The silver lining in all this is that lame-duck President Bush will simply not be able to satisfy all his constituencies to the extent they're all expecting.
If he guts Social Security, he'll lose the elderly social conservatives. If he aggressively pursues a Dominionist agenda, he will -- eventually -- alienate the warhawk crowd, many of whom really are libertarians (as opposed to pseudo-libertarians ā la Glenn Reynolds). If he's not aggressive enough in pursing a Dominionist agenda, he'll lose the religious right. If he doesn't retaliate to the next terrorist incident by nuking Mecca (or Paris), the LGF contingent will abandon him. And if he maintains his current fiscal policy, the resulting economic troubles will cause the financial community to drop him like a hot potato.
The only problem, of course, is that by the time people realize that what their votes got them was a bankrupt theocracy and permanent war, we'll ALL be screwed -- not just the 51% who voted for Li'l George.
As another American broadsheet says regarding the "cancer" of homosexuality: "already countless young boys have been "infected." What is therefore needed is "immediate and systematic cauterization." The "operation as projected" will not be complete until "the whole sordid situation is cleared up, and the premises thoroughly cleansed and disinfected. This is what we demand, and this is what we expect."
That's right. Kill all the homos. Let's start with Mary Cheney.
Then we'll kill all the drug abusors! Let's start with Noelle Bush. Jeb's daughter!
And alcohol? The bible says we shouldn't drink until drunken, so let's go after the twins while we're at it! We might even decide to make the president pay for his past drug and alcohol abuse? Why should his crimes be left unpunished? What kind of liberal, leftwing pathological crap is that?!
Yes! Perform God's will on America! Destroy the cancerous growth from our midst!
Limbaugh has been spouting the "war" theme for well over a decade. This is truly an American Jihad.
So, is it considered elitist to try and eliminate your political enemies? I think so.
Thompson's plan also excludes Washington, DC, which is perhaps the Blueest of the Blue, with over 80% of the vote going to Mr. Gore and 90% to Mr. Kerry. Perhaps he proposes to expell the evil verim Liberals from the great Capitol city, which would leave a mere nineteen thousand residents.
The more distanced from actual power a group becomes, the easier it gets to portray them as holding a secret, illegitimate power, and thus be worthy of censure and exclusion. Thus, Republican control makes liberals all the more dangerous because they must be wielding power in secret ways.
As for the idiot invoking Swift -- who obviously has never read the original piece -- a truer Swiftian satire would argue for the denizens of the blue states to be forced to sell their unborn children at birth (abortion being illegal) to be raised (and one assumes, home-schooled) by good Christian red-staters, ensuring that 'liberals' would die off. The whiff of slavery? That's the intention.
One notes that, were the populace of DC to rise up and challenge its unrepresentative national rulers, the result might be similar to that in Paris.
"Thompson goes on to lay out a plan of expulsion. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware."
IIRC California has something like the fifth largest economy in the world (if considered as an independent country), so it probably wouldn't mind all that much about being expelled...
Whoaa- just back the train up a little.
To start with, liberals don't need enemies. A lot of us have dealt with enough enemies already and certainly don't need any more.
However, we are appalled by ignorance and incompetence. When someone believes the world was created 4000 years ago, and that justifies wife-beating, we stammer in amazement- and we should.
However, the 'evil liberal who makes fun of fundies' is just as bogus as the crinoline 'history' the fundies have lifted from old episodes of Gunsmoke and Little House on the Prairie. When we look at the real history we learn this wasn't a 'Christian' nation, but a nation with a vigorous Socialist Party, a massive Free Love Movement, and more than our fair share of tenant farmers and states wholly owned by the Rockefellers and Guggenheims.
In the pre-election Mason County Journal a reader said he was voting for Bush because Bush reminded him of his cowboy heroes, who always got the bad guys. There is no rational way to respond to a 50-year old man wearing a cowboy suit and pretending to get the bad guys.
And there is no need to figure out a way to reach that poor soul. Demographics tell us that within a decade or two 90% of us will live in a coastal metropolitan area of substantial size.
When you hear that sucking sound of an oil pump running on empty, you're going to hear an even louder sucking sound of cities with transit sucking up residents.
So go ahead, be tolerant, keep a straight face when they start waving the Bible and talking about God's plan. If you can.
But remember, there's work to do, and I'm not talking about rescue missions to the Mormons.
That, after all, would be patronizing.
Yeah! Down with anyone who believes in God! Mahatma Ghandi? Screw him! Martin Luther King, Jr.? Good riddance!
No wonder people in red counties feel persecuted if we educated liberals immediately brand anybody with any religious inclincation at all an ignorant huckleberry.
I look around me, in vain, for those liberals who treat rural Americans and religious people with disrespect. I don't see them. I don't see any such people, not even a tiny number to give some credibility to the notion you propound.
I'm sorry, but for the first time ever, David, I believe you are wrong in your conclusion, as surely as you are largely correct in your analysis of the current situation. I have one foot in the urban world and one in the rural: I live in a large city in a "red" state, and my family has farm and small-town roots. I am a religious non-Christian. And I just don't see the phenomenon you describe in your conclusion.
Meanwhile, there is plenty of disrespect of the left by the right, and the eliminationist rhetoric is frightening, to me at least. As part of the "liberal menace" that is to be "expunged" (yes, I've seen those very words used, in the subtitle of a small pamphlet decrying "outcome-based education"), I cannot help remembering how few years passed between the time some Germans began speaking of a "final solution" (apologies for the scare quotes; all the quotes above are actual) and the time their leaders attempted to implement it.
Show me evidence of some large number of liberals advocating the elimination, deportation, partitioning away or "expunging" of conservatives, and I'll reconsider your conclusion. Otherwise, I'll go with the drastic asymmetry of respect and disrespect that I see, not the result you describe.
Perhaps we could begin by observing that Red States' supposed values aren't Red States' actual qualities? Divorce and illegitimacy, etc., all higher in the Bible Belt.
No, you don't have to be religious to be stupid. But, considering the nature and function of that uniquely American and rural brand of Protestantism so deftly USED by politicians to get people to vote against their own interests, it obviously doesn't hurt. It's the politics of our third-world puppets brought home, used on the (apparently) most vulnerable.
I think I lost my first comment.
Great read, David. I'ms so sick of this "values" argument, so sick of having these anti-Christs calling themselves saved and consigning people who threaten their selfish, greedy xenophobia to hell.
Get right over to The Daily Howler and read his piece on it. Then read Gary Hart's opinion piece in the NYTimes.
Enough of this batshit.
This ubiquitous handwringing about "liberal" disrespect of religion is starting to drive me nuts. That you, Dave, seem to be subscribing to it astonishes me. Aren't you the same guy that's been documenting the eliminationist rhetoric and violence on the right?
"Liberal" disrespect is a reaction. I don't say nasty things about the Amish, but then I never hear the Amish saying nasty things about me. I like Quakers, I like Sojourners. But, basically, I'm an agnostic who believes that facts are a better measure of reality than myths. When large numbers of religious "conservatives" identify people like me as not only the enemy, but the root of all evil, I tend to get a bit testy.
Anyone, anyone at all, who wants my respect is gonna have to respect me. Respect is a two-way street, and the religious right's streets are all one-way. It's a shame that it's come to this, but it is NOT the "liberals" doing.
