Amusing liberal plan to split America

May 1, 2013

By John Seiler

Whatever America’s many problems, liberals continue to amuse us. The latest is a diatribe in the liberal news site The Daily Beast/Newsweek, “Memo to the South: Go Ahead, Secede Already!” by Lee Siegel, who is described as, “the author of Harvard Is Burning, which has just been published as an Amazon Kindle Single.”

He’s not talking about Southern California seceding from Northern California, but about the old Confederacy leaving again. One difference between the regions is that Yankees like him use profanities a lot more than Southerners. Even though I’m a Yankee, too, I’ll clean up his quotes because this is a family web site.

He writes:

“Let’s not be fooled by all the bipartisan rhetoric that has been streaming out of the GOP since Romney’s self-destruction. Hundreds of thousands of petitioners in a handful of red states still want to secede? Well, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

He can’t avoid a well-worn cliche in his second sentence. And he doesn’t note that Romney was raised a Yankee in Michigan (like me) and was the governor of a Yankee state. The Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan, also was a Yankee from Wisconsin.

“A solid block of Southern states continues to refuse to expand Medicaid, thus squashing one of the linchpins of the president’s health-care reform.”

But Medicare is going broke fast.

“The South will likely be the last and most stubborn battleground in the fight for gay marriage.”

Actually, same-sex “marriage” already is allowed in Southern states. It just isn’t officially recognized by their state governments. And such Yankee states as Michigan and Pennsylvania also are unlikely to provide such recognition unless the U.S. Supreme Court forces them to.

Siegel Utopia

“Gun control? The more the two sides seem to get cozier with each other, the faster gun-control legislation gets watered down—and more and more red states are passing laws making it legal to carry a concealed weapon.”

In what country does Siegel live? Does he know what’s really going on in America? Actually, gun control is stymied in the federal government because such Yankee states as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania are stuffed with hunters who commonly belong to the Democratic Party but oppose gun control. After the 1994 gun control law was imposed, Democrats lost big time in those states and decided they would rather win and retain offices than impose gun control that didn’t work anyway.

“As for immigration, the red states seem to be relaxing their anti-immigrant fervor, but nothing approaching new legislation is even on the horizon.”

Actually, the argument isn’t about cooling “anti-immigrant fervor,” but about how to regulate immigration. Even Red State politicians would allow some immigration. Without any regulation, about half the world’s 7 billion people would take the next 747 to America.

And the biggest pro-immigration U.S. senator is Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. Next in line is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Both are Southerners

“Far from being fanciful or fanatical, the proponents of secession have a stronger grasp of political reality than just about anyone else. In fact, there are serious reasons why the North itself should take the lead in a secessionist movement.”

Siegel might have a point there. But here’s his Yankee utopia:

“Just think what America would look like without its mostly Southern states. (We could retain “America’: they could call themselves ‘Smith & Wesson” or ‘Coca-Cola’ or something like that.) Universal health care. No guns. Strong unions. A humane minimum wage. A humane immigration policy. High revenues from a fair tax structure. A massive public-works program. Legal gay marriage. A ban on carbon emissions. Electric cars. Stronger workplace protections. Extended family leave from work in case of pregnancy or illness. Longer unemployment benefits. In short, a society on a par with most of the rest of the industrialized world—a place whose politics have finally caught up with its social and economic realities.”

A lot of humor there. Actually, Smith & Wesson is a Yankee company located in Springfield, Mass. Coca-Cola definitely is located in Atlanta, Ga., but its corporate board is so “progressive” it makes Siegel look like a reactionary. “Universal health care” would just more quickly bankrupt Yankeeland — a better name for a rump North than “America”; as with Canada’s socialized medicine scheme, it would just send sick people South to pay cash for treatment.

“No guns.” As mentioned above, a lot of pro-gun people are Yankees. And how would he seize the estimated 200 million guns from people in Yankeeland? Would he channel Stalin?

“Strong unions,” which would bankrupt state governments even faster. “A humane minimum wage,” which would kill millions of low-wage jobs, especially for minority youth. “A massive public-works program” — paid for with what? “Legal gay marriage.” As mentioned, it’s already legal everywhere, just not state-sanctioned; in any case, most Yankee states already have sanctioned same-sex “marriage,” or soon will.

“A ban on carbon emissions,” which would ban most cars and destroy almost every job in industrial areas such as Detroit and Pittsburgh, plunging Yankeeland back to the stone age.

Fantasy

“In short, a society on a par with most of the rest of the industrialized world.” 

Actually, even the social-democratic countries of Europe don’t go that far. And their birth rates are so low anyway that their people are vanishing. As to Japan, South Korea and China, which also are part of “the industrialized world,” indeed now are leading it, Siegel’s utopia is but a fantasy.

And the Chinese remember how most of his program was enacted under Mao and led to 45 million people  starving to death during the Great Leap Forward.

The reality is that we’re stuck with each other in the Union and will just have to work things out. I think the real time the country might bust apart might be when Social Security and Medicare soon go broke. Right now, all those retired voters around the country depend on a strong central government taking tax money from the young and giving it to the old.

Many are “snow birds” who retired from New York, Michigan and other Cold Weather States to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and other states in Dixie. They vote about twice as often as young people. So they would prevent the South from seceding. But when those programs go broke, the monetary ties of the welfare state will be gone. Slavery, now gone 150 years, won’t be an issue as it was in 1861.

When the welfare state goes bankrupt, people everywhere, not just in the South, will be very, very mad at Siegel’s beloved central government in Washington, D.C.