5 November 2005. Thanks to R.
Original source, now withdrawn : http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yesid=5652
M. notes it is available here:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5652
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944
It's Time to Reconfigure the United States
by Mike Thompson
Posted Nov 3, 2004
[From the author: This is an essay I've been working on for the past several weeks, updated moments ago with what appears to be Bush's final number of victory states (31) once the nonsense of provisional votes in Ohio is overcome.
As an admitted "modest proposal" (a la Swift's satiric story of the same name), it is nevertheless serious in pointing out the cancer that continues to threaten our body politic.]
Branded unconstitutional by President Abraham Lincoln, the South's secession from the American Union ultimately sparked "The Civil War" (a name that was rejected by Southerners, who correctly called it "The War Between the States," for the South never sought to 1] seize the central government or 2] rule the other side, two requisites for a civil war).
No state may leave the Union without the other states' approval, according to Lincoln's doctrine--an assertion that ignores the Declaration of Independence, which was the vital basis for all 13 American colonies' unilateral secession from the British Union eight decades earlier. Lincoln's grotesque legal argument also disregards a state's inherent right of secession which many scholars believe is found in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Meantime, America has become just as divided as it was a century and a half ago, when it writhed in Brother-vs.-Brother War. Instead of wedge issues like slavery, federal subsidies for regional business, and high tariffs, society today is sundered by profound, insoluble Culture War conflicts (such as abortion and gay marriage), and debate about our role abroad (shall we remain the world's leader, or become an unprincipled chump for the cabal of globalist sybarites who play endless word-games inside the United Nations and European Union sanctuaries?).
For many decades, conservative citizens and like-minded political leaders (starting with President Calvin Coolidge) have been denigrated by the vilest of lies and characterizations from hordes of liberals who now won't even admit that they are liberals--because the word connotes such moral stink and political silliness. As a class, liberals no longer are merely the vigorous opponents of the Right; they are spiteful enemies of civilization's core decency and traditions.
Defamation, never envisioned by our Founding Fathers as being protected by the First Amendment, flourishes and passes today for acceptable political discourse. Movies, magazines, newspapers, radio/TV programs, plays, concerts, public schools, colleges, and most other public vehicles openly traffic in slander and libel. Hollywood salivated over the idea of placing another golden Oscar into Michael Moore'sfat hands, for his Fahrenheit 9/11 jeremiad, the most bogus, deceitful film documentary since Herr Hitler and Herr Goebbels gave propaganda a bad name.
When they tire of showering conservative victims with ideological mud, liberals promote the only other subjects with which they feel conversationally comfortable: Obscenity and sexual perversion. It's as if the genes of liberals have rendered them immune to all forms of filth.
As a final insult, liberal lawyers and judges have become locusts of the Left, conspiring to destroy democracy itself by excreting statutes and courtroom tactics that fertilize electoral fraud and sprout fields of vandals who will cast undeserved and copious ballots on Election Day.
The truth is, America is not just broken--it is becoming irreparable. If you believe that recent years of uncivil behavior are burdensome, imagine the likelihood of a future in which all bizarre acts are the norm, and a government-booted foot stands permanently on your face.
That is why the unthinkable must become thinkable. If the so-called "Red States" (those that voted for George W. Bush) cannot be respected or at least tolerated by the "Blue States" (those that voted for Al Gore and John Kerry), then the most disparate of them must live apart--not by secession of the former (a majority), but by expulsion of the latter. Here is how to do it.
Having been amended only 17 times since 10 vital amendments (the Bill of Rights) were added at the republic's inception, the U.S. Constitution is not easily changed, primarily because so many states (75%, now 38 of 50) must agree. Yet, there are 38 states today that may be inclined to adopt, let us call it, a "Declaration of Expulsion," that is, a specific constitutional amendment to kick out the systemically troublesome states and those trending rapidly toward anti-American, if not outright subversive, behavior. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. Only the remaining 38 states would retain the name, "United States of America." The 12 expelled mobs could call themselves the "Dirty Dozen," or individually keep their identity and go their separate ways, probably straight to Hell.
A difficult-to-pass constitutional amendment, however, is not necessary. There is an equally lawful route that mercifully would be both easier and faster. Inasmuch as Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution specifies that "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union," it is reasonable that the same congressional majority may expel a state from the Union. Is there, after all, any human organization in existence (including a family or law firm) that may not disown, disinherit, ostracize, alienate or expel diabolical members? Whether the nation is purged of these 12 states via the Constitution or statute, the process of elimination must begin now, for the need of societal detoxification has waxed so overwhelmingly clear.
Examine the "Mostly Mainstream 38" and "Fringe 12." Of the 50 states, Bush won 30 in the 2000 presidential election against Gore, and 31 in 2004 against Kerry. More dramatic is the huge disparity among counties. Of 3,112 counties nationwide, Bush in 2000, for example, won 2,434, a crushing 78% majority. (In the counties composing "Bush USA" live approximately 150 million persons; in the 678 of "Gore/Kerry USA," 140 million.) Gore/Kerry denizens are concentrated in the metropolises of the East and West Coasts and those big cities on the Great Lakes or Mississippi River. Other significant pockets of ultraliberal extremists may be found in intellectually incestuous college towns and pro-big-government state capitals, along the estranged and overwhelmed Mexican border, and in Dixie's welfare-addicted Cotton Belt.
The demographics revealed by the two most recent presidential elections are radically different and have resulted in "Two Americas" (but not the simplistic "Two Americas" [one rich, one poor] envisioned by Kerry'sMarxist-tongued running mate, John Edwards):
* BUSH USA is predominantly white; devoutly Christian (mostly Protestant); openly, vigorously heterosexual; an open land of single-family homes and ranches; economically sound (except for a few farms), but not drunk with cyberworld business development, and mainly English-speaking, with a predilection for respectfully uttering "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir."* GORE/KERRY USA is ethnically diverse; multi-religious, irreligious or nastily antireligious; more sexually liberated (if not in actual practice, certainly in attitude); awash with condo canyons and other high-end real estate bordered by sprawling, squalid public housing or neglected private homes, decidedly short of middle-class neighborhoods; both high tech and oddly primitive in its commerce; very artsy, and Babelesque, with abnormally loud speakers. Bush USA also is far safer, its murder rate being about 16% of the homicidal binge that plagues Gore/Kerry USA--2.1 per 100,000 residents, compared with 13.2 per 100,000 (from a study by Professor Joseph Olson, Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota).
A downsized, post-expulsion United States still would be geographically big enough (and personally generous enough) to welcome millions of authentic refugees from the ousted former states, real Americans who crave lower taxes, smaller government, safer neighborhoods, more secure borders, greater moral leadership, and all the other aspects of a markedly better society-- one that spawns harmony, not cacophony; excellence, not dependence; justice, not histrionics; education, not brainwashing; enterprise, not welfare, and Godliness, not devilishness. As for the dozen ex-American states, they could always petition the UN and EU for foreign aid. Moreover, with any good luck (or bon chance), socialist Canada would annex our jettisoned territory, eh?
Still Relevant After All These Years
Language of the 1776 Declaration of Independence that rings true today for expulsion:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . .Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness . . .
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes . . . but when a long train of abuses . . . evinces a design to reduce them [the people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Language of Barry Goldwater, 1964 Republican presidential nominee that also rings true:
Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the eastern seaboard and let it float out to sea.
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