The religious right could gain my respect by demonstrating their respect for those they disagree with. What would it take for me to win their respect? Capitulation. Ain't gonna happen.
I noticed in the paper Sunday that Wisconsin just passed a law requiring that Creationsim be taught in the schools along with evolution... Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Wisconsin go for Kerry? Local school boards defeated fundmentalists on that very issue in Oklahoma and Kansas within the last two years.
There are extremists everywhere. If the argument persists at the extremes, all that will be produced is more argument. I remain convinced that there are more people in the center, and thereby more room for agreement, than we realize right now, fresh from the election. And there are some issues that are so polarized, abortion for example, that it's hard sometimes to even imagine a middle ground. Barack Obama made that, and some other excellent points, yesterday on the Sunday shows: it would be helpful to put some effort into identifying ways to compromise on some of these issues.
One question about the religion/politics issue, which I raise not to irritate but because I would like to find out what everybody thinks. What is the difference between conservative religious involvement in politics, and similar activity on the other side? Dems have had two religious leaders run for Pres: Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Sharpton, without a similar outcry to that currently being raised. Is there a distinction, and if so, what is it?
I have to agree with Steve. As a resident of a big blue city in a big blue state, I haven't seen any examples of modern liberalism showing disrespect for rural values or deep religious beliefs -- and although I agree that liberals are intolerant of ignorance (and intolerance), I don't think we should apologize for it.
What I do see is the conservative movement distorting liberal opposition to their radical social agenda to convince rural voters that liberals hate their "values". For example, liberals oppose posting the ten commandments in schools, thus the movement describes us as "anti-Christian". As far as I'm aware, there aren't many -- if any -- liberals who actually oppose this issue because they hate Christianity.
I'm not trying to criticize David's entry, just curious about where this disrespect is coming from.
In my own experience, I've never heard a conservative Evangelical Christian say "here's what I think, now what do you think?", other than my own father. What I hear instead is that I'm supposed to listen, and they're supposed to talk.
We should simply forget about reaching out to them as long this attitude continues. They're the ones in charge of the government. They should listen. Are they leaders, or are they not?
Our future lies with those who share our values, old-fashioned values: the free play of conflicting opinions; the constitutional responsibility of the rulers to the ruled; that democracy is not a particular way of governing, but a way of determining who governs; that those who are vested with power are not the one or the few, but the many.
These are our values, and our lot should be placed squarely and firmly with those who share them, and we should repudiate anyone who doesn't.
Addendum to my previous post: If only those darn Jews would have respected the Nazis, there would not have been a problem.
This all reminds me of a common problem in immigrant communities. The sense that time stopped in the old country when either they or their ancestors left.
Examples: Angry protestors demanding that there be no gay marchers in the St. Patricks Day parade. Meanwhile, back in the old country, the grumbling is that the gay pride float wins the grand prize every year.
Or a Korean friend whose father endlessly admonished her with "Girls back in Korea don't wear makeup... or short skirts... or..." Of course when they made the trip back to Korea, the teenage girls walking down the street were wearing tons of make-up and clothes that would get them sent home from school in our town. Huge laughs on the kids end.
But, it goes to show how far perceptions are from reality in many situations. And that the people with the misperceptions aren't willing to accept the truth.
As for the home grown Jesus freaks, the real problem that I have is that they are unable to accept Christians who do not share their religious views. I get angry with people who defend them and say that religious liberals should reach out to them. I say you reach out to the people with the "God hates liberals" and "God hates fags" signs. See how far you get.
My answer on the religion issue: (swiped from the brilliant flick Reds)
"Are you a Christian?"
"I believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ."
Get's them every time
You get what you pray for:
http://www.dailycaucus.com/
timbe...timbenson10.jpg
For an example of the ongoing 'enemyfication' of 'liberals', merged with racist hatemongering against 'muzzies' (moslems), the weblog 'Little Green Footballs', the work of noted facist Charles Johnson, bears examination. Here you have nauseating flag-wrapping coupled with some of the most un-american rhetoric of hate and intolerance you can imagine.
David, I am very afraid. Events are spinning out of control.
I agree with various posters above, Steve, Jim, Phaedrus, that while your analysis is correct, the palliative is too little, too late, and rather off the mark. Liberals are fast becoming the new Jews in a new Reich.
As an actual Jew, I can't get behind the idea that "showing respect" for those who would eliminate me will change minds that are far beyond the reach of rational or even emotional appeal from the left. In a country dominated by mass communications, one-on-one appeals to humanity are quickly drowned by the daily assault from talk radio, Fox News and western mega-church pulpits.
Sometimes, one has to take the blinkers off, assess the situation, and realize that all is lost, or quickly will be lost. This is not to say that the courageous among us shouldn't fight toward the day that this mania passes, but it will become increasingly dangerous. Even Germany had its underground resistance.
Frankly, the proposal that we Blue States be "expelled" is one I would welcome. It's increasingly apparent that the Civil War never ended. Perhaps it was wrong to keep the union together, except that it ended the evil of slavery. But we are two countries, and have been from the beginning. A dissolution of the union would mean wrenching changes and population movement, as left moves north and right moves south, but it might be the best way at this point to avoid the coming violence.
Would secession be that bad? Making we can come together to drive us apart. If we called it The Rupture, perhaps semiliterate christianists would go for it.
I've been thinking about the 'Left Behind' book series; in the context of both extraction/aggregation of intelligent people from all over into the cities, especially as occured during the dot com boom, where basic literacy would get you an html coding job, but also in terms of missing the singularity, as in Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_.
I recall Carl Sagan's idea that spacefaring civilizations would of necessity be decent, having survived their nuclear weapons phase; but instead, perhaps the detrius 'left behind' after repeated singularities includes interstellar vehicles, and all the 'space brothers' are illiterate hicks.
If they want war, what are they going to do when someone takes them up on their invitation?
Do you think that's what they REALLY want? Or do they just want to continue bloviating and intimidating until people voluntarilty close up shop and leave.
My dad always told me to hit the bully square in the nose. A little blood and they run away.
Though the urban prog/whatever community doesn't come close to matching the eliminationist rhetoric of the other side, there is a consistent strain of condescension to rural life in much of the urban world.
It may be subtle enough that you don't catch it if you're not its target. But trust me. As a rural-born autodidact who now passes for an urban intelligentsium, I'm constantly bombarded with the shit.
Go look at some of the comments on highly trafficked prog blogs like Atrios or dKos. "Why should we send our tax money to subsidize their ignorant, intolerant, obese selves?" is a minor paraphrase of one current trope. It's understandable given the context of just losing a crucial election, and it's possible that some of said comments are posted by trolls. But it's there.
The "thin mint man" in The Meaning of Life? Mr. Creosote.
"I look around me, in vain, for those liberals who treat rural Americans and religious people with disrespect. I don't see them. I don't see any such people, not even a tiny number to give some credibility to the notion you propound."
I agree that there's not very much of it. However, my friends will sometimes refer to 'middle Americans' as hicks and rednecks. I believe its little slights like these that the Right picks up on and amplifies in a myriad number of ways.
I've seen a link to pictures of a protest in SF where a man is holding up a 'Fuck Middle America' sign and a Black Bloc is running around causing trouble with the police. Conservatives have been linking to it saying that its indicative of the Left. Bullshit.
It seems that amplification of tiny incidents into huge, national problems is be part of the MO of the whole conservative movement.
