shines or what he may star in for the rest of his life, soft pudgy city-dweller getting raped in woods by depraved-hillbilly pigfucker will be Beatty’s on screen legacy, now and forever. Which serves here to convey the contempt I feel for those bumpkin hypocrites who only find patriotism appealing if they get to exploit and enslave the most vulnerable members of our nation.
NED Beatty. Not Warren.
One of Burt Reynold’s better movies, too.
Sometimes I secretly wish that TX or SC or someplace similar would actually secede, just to observe how long it would take before it’s citizens turn on each other, after the total economic collapse. People who propose secession haven’t thought it through beyond “we’re independent now, suckers!”
ChrisL
Warren Beaty wasn’t in Deliverance. That was Ned Beaty.
Yeah, but Warren Beaty’s so vain, he probably thinks that role was about him.
While you mention ‘state’ in a generic sense, it seems like the remaining arguments suggest you mean ‘state’ in the nation state sense.
You may want to check your references. I live in a neighboring county to the primary county, Weld, complaining about how the rest of Colorado voted. The wingnuts in Weld do not want to create a separate nation. They want to create a 51st state of the Union. i.e. secede from Colorado not the USA.
That would give them 2 additional wingnut senators, move a wingnut representative from Colorado to ‘Northern Colorado’, and give 3 wingnut Electoral votes to the next Republican presidential candidate (while taking 1 Electoral vote from the swing state of Colorado).
The new state would also allow them to have no background checks on about 50% of gun sales, magazines over 15 rounds, and carry on university grounds (e.g. University of Northern Colorado).
The new wingnut state would still be able to bask in the federal largess.
It is a fantasy, pure and simple. There are plenty of non-wingnuts in Weld that don’t feel this way.
The chickenhawks tell people “If you don’t like it, leave.”
My response to them is, “If you like it so much, sign up for service in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
If they really believed the fiction of “armies fight for our freedoms”, they would be jumping at the chance to go overseas. Yet instead, you won’t believe the type and number of excuses you’ll hear from the teabagers for not doing military service. They’re happy to see others die for their cheap oil, but not do the fighting themselves.
Ned Beatty
@ Anthony K:
Where do you want your internet delivered? :)