The One Where Josh Finally Sounds Off Against the Craziness

The time is now!

I said it a long time ago, but it's an idea whose time has come: It's time for the North to secede from the South (or to at least let the South re-secede). I think Lincoln made a mistake 143 years ago (on April 15, 1861 and in the years that immediately followed) to bother fighting to keep the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina in the Union. Screw 'em! Who needs those states anyway?

I was prompted by this article in Slate, which basically says that the Democrats ought to stop trying to pander to Southern states because (a) they don't need the electoral votes if they win enough elsewhere, and (b) there are non-Souther states that the Democratic presidential nominee would have a much easier time winning. In other words, the Democratic party should write off Dixie (with the exception of Florida, "which in many ways is not really a southern state") since there's no way they have a chance to win electoral votes come November in South Carolina, Mississippi, or Alabama, anyway.

I say we should write them off altogether. Who needs the South? And what has the South done for us lately? Well, I'll tell you.

• More people live below the poverty line in the old Confederacy than in the Northeast and Midwest combined.

• You are three times more likely to be murdered in parts of Dixie than anywhere in New England, despite a feverish devotion to "law-and-order" that has made eight Southern states home to 90 percent of all recent U.S. executions.

• The South has the highest infant-mortality rate of any region in the country.

• The South has the highest incidences of sexually transmitted diseases of any region in the country.

• The South lags behind the rest of the country in terms of test scores and opportunities for women.

• Southern states are the largest recipients of federal tax dollars.

• Tobacco grown by Southern states kills nearly a half-million Americans each year.

• Souther states overwhelmingly favor abstinence education (over actual sex education), but spend $14 billion annually on public expenditures associated with teen childbearing... That's almost seven times what the rest of the country put together spends.

The gist is this: The eleven states that make up the original Confederacy are, as a group, considerably poorer than the rest of the nation, considerably less educated, cost the nation's taxpayers far more money, have more crime, have fewer opportunities for women and minorities, are more obese (and generally less healthy), own more guns, and execute more people. If you take out Texas and Florida -- who bring the regions averages way up -- the South, if it were to concede, would be economically and socially worse off than most South American countries. Oh yeah, and...

• The South has more rednecks per-capita than anywhere else.

• The South is full of whackos, for the most part. They have more Fundamentalists per-capita than anywhere else.

• The South has far more ugly people.

• The South has more pickup trucks.

• People in the South listen to shitty music.

What would we lose if the South seceded? Well, the question depends a lot on Texas and Florida. Even if we do lose those two states, the benefit they currently bring into the U.S. is easily outweighed by the trouble that we'd save by not having to deal with Alabama and Arkansas.

My actual plan involves splitting the United States into two countries. The Southern country (which they can call whatever they want) would consist of the 11 original states of the Confederacy, and we'll also throw in Oklahoma (bringing the total to 12). In exchange, we'd actually split Texas in half (it's too big, anyway) using a North-South line drawn from around the Southern tip of the state, straight up. Drawn correctly, the U.S. would keep West Texas, which would include the cities of San Antonio, Austin, Lubbock, Amarillo, and El Paso. East Texas, a part of the Confederacy, would get Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Galveston, and Corpus Christi. The U.S. and the Confederacy would maintain joint control of the NASA facilities in Houston and Florida. All racial, religious, and ethnic minorities living in the South at the time of the split would be granted assylum in the United States.

I think the time is now. So does this guy.

Comments

[Julian Becker]

I think that your idea is a dead proposal. Northern secession was proposed and rejected 190 years ago, long before the South got around to it.

Interestingly enough, though, the catalyst for the Hartford Convention was the President's highly controversial decision to go to war. I suppose the adage that history repeats itself is true.

Beware, secession-happy Democrats: The efforts of New England Federalists brought about the collapse of the Federalist Party.

[J. Forrest Creecy]

You sir have offended my sensabilities. I challenge you to a duel at dawn!

Moreover, further substantiate the claim that we would be better off minus the millions of consumers (Walmart shoppers) in dixie.

[Greenwood]

Why do people always associate pickup trucks with rednecks? I think a pickup truck is a necessity, everyone should have one, or know someone who does. And if you don't agree you can talk to the tens, maybe even hundreds of people I have helped with mine. However I would rather be driving a pickup truck and have someone label me as a redneck than drive an SUV and someone label me as a tree hugging, yupie liberal.

[Stoney]

Yes! Yes! Get rid of us! Cast us off to fend on our own! T'row us inta der brier patch, Bre'r Fox!

[Rong]

What perfect sentiment to come from a Jew living in California. Thank you for continuing to perpetuate my stereo typical views of "you" people.