Chris Clarke--Can I say: "Stick and stones, etc.?" What is this nonsense about "respect?" Can urbanites be condescending or romanticizing about rural communities? Yes. Most urbanites I know love to drive through the countryside and dream about a more authentic life in touch with an old-fashioned, values-soaked land--but only on weekends. But spare me the hypocrisy of those who tour our Sodoms and Gomorrahs for a little high-life, and then go back to their church picnics and advocate eliminating us.
This "I don't get no respect" line is a canard. Hey, you can't be loved and respected by everyone, and why does it matter that much? The fact is that no one forces anyone to watch godless Hollywood movies or tv, read the NY Times, or stop saying their little prayers. But that's not enough for the prosyletizers. They want me to be like them. Well, I don't respect that intolerance, nor should I.
Okay, I've heard this "red-state/blue-state" talk too much and it's time to respond. The divisions are not that clear, and I've written a webpage about it. It might even make you all feel a little better.
And yes, I know I lost a word at the beginning. I'll fix it tonight.
gk41.home.mindspring.com/2004/perspective.htm
The whole warrior needs an Enemy thing, as it relates to neo-cons and OBL, is beautifully laid out in the Power of Nightmares, part I, II and III, which can be had at good bit-torrent sites around the world, http://www.suprnova.org
search 'power of nightmares'
install bitTornado first (google it).
Download the biggest file (1.3gb), will take about 3-8 hours, and watch it. Burn it to a dvd and give it to your friends.
It does seem to boil down to intolerance, doesn't it. Reality based thinkers can't tolerate folks that don't think for themselves, and "fundies" can't tolerate thinking for one's self. That's truly what we're up against - not ignorant people, just people who refuse to incorporate logic into the process. At the beginnings of our country's colleges, very few courses were taught - but logic was. Now you have to look far and wide to find a college that teaches it. Education, at least for the lesser grade levels, is all about indoctrination these days - not education - and it takes a very strong personality to come out of those 12 years seeking how to think for themselves rather than to continue to have one's thinking done for them. It seems inherent in our system. There is a big difference between religiousity and spirituality. Most of the Left are in the latter group - they can't follow someone else's mindset blinded by words; they have more of a tendency to seek out all sources and make their own decisions and therefore eschew organized religion(s) in favor of spiritual openess. The Right doesn't seem to tolerate that position very well. Alas.
This election was not a true picture of our country. The results were fabricated. The conclusions are therefore based on that fabrication and the conclusions are wrong.
Just reading several of the post here seems to support the idea that we are truly not a divided country. We don't hate rural people. We don't hate religious people. We don't hate conservatives. We don't hate each other. We are all very tolerant of each other (for the most part) and we are all being manipulated by the corrupt powers that control our country. We are like a big game to them as they move us around and play us for the fool.
We can just sit around and talk and discuss how we can make changes in our personal approaches and our lives and continue to let "them" play us or we can do what will really make a difference and that is take back control of our country from the corrupt powers.
This isn't a religious belief question although that is how they have framed it because they are all very skilled players and they know what gets under peoples skin. If we do not take back our country then we are destined to become more and more divided in their game and the end result will not be pretty.
So how do we do it? We can start by taking control or our own election process. Without this we will never get past first base. That should be the focus of all of our attention between now and the '06 election.
Anyone who opposes our ability or right to take control of our own election process (and therefore legitimizing the results) is clearly not someone who supports the constitution of the United States of America. To oppose such an action would be to admit to not wanting democracy to be heard.
We got by for many years without having computers counting our votes and today without the ability to verify computer results we do not have any compelling need to have the computers counting the votes for us.
This fraud that is being hoisted over our country and all of our fellow Americans must stop or it will cause our great nation to crumble. Surely no one wants that.
... there is a consistent strain of condescension to rural life in much of the urban world.
And this is a unique phenomenon, how?
Urban condescension towards country folk has been true as long as there has been cities and it is certainly not unique to American life. In Scandanavia, the country people are called bondjävlar by their urban counterparts. It's true everywhere; but for every "hick" you can find a "city slicker". Remember the book/film 'Deliverance'? The tv show 'Green Acres'? The condescension works both ways.
I think it's a phony issue, anyway. Rather, the right has successfully exploited the intolerance and prejudices of many Americans (no matter where they live) against those who are not, like them, too incurious or lazy or fearful to consider that we live in a complex world. Talk radio and cyncial religious and political leaders comfort them that someone else is to blame for the uncomfortable realities of the world, so they can safely ignore them.
Simply put, the right has framed the political dialogue in this country, such as it is, as 'Us v. Them'. It draws its strength from fear and all the base instincts that flow from it. A perfect formula for the reactionary climate we now live in.
"Liberals", however, recognize that we are all in this world together. Our only "fault", as someone else pointed out, is that we regard intolerance and paranoia and the politics of reaction with contempt.
As hateful and ignorant as the 'Declaration of Expulsion' author is, I would absolutely welcome what he is proposing. Let the reptilian overlords rule their little shithole, while we true Americans are free to govern our own country along lines more compatible with the Constitution.
The fact is that no one forces anyone to watch godless Hollywood movies or tv, read the NY Times, or stop saying their little prayers.
Thanks for illustrating my point rather nicely.
Again, I'm by no means saying that there's anything even remotely resembling parity in the disrespect. But it serves no one to conflate "people who live in the sticks" - or even "conservatives who live in the sticks" with those people who are calling for our elimination.
"This fraud that is being hoisted over our country and all of our fellow Americans must stop or it will cause our great nation to crumble. Surely no one wants that."
You're right, it's not an ideal. It seems though, that the reality we're about to experience will have a toll of several thousand more american dead, not to mention another 100K muslim dead. Secession may be a vehicle to redeem half the american populace in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Falluja seems to me like the warsaw ghetto. It seems we are following an alternate history nazi script where the german people relect Hitler.
If a detailed analysis of Ohio voting shows Kerry should be the actual winner, do you expect anything else than 'He conceded, we're in control, get over it' from the republicans?
Wow. Not even 30 comments yet, and all this chewy stuff to ponder. Sorry for the length: there's a lot to respond to.
As a native Californian, I've thought for most of my adult life that the state has no business being part of the rest of the U.S. I'm glad to hear that there are people on the right who agree. It's going to make the inevitable separation that much easier to negotiate . Sure would be nice if we could leave without touching off a civil war.
And I agree with Chris Clarke up there, who pointed out that the condescension toward rural folks is real, no matter how nice urban folks *think* they're being. Rural areas are routinely mis-governed at the state and federal level. Cities get all the clout and all the tax money; and their legislators (often under the influence of large corporations) blithely pass laws without much rural input that are massively damaging to rural interests. It's always been thus, but it's gotten worse under post-Reagan deregulation.
You can't blame these folks for being outraged beyond reason at the "city liberals" whose misguided policies they see as destroying their towns. Those decades of unrelieved rage are the soil in which their fear of annihilation (thanks for picking up my quote on that, Dave -- I'm honored) has taken root and grown. At this level, it's not entirely irrational.
(I've seen this condecension at work on a personal level, too. As a bona fide hick from the sticks working in the media in LA and SF, I had to be very careful to hide my rural roots. Media folks tend to think in stereotypes, and once they knew my background, they'd often assume I was naive or weak. Condescending? Always. Discriminatory? Yeah, sometimes it bordered on that, too.)
Dave, I'm looking forward to your thoughts about a rural strategy. I wrote Eli Pariser at MoveOn a long memo about this earlier this week. It really is our only hope, and I reckoned MoveOn had the best network going to implement something along these lines. It'll be interesting to hear your take on it.
SG, my husband is also an actual Jew (on his mother's side, the only side that counts). More than anything, that's the reason I'm writing this from Canada instead of California. He took one look at the Patriot Act; recalled the conditions that prompted his grandparents to leave Kiev on the eve of the Revolution; and said, "Pack up. We're outta here."
He and I had very different reactions to 9/11 and the aftermath. My instinct, like that of 10 American generations before me, was to stay and fight. His instinct insisted that a wandering Jew is a live Jew. I let him win on this one -- and am more grateful by the day that I did.
Here's a question: would secession really be the worse possible oucome? It's not like the states listed would have a tough time surivivng on their tax rolls or their existing industries.
Yes, the urban condecension toward the rural dweller. Like in CitySlickers, where the guys from the city show the rural folk they're doing it all wrong and the rural guy, played by Jack Palance, is a hopeless incompetent at everything. Or Crocodile Dundee where the big city reporter takes the rural Dundee back to the city where he can't do a thing right and is reduced to tears by the end of the movie -- a real sad sack, that guy. Or Sweet Home Alabama, or Doc Hollywood... you get the idea -- those are just the ones off the top of my head.
And of course The Beverley Hillbillies was the same thing -- an entire series about rural people who can't do anything right in the big city, and whose values are consistently held up as inferior to those of the big city folks like Mr. Drysdale and his wife. And on the other side, there was Green Acres in which a big city lawyer goes out into the rural world and makes a huge success of his farm. (I'm remembering those shows just exactly right, aren't I?)
I've seen enough references to 'moron Americans' and idiots who believe in an 'invisible sky buddy' to agree that David has a point. I've heard ultra-PC types, who would go ballastic over any word or phrase that might be preceived as disrespectful to 'minorities', cheerfully describe all southerners as neanderthals and racists. I also agree with some commenters here who have suggested that the 'liberal contempt' conservative pundits scream about is more a creation of their own paranoid imaginations than an honest reflection of general liberal opinion. Still, why not grant Red staters the same tolerance and respect we give to other cultures? I'm not saying we should be tolerant of intolerance, but can't we at least acknowledge that not everyone who lives more than 50 miles from the coast spend all their time hating on blacks and gays and that a southern drawl is not a sign of mental deficienccy? Can we show a little humility perhaps, and recognize that blue states aren't sinless enough to throw stones either? (If anyone doubts that, I could take them to some Brooklyn neighborhoods that rival the south in their contempt for blacks and 'foreigners'.)
Your point might have been stronger though, David, if you hadn't earlier quoted a Red stater who used the word 'satire' with obvious ignorance as to its meaning and referenced Swift's Modest Proposal without, hopefully, having read it. (I say 'hopefully' because the only other possibility seems to be that he thought Swift really did yearn to dine on Irish flesh and considered slaughtering babies for food, while not a realistic option, at least a pleasant fantasy.)
If nothing else, this peek at right-wing rancor reminds me how asymetrical this 'culture war' really is. If Kerry had won the election, would Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton be ranting about the evils of the Red states? Would Kos and Atrios be posting 'humorous' pieces about the great bodily harm they dreamed of inflicting on those filthy, traitorous conservatives? Of course not. If we'd won we'd be too busy dancing in the streets and patting ourselves on the back to give the 'Red menace' a second thought. The same victory that would have made us joyous has made them, if anything, more vicious and more determined to utterly destroy the cancer that is liberalism.
Still, why not grant Red staters the same tolerance and respect we give to other cultures?
When those other cultures try to impose the more intolerant of their values on me I grow less tolerant of them and they lose my respect. Should it be otherwise?
I'm sure I've demonstrated some "liberal contempt" in my life. But, you know, I'm just some random schmoe on the Internet. In the contest between random schmoes from the left/Northeast and right/Heartland, I have a hard time believing that in the aggregate the former are more disparaging of the latter than vice-versa.
Qat, the literary tradition of the "noble savage" has always been one of the largest condescensions of all. It romanticizes unsophisticated primitives as being more potent, more masculine, and more authentic than effete urbanites.
Sure, it flattering as stereotypes go -- but it's still a stereotype. And all stereotypes are cages and traps that reduce real people into various species of zoo animals. They're a sloppy thinker's way of avoiding the heavy lifting of getting to know real people one-on-one. It's a dangerous habit (arguably at the root of everything we're discussing here -- consider the pernicous use of stereotypes of "liberals" by the right), and you've just proven what a fine job Hollywood does of fostering it.
The "noble savage" stereotype short-circuits clear thinking by allowing urbanites to dismiss actual rural people (especially those who don't measure up to the standards of the stereotype, as most of us don't) as incompetent to survive in the *real* (read: urban) world. Dundee may be a hero against muggers, but he wouldn't survive a day in corporate America. Part of the fun of the movie is that everybody watching it knows that.
And absorbing this stereotype gives city folks the comfortable illusion that they know far more about rural life than they really do, and thus jump to all kinds of inappropriate conclusions. Politicians making farm policy based on what they saw on "Green Acres" may seem ludicrous on its face, but it's not a bad description of the actual situation that created a lot of the anger we're seeing.
It's interesting that you invoked Jack Palance's Curly character. He's the closest Hollywood ever got to putting my dad (who was also a cowboy, from Montana) on film. Despite their similarities, though, Curly probably never earned a master's degree, and my dad did. Which just shows to go ya about how those stereotypes can mess you up.
Qrazy Qat:
It seems to me that you have constructed an Enemy, too. And that's the problem.
The Red states are not the enemy. The people who live in them are not our enemies.
Sure, there's a good solid 30 percent of them (at least) who are gonna vote GOP no matter what. But most of them are fair-minded and sincere people who can be convinced to punch mixed ballots if you frame the debate right and make the right kinds of appeals. You don't have to appeal to their values so much as to their concerns; creating jobs, saving family farms, and building good schools in rural America will do more to draw voters than posing as a churchgoing thumper.
What assurances do we have that if liberals change their tune that this will be in any way reciprocated? I'm looking for something tangible.
Since the Blue states tend to support the Red states tax wise, I say (as a Blue-stater), let's go! It will be interesting to see how quickly the US falls apart when they don't have our money to spend, or our brains to come up with new products. I am beginning to think that we should have let the South go (except Texas, I still love Texas, no matter how screwed up it is) and take our chances.
Assuming this is merely a "modest proposal," how long do you think it will be before the Reds will be begging us to take them back?
And we have to BE THERE. The demonization of liberals could only happen because these folks never see our faces.
The smart kids -- the ones who might have been the town's liberals -- all go away to the city, and they almost never come back. And there might be a few liberal high school teachers, but they soon learn to either tone it down, or move on. So it's a total vacuum -- liberals are almost completely absent from their daily environment.
The local AM radio station blares Rush's anti-liberal diatribes directly into this void for three hours a day, every day. They can get away with it, because listeners will never run into an actual liberal person who might offer a real-world counter-example. For the past 20 years, right-wing hatred has been the only product available in the rural marketplace of ideas.
Any liberal resurgence has got to start by fixing this ASAP. We know that racism and homophobia melt away rapidly when people are exposed to real-life gays and minorities. It's time to put that principle to work for liberalism as a whole.
A while back, a friend of mine wrote a manifesto addressing the profound deficiencies of US media that bears significant responsibility for tearing America apart. What I would like to propose at this juncture is the creation of a declaration similar to Charter 77, the list of grievances and principles and hopes of the opposition movement led by Vaclav Havel and other literati in the former Czechoslovakia.
Our contrasts with the cultural underground that fostered solidarity against totalitarianism in Prague do not prevent us from making use of their strategy of building alliances toward the mutual goal of pluralist democracy.
As one of the Czech literary leaders Ivan Klima put it just after toppling the dictatorship in 1989, "to join together all the antitotalitarian forces...the greatest significance of Charter 77 lay precisely in this unifying act."
David,
I was actually referring only to those people who try to force their narrow, intoleratn values on all, but did put it in the wording of "red state/blue state", which is incorrect. I do see a huge problem with the idea that one somehow shows "repect and tolerance" for someone who is trying to force their intolerant views on others by not opposing them.
And Mrs. Robinson,
The list of movies I gave was an example of how the condecension works both ways, not only in popular culture but in the real world. If you haven't heard it you haven't been listening. It seemed to me that too many people were buying into the idea that it goes one way only.
Fascinating idea, Jay.
Here's a link to Charter 77:
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/...nts/charter.77/
Actually, looking back, David, I see that I didn't put my answer into a "red state" frame -- I said "when those other cultures" and I think that's correct. There are in the USA some cultures which are trying to impose their beliefs on others; in fact there are a lot of them. But they aren't all equally moral, and this is where the argument lies. I view more tolerance for others' views as more moral, and this means that I need to tolerate views which differ from mine -- even views I detest. But it doesn't mean I have to feel respect for the people that not only hold abhorent, intolerant views, but actually try to impose them on others, and who attempt to equate dissent from their views with treason or being unpatriotic. People who do those things have lost my respect.
Do I construct an enemy in feeling this way? I'd say I don't, because they've taken aim at me and named me as an enemy -- recognising this isn't the same thing as constructing.
When I said "those other cultures" (and I'll grant I didn't make this explicit at all) I was thinking of how the person I was responding to used other cultures -- I assumed they referred to cultures from other places, not red states per se. I returned that by pointing out that while I can respect and tolerate other cultures, if they try to force intolerance (and I was thinking of suggesting that if they tried to invade and force intolerance, which would have made my meaning clearer) then no, I wouldn't feel the need to be respectful and tolerant of them -- I'd fight it. Wouldn't you?
Respecting and tolerating is good, but it doesn't mean rolling over when they start shoving. Should we simply respect and tolerate the other cultures pushing the teaching of creationism into Wisconsin schools? This is one example of what I was trying, probably not clearly enough, to get across.
David, I agree with Jim and Steve. Where are these disrespectful liberals you speak of? I've never met any of them.
More importantly, none of them are prominent in our politics or in our national discourse--while blue-state-bashers *are*. They're in the Republican Party and on the bestseller lists.
So forgive me if I react with extreme skepticism to calls for more respect. It seems to me that liberals on the whole treat rural America with a healthy respect, but conservative rural America has a persecution complex which will not go away if the liberals start being even *more* obsequious to the "Heartland."
Mrs. Robinson, your husband was correct.
I know few full-time urban liberals who would be willing to become cultural ambassadors to the red counties across the heartland. There are too many incidents like the roadside crucifixion of Matthew Shepard to make that an attractive option right now.
Your father is obviously an admirable individual, as are all those individuals in the red states who manage to embrace education and the stretching of their cultural horizons, often against long odds. I believe it is up to them to start speaking out. Surely these are the people who have more believability for their neighbors.
I could move to Montana tomorrow. How long would it take before I was tolerated, let alone accepted? Are the celebrities who buy gentleman's ranches there welcomed for more than their money? How long before I had a swastika painted on the side of my house?
Is this stuff supported and perpetrated by the majority of good-hearted red state citizens? No. But the majority of Germans were hardly rabid Nazis. Many just went along to get along. Some agreed with Nazi fascism on some points and not others. But fascism rose to dominance because those who weren't on the receiving end of the scapegoating didn't care enough to stop it.
I have no objection to an effort to carve out a progressive rural strategy—it would be far from unprecedented, historically. But, David, you've really got to stop with the ga-ga "all those red counties" stuff. It's not one square mile, one vote. Look here for a county map (with shades of purple to indicate proportion of red-blue votes) equalized by population. (Bottom of the page.) That is not a map of dire emergency for the Democrats.
SG, I went willingly. Mr R's arguments were persuasive, and we're both keen students of history. (Dave Niewart's writings came up often enough in these conversations that he probably has to answer for some of it, too.) The whole thing felt crazy at the time, but in my heart, I knew he was right.
I wish Dad could raise his voice on this subject, but these days, he's a pile of ashes drifting at the bottom of a High Sierra lake. All I hear of his voice now is the sound of a snowmelt creek rushing into the lake by the rock where he used to fish. It's too bad. That voice used to mean something in at least one small redneck town.
As for moving to Montana, SG, the questions you ask are the ones all immigrants -- from anywhere, to anywhere -- ask themselves. And, for better or worse, we learn to live with the answers.
My 11-year-old son gets constantly teased at school for being American. The teachers try to stop it, but it's not helping. It's an ugly reminder that, even in a welcoming place like Canada, we will always be outsiders.
But that's just part of the whole immigrant package. There are costs, and there are gains, and you hope the latter outweigh the former in the end.
One more point regarding respect and tolerance. I find this an extremely clever and disingenuous attack on liberals' own perceived strength. In other words, liberals are being hoist on their own petard.
I'm a liberal, but my respect and tolerance is not unlimited. I do not find that I *must* respect every bizarre cultural wrinkle. For instance, I do *not* respect female genital mutilation, no matter how it might be viewed in parts of Africa. I do not respect subjugation of a gender or of an ethnic or religious group anywhere in the benighted places of this world where it is the norm.
In this country, I have the deepest and abiding respect for the Constitution, most especially the First Amendment. And here is where the cultural warriors of the right part company with me. I certainly respect their right to practice their faith as long as they are not imposing it on me. And that's the line in the sand that is being attacked. The problem, it seems, is a sect that sets no bounds, that is institutionally militant in its belief in prosyletizing, and is set on a direct collision course with the Constitution. How am I to respect or tolerate that?
There are too many incidents like the roadside crucifixion of Matthew Shepard to make that an attractive option right now.
People didn't let the assassination of Harvey Milk keep them from moving to San Francisco. The hinterlands have nothing even close to a monopoly on hatred.
I could move to Montana tomorrow. How long would it take before I was tolerated, let alone accepted?
This depends on a number of factors. Some of those factors are shameful and other just human nature.
1) are you moving to Missoula, or to Wolf Point?
2) Do you honestly listen to other people with viewpoints that differ from yours, or do you treat them as walking stereotypes?
3) Are you a liberal, or a black gay liberal?
4) do you play a good game of pool?
5) do you stop and help your neighbor winch his truck out of the mud, or do you lock the doors and drive past?
There ARE yahoos in them there sticks, no doubt about it. But I think you'd be surprised how far winching that truck out of the mud would go to smooth the path toward acceptance even for the above-mentioned black gay liberal - assuming you've got a winch on your Subaru Forester.
Mrs. R., I am saddened by your loss, and that town's loss.
I would join you in Canada, but my husband refuses to leave NY. He's not Jewish, and can't see what we see. So I'm praying and doing what I can to avert the whirlwind that's stirring.
I am angry that so many beautiful places in this country seem like hostile territory to me now. Long ago I traveled cross country and I looked forward to doing it again. Not now. I think my Volvo wagon with NY plates wouldn't survive the trip. No matter how much 7-11 coffee I drink, it would probably be mistaken for lattes.
I should add, SG, that I agree wholeheartedly with your point about not having to agree with every insane offensive cultural idea that comes down the pike.
But the "blue state" siege mentality isn't just counterproductive or "unfair to the hicks": it grants Rove et al one of their main contentions - that the majority of the people in this country are on their side. This election notwithstanding, I'm not willing to cede that just yet. Frame the issues differently, and that slightly larger slice o' pie would have gone to Kerry.
Qat,
I agree it's a lot easier to be tolerant at a distance, but I think that's part of the problem. We're perfectly willing to be tolerant as long as it doesn't cost us anything. We smile condescendingly at 'primitive' values as long as there's an ocean between us, but scream bloody murder the minute one of them tries to move in next door. It's natural and even reasonable to do that, but there's something in it that smacks of condescension and even hypocricy. (I have the uncomfortable feeling I'm piling on here. You seem to be getting it from all sides. You do know we we still love you, right? :->)
I wonder if a lot of the problem isn't do to a basic difference in mindset between reds and blues. We lefties tend to favor self-criticism, looking more closely at flaws in our own group. Conservatives tend to do the opposite, quick to point out the sins of the enemy, but tolerant of the same faults exhibited by one of their own. To them, that seems natural, and they expect us to feel the same way, so when they see us turn a blind eye, for example, to Arab homophobia while railing against the homegrown version, they assume that we must be identifying more closely with the Middle East than with Middle America. Of course the opposite is true. We're more critical of Americans than Saudis because they are 'one of us.' Unfortunately, they don't see it that way.
Spinning Tops, that would be a good question if we were sacrificing something, but I don't think that's what David's suggesting. If anything, correcting our own tendencies toward intolerance and hate will make us stronger. No one's suggesting we support the ban on gay marriage, only that we recognize that some people do think that homosexuality is a sin. We don't need to tolerate them imposing those views to the detriment of the rest of us, but maybe we can refrain from treating them as pond scum just for feeling that way.
Jay, I love it. The does seem like a good time for a clear statement of basic principles to give the left something to rally around, and perhaps provide the right with a view of our beliefs that doesn't involve anti-Christianity and treason. We might also consider something along the lines of the Geneva accords. I don't think there's much chance of making peace with the right any time soon, but finding common ground for a future settlement might be a good start.
Chris, my liberal, violin-playing, Brooklyn-born husband would stop anywhere for anybody and help. I've seen him do it. He believes in the fundamental goodness of people, even when he's been sorely disappointed. As for me, I've got a bad back. I'd have to go get help.
But what happens when I don't show up for Sunday services? What happens when I don't respond to god-talk? What happens when I ask for certain books at the library?
Comparing the milieu of the Shepard murder with the murder of Milk in San Francisco is off the point. It's a matter of critical mass. In the swaths of red-state America there is a critical mass toward one vision. In the cities, population numbers guarantee a huge number of like-minded people wherever one sits on the political spectrum.
We're supposed to be the ones for the people, and we should remember that. We should avoid calling our fellow citizens "moron Americans" or assuming that religious faith automatically equates with hypocrisy and ignorance. And as < a href="http://tinyurl.com/6ub56">Mark Schmitt points out, we shouldn't assume we know what people's self-interest is better than they know it.
We should search for common ground where it's available. In some areas, it isn't. I'm not willing to teach creationism in the schools or criminalize homosexuality. If not for the power of the federal government, I think that racial discrimination would still be rampant. Those are not negotiable issues. But neither do we need to adopt a language of disdain for those who hold them. One liberal value, I think, is that accumulating money isn't the goal of life, so we shouldn't be helpless in the face of people who vote on beliefs that are not totally economic (although I firmly believe that it's economic erosion that leads them to beliefs that give them self-respect at the expense of rationality). In other words, we should be asking, "Why do they vote that way?" with the aim of coming up with an answer other than "Because they're stupid."
Meanwhile, we need to push a vision of the society that we want. Democrats have been just too damned reality-based! The carefully crafted programs may be doable, but people who think there were WMDs in Iraq aren't doing policy analyses in their living rooms. Democrats have been trying to explain the feasibility of their specific proposals in the current political climate. We should just focus on the outcomes -- here's what your health care program ought to provide you, here's the way employment ought to work, here's what your tax dollars should buy for you, here's the limit on how we should exploit the environment, and so on. Don't use political campaigns to work out regulatory details, but to address real problems.
Let's move away from personality issues, both at the electoral level (it's selecting representatives, not American Idol), and at the grassroots level.
And somehow we think secession is an answer? Like "they" would allow such a concept w/o the hue & cry being raised. I think not. As was pointed out above, there are too many tax $s in the Blues. And, as Mussolini said - fascism should more correctly be called corporatism... - the brownshirts will not let our people go and we all know that. Mrs. Robinson - is there room at your inn?????
In the cities, population numbers guarantee a huge number of like-minded people wherever one sits on the political spectrum.
Excellent point, SG. But the previous sentence:
In the swaths of red-state America there is a critical mass toward one vision.
is overstating things. Sure, there's an exodus of free-thinking types from small towns to the coasts and cities - I'm one of the exodists. Buut for everyone who escapes to SoHo, there's at least one who can't afford to leave.
The pressure to conform in rural-small town America is considerable. But not everyone agrees. Some people may submit silently, but we sell them short - and their ability to affect change - if we forget they exist at all.
Anyway. "Going to get help" works just fine if you're one a them city folk with their cellular phones.
But what happens when I don't show up for Sunday services? What happens when I don't respond to god-talk?
A majority of people in Montana wouldn't even notice.
What happens when I ask for certain books at the library?
Nine times in ten, the librarian will get a lovely, moist twinkle in her eye and be thrilled that someone finally came in who knew what a "Chomsky" is. I mean, we may be talking flyover country, but we're also talking *librarians.*
As someone who has lived on both sides of the conservative-liberal divide, I can tell you that both sides nuture unwarranted stereotypes of the other side. I can also tell you that the rural conservatives are not going to reach out to us to bridge this gap. I've read a lot of handwringing accounts on liberal blogs that we urban liberals now have to reach out to the rural conservatives on moral values. It seems typical of liberals to accept more than half the responsibility for the gap and to take all the action to bridge it. To rural conservatives, this tends to confirm their stereotype of urban liberals as people with mushy values.
Further, it doesn't help that this sudden burst of enlightenment comes on the heels of an election loss. It looks rather odd to conservatives that liberals suddenly get "religion" only after they've lost an election. At the worst, it appears to them that liberals are opportunistic and cynical. They will therefore not take you seriously because of the timing.
I believe this "moral values" argument is a red herring. Kevin Drum on his Political Animal blog How Bush Won the Election provided an analysis of exit polls to show that the war on terrorism and the economy were the major drivers and that Bush got the benefit of the doubt on these issues. Liberals could waste an awful lot of time and energy trying to deal with the moral values issue and still miss the real message for them in last week's election.
Chris, I don't even like Chomsky. And I don't have a cellphone. What can I say? I'm not a stereotype either.
I hear what you're saying, and it gives me a tiny, tiny ray of hope. That ray of hope is only that, at some point, the silent ones will speak up and waken their communities to the danger that's gathering.
A generation ago, liberals were wrong to think that barging into black communities and telling everyone what was good for them, while sprinkling a few federal programs around, would solve the problems of the ghetto underclass. Some of those who escaped the ghetto went back to help, and their credibility is miles deeper than an East Side liberal's.
Similarly, I would hesitate to barge into red-state communities where I am a stranger and think I know best. Would you be willing to return? Would the silent free-thinkers be willing to speak up?
There are some liberals who believe that social and economic pain in small-town America is so severe and hopeless that people find succor in Dominionism, far-right evangelicalism, and the worst of Bush Republicanism. This may be so. Can we expect, then, that renewed prosperity and growth in the abandoned heartland will co-opt people out of these beliefs? I doubt it and even if that were so, the prospects for America's economic future are looking increasingly dim for everyone but the real elite.
It's a question of class, but the monied far-right has succeeded in turning it into a question of immutable "values."
Beth, it's not a matter of distance to me -- and I was trying to make myuself clearer -- it's a matter of whether or not someone is trying to force me to accept intolerant and even hateful "values" as the way we (and that includes me) do business. Shoving gays back in the closet and sideswiping black people are to me things that shouldn't be done. If folks want to think it should be done, that's okay by me -- I think they're wrong but they are entitled to think that way. They can even say it aloud, trumpet it from TV and radio and newspapers (and they do). But trying to enshrine it in law is a problem for me, and when they do it, I just can't go along. At that point, I think they've lost any reasonable expectation of tolerance and respect. And even then, I'm one of those people who doesn't have a with their living their lives, although the feeling, I've noticed from many pundits and radio hosts, is not mutual.
And you know, this call for "tolerance and respect" is a little too close to the recent calls for "civility" in that they seem to be directed only toward one side of the debate, with the other side unconstrained by tolerance, respect, or civility.
OK, do we liberals want something really serious to worry about? Here's a topic that doesn't get any discussion on a hate crimes blog because it's economic but it is the most near-term danger I can imagine for us. Check out this post on Brad DeLong's blog about the funding of our current account deficit: It's a Little More Complicated.
So what's the connection between hate crimes and the economy? It appears there is very little standing between us and the meltdown of the US economy but the willingness of Asian central banks to fund our current account deficit. They are in effect lending us money to continue buying their relatively inexpensive products. If it stops, then our economy will likely fall into a serious recession, if not outright depression. Who do you expect the conservatives will blame for it? Can you imagine them screaming "backstabbers" at the liberal elitists? The blame ought to fall on the Bush administration for doing so little to avoid this eventuality but life isn't fair, is it?
Currently we're getting only verbal threats from conservatives and some actual violence from the lunatic fringe. I'm guessing it'll escalate considerably if a lot of Americans are under severe economic distress. I hope it doesn't happen but it'll pay to keep a watchful eye on this economic trend.
SG, no stereotyping intended. I do like Chomsky and I have a cellphone, which I hide when I work in the Bay Area and take out in the desert.
We're thinking about "returning" - not to where I came from but to somewhere outside megalopolis - but we're taking our time deciding. Real estate prices being what they are, leaving CA now would be a one-way trip.
Mushinronsha, I agree.
Beth, there's a limit to what I'm willing to put up with. I want to see a reciprocal effort, or it's nothing but a waste of time.
QrazyQat, re your first paragraph, I agree completely. Re your second, what can I say? As a lefty, I tend to favor self-criticism. ;-> Seriously, I see this as a very different issue from 'civility' which all too often is code for 'shut up and take it.' If that's how calls for "tolerance and respect" are interpreted. I'll join you in decrying it. It's obvious to me and, I assume, to most people here that intolerance is much more in evidence on the right than on the left, but does that mean we can't do better or shouldn't try?
Intolerance is not a weapon, at least not for us. Fascists and totalitarians of all stripes use it to cement loyalties and attack outsiders, but it does nothing for the rest of us but make us uglier and more stupid. The civil rights marchers wouldn't have been more powerful if they'd sung, "We will not be moved, you ignorant, inbred hicks," and neither will we.
Spinning Tops, what exactly am I asking you to put up with? What sort of effort would you have to make?
nihil obstet, well said.
A couple of useful distinctions we probably need to make here:
1: Respecting someone else's freedom of speech and religion does not mean that we have to hold all ideas as equally valid. Certain speech and certain beliefs that are patently WRONG, and the free marketplace of ideas depends on balanced argument -- with all sides fully engaged -- to arrive at the truth of any matter.
We got here because, in the name of "tolerance," we didn't hold up our end of that balance. They've been allowed to do all the talking. Things won't come around right again until we get back in the conversation with strong words and strong ideas.
2: It's important to separate the ideas from the speaker. Ideas can be wrong. You can get wherever you need to go by simply arguing them on their merits. But it gets us nowhere to get all ad hominem and insist that the speaker is an idiot to boot. Just because our opponents do this all time doesn't mean we have to stoop to it, too.
"Stupid ideas" versus "stupid speakers" is a subtle distinction, apparently too subtle for many right-wingers to grasp. But we'll avoid a lot of trouble if we bear it in mind.
The odd thing about this post is that David has spent 90% of his effort describing a right-wing that very creatively makes their own "liberals" to bash. David then concludes by saying liberals have to break this impasse by being better.
Frankly, I've heard this before. Black people were supposed to "overcome" the sterotypes and prejudices used to bar them from equality.
Well, it sure didn't work for Saddam. We know now he had no WMD, didn't work with terrorists, and posed no threat to us. These facts have no effect on the beliefs of 2/3 of the Bush supporters.
Nor do I buy David's equally creative and unsupported leap to equate the right-wing with the country living. In my county a lot of people drive 50 miles to work in a city or live on a pension. The most "rural" thing you would notice about us are the two dozen abandoned cars around many houses. This comes nowhere close to the Jeffersonian ideal of growing a healthy balanced diet at home.
We are actually grappling with two phenomena here- first, suburban superchurches with worshippers in ankle-length crinoline dresses, and second, a long-standing legislative imbalance giving the rural areas an effective veto on measures proposed by urban dwellers.
This imbalance has already effectively reduced the U.S. to second-world status, and it's not even crunchtime yet.
Think about it- if you live in the city you can't buy a small slow car that would meet your needs. It's not legal to sell those cars in the U.S.. If you live in the country you get a subsidy for buying a 10-mpg gas guzzler. How did that happen?
Wanna get pissed off? Go to the ferry terminal in Bremerton and look down into the shipyard. On their own reservation the feds use dozens of tiny trucks that get 80-100 mpg, but we can't buy or license such vehicles because of the rural-Republican lock on the legislature.
So, fine, talk about 'values' and how liberals need to be more sensitive, but remember there's a real world out there with real problems we created pushing us into a corner. We may need to hear some plain talking before we get out.
What Mrs. Robinson said. All of it! Also Mushinronsha and Beth. "Tolerance" doesn't mean lying down and enjoying rape.
Another things that's annoying about all this regionalist stereotyping is that we're too quick to assume that all conservatives are red-state rural folk. There's plenty of eliminationist right-wing talk among the right-wingers of the blue states. (Ann Coulter, for instance, is from Connecticut.) We should remember that Bush did better among suburbanites and the college-educated this year than he did in 2000; and I don't think that's all due to terrorism. We should also consider the extent to which fundamentalism is associated with upward mobility; think of all those suburban megachurches! The stereotype of the trailer-trash redneck listening to Rush just won't cut it anymore. My guess is that much of the right-wing media (Fox News, The Weekly Standard, etc.) has demographics to die for.
For all those of you writing from the blue states, let me tell you what it is like here in Fundamentalist Florida...Over the past year I have been having discussions with a fundamentalist Christian "friend" over gay rights, abortion, and other issues, such as the possibility that there may be more than one valid way to approach God and that "truth" may have more shades than just black and white. She just emailed me her delight in Bush's victory. I am afraid I flipped and explained to her that our world views are too different to continue being friends, that her religious cohorts want to legislate my ideas of morality into oblivion. Her response: she will "pray for me" to come to Jesus. Do y'all really think it is possible to remain respectful of people who cannot respect your right to be different?
Ignorance isn't the exclusive province of the provincial, but it is certainly true that isolated communities have much better institutions for enforcing conformity, keeping out new ideas, and propegating tribalism that's easily mobilized to violence.
Those seeking to change conditions in these communities clearly have an uphill fight. But from what we've seen, efforts to extend the power of the metropolitan liberal state into rural enclaves - e.g. abortion rights, gay rights, even Civil Rights - by law has only met with hardened resistance, validated local fears of being embattled and belittled, and done only a little to improve the lot of the intended beneficiaries.
There's still freedom of movement in this country. The effort to break the grip of oppression (on behalf, of course, of those who want it broken) in isolated communities in America has stalled. The best we can do is keep what we've got where we've got it, so that those who choose to vote with their feet have somewhere they can go.
What would the process of seceeding entail?Can the citizens of an individual state make the decision or does the union make the decision collectively?225 years is a long time to be hanging out with the same people.
In California, I'd imagine it would start with a statewide referendum. It seems to be the preferred way to get anything serious done in the state these days.
The referendum would specify a date of secession, specify what would happen on that date (US troops out, federal offices closed, etc.), and authorize the convention of a committee to write a new national constitution (detailing how delegates would be chosen, what they would be expected to produce, and when it would be due). It might also specify the date of the first national election, and mandate that the existing state constitution would serve as the law of the land until the new one could be written.
Stuff like that. And then we'd vote. And then....who knows?
Apparently Mr. Thompson has no sense of irony, for if he had, he would see that many of the states he wishes to expel to create an ideal America were members of the original 13 colonies.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland.
I think ignorance doesn't even begin to describe what we're dealing with.
One idea on splitting into two countries, blue
and red. As of a certain date, everyone gets to decide which color they want to reside in and adequate time to move. Then the blue states
would have 60 to 65 percent of the economic
power, at least that much of the college grads
and they could then stop supporting the red
states through the federal tax system. They
would have more of the best schools and much
fewer of the bigots, racists and people who
just thrive on hatred.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/200..._state_to_reds/
QrazyQat,
Outstanding post. One more example I would add is Forrest Gump. Heartwarming story of a retarded guy from the sticks who can't seem to do anything right and needs to be guided along through life by the liberal intelligentsia. Um... except not.
I anticipate one problem with secession. Eventually, as the Red States of America find their position deteriorating, they would launch a pre-emptive war against the terrorist-harboring Blue States of America. The RSA is a culture more enthusiastic about martial virtues and now supplies, I believe, a disproportionate number of recruits to the armed forces. The BSA would have to get armed and ready right quick.
Mrs. R has it right on the procedure (as she has been right throughout this thread). In addition to the referendum process in CA, Oregon has the same and has for my 50 years had a strong independent streak towards its relationship to the nation and California. Would they team up and go together? Tough call. WA has been a bit more connected to the US, but also has a strong referendum movement and a big blue population in the west. In fact the blueness of the west coast states is really just in the west part of the states/large cities. Would CA, WA and OR be willing to split themselves so that their east side citizen did not feel coerced into the bargain. This is a strong thread in politics in these states, not to be ignored.
To avoid unnecessary conflice and thing CA would also need to let Orange County down to the Mexico border stay in the red 'nation'. These areas lean red themselves and would preserve the Pacific seaport.
In the end this reorganization would be different and as with all grand changes would have many unintended consequences, but there is not reason for it to turn into civil war. People on both sides of the divide have made strong arguments for the value of the idea.
I do think that the immigration issue needs to remain open for all current citizens so that people have this lifetime to choose their place/nation.
Rather than become fully independent I would argue for this western blue zone to become a Canadian province.
I also think that we need to prepare for the Midwest and South to split into 2-3 separate zones once they lose the common antagonist of the coastal liberals.
In the end the population of the US has grown too large to be governed as one and a less centralized power structure needs to be found.
Even to approach finding common ground with adversaries requires unmediated communication, as well as mutual motivation. Attempting to do this without preliminary research into which credible leaders might participate in good faith and which provocateurs would likely work to sabotage or obstruct such endeavors is probably not going to produce desired results, and may very well result in deepening cynicism and distrust.
The Center for New Community in Chicago made some inroads in establishing networks to steer discontent over family farm crises into productive channels through rural pastors. The Institute for Washington's Future did something similar in economically dislocated timber towns.
Political Research Associates in Massachusetts has a reference library and national network database of folks doing this kind of educational outreach.
One of the hangups to doing this work is that foundations fund direct action, campaigns, lobbying, and public relations marketing. Not very imaginative nor effective in supporting on the ground efforts. Without funded opposition research and conferences to discuss strategy, we have people jumping into dangerous situations without a clue what they're up against.
Thompson goes on to lay out a plan of expulsion. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. (It's hard to say why he omits other Blue states, such as Washington, which after all now has not only voted for the Democratic candidate in every election since 1988, it maintains an all-Democratic Senate delegation, and five of its eight congressional seats are held by Democrats as well. Perhaps because if he excluded all the Blue states, including ours, the America he envisions would have no ports on the Pacific.)
Maybe because Nazis like him have always considered the Pacific Northwest the future Aryan homeland?
It is kind of funny though that "red" Amerka will include Seattle and all those gays on Capitol Hill.
As far as the talk of conflict between the two (or more) 'nations', remember that Canada has a very different government (semi-socialist) and goes largely ignored by US fascist-conservatives. Why? Because Canadians are not trying to change to rules that these people live under, but liberals in the blue states are doing just that in their minds. We arent just debating with people who want a theolgically based country, we are also at odds with those that think any government is bad government.
The major countries of Europe have survived as long or longer than the US, even through wars, only to return to their prior borders. The one exception seems to be England/Northern Ireland where a struggle has gone on for centuries trying to force assimilation of a culture that does not want to be assimilated.
Imagine if when the south seceded we let them go, but openly and actively supported immigration amnesty for all slaves in the North. Then followed that with the kind of economic pressure we use today against recalcitrant nations.
In spite of what some assert, the US is a construct of people, not god(s), and is subject to cohesion or alternation depending on the actions of those people.