Mostly because I sent his "Declaration of Expulsion" here... It's entirely possible that, absent a physical threat to keep the country together, we have all the necessary ingredients to go the way of the Soviet Union someday, and devolve. Cheers, RAH ------ <http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yes&id=5750> HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red by Mike Thompson Posted Nov 12, 2004 Twenty-four hours after the dramatic U.S. presidential-election results were validated, Human Events Online published my essay (which I had been hatching for two weeks), "Declaration of Expulsion," a slightly satiric proposal to kick out of the Union the 12 most liberal states, either to join the People's Socialist Dominion of Canada or, on their own, go straight to Hell. Within hours (and I do not claim that my piece was a causal effect), liberal voices formed into an enthusiastic chorus for roughly the same idea: Democrat gurus Lawrence O'Donnell and Robert Beckel, as angry talking heads on two separate TV news shows, taunted the newly solid-Republican South (all states of which actually are overfed "welfare clients" of the affluent, heavily taxed North, huffed O'Donnell) to secede, for the second time since 1860; The reliably opportunistic Internet erupted with "I Seceded" T-shirts for sale, plus the mocking map of a 31-Red-state nation called "Jesusland," and An e-mail rapidly circulating among liberals touted creation of the country of "American Coastopia," whose upscale Atlantic- and Pacific-rim inhabitants joyfully would (what else?) fly over Fly-Over Country to get away from "rednecks in Oklahoma and homophobic knuckle-draggers in Wyoming." Then came confirmation of the growing fascination for dividing what once was "one nation indivisible," when Manhattan-based liberal talk-show host Alan Colmes invited me to be a guest for 15 minutes on his late-night radio program. My on-air "15 minutes of fame" would mushroom into 45 minutes of defamation: "Why are you so intolerant of liberals?" asked Herr Colmes, who apparently had forgotten that he was supposed to ask me when I had stopped beating my wife. I explained to him factually that more liberals than conservatives publicly are advocating dissolution of the Union, and that the issue, in either event, is not intolerance but rather insolubility--that is, there is no middle ground, no compromise possible on most CultureWar issues. "That's exactly what intolerance is!" asserted the intolerant talkmeister. "Listen carefully, Alan," I urged. "If you want Congress to pass a 10-dollar minimum wage and I want an eight-dollar cap, it's possible for us to compromise at nine dollars. But how do we compromise on abortion? Shall we kill only half as many babies? How do we compromise on gay marriage? Shall we allow a lesbian to marry a lesbian but forbid a man to marry a man? There are too many of these insoluble differences between the Red states and the Blue states." "I can't believe how intolerant you are!" screamed Alan. Soon a self-identified lesbian called in breathlessly to confess "intense fear of intolerant Red states." (Why, I thought, was she phoning a radio show in the middle of the night instead of her local 911 operator?) The perceptive host again verbally pounced on me, his guest, who safely lives in the brimstone warmth of Red Florida: "Do you think, Mr. Thompson, that this woman is evil or immoral?" "Alan, I have no idea who the woman is," I answered. "I have just met her anonymously over the phone. All I know is that she has made a bad choice of lifestyle, because lesbians have a documented higher rate of alcoholism, a higher rate of mental problems and a higher rate of suicide than heterosexual women." Alan, who apparently is aurally challenged, now was in the full-boost stage of liberal ballistics: "What do you mean, this woman RAPES other women? You are filled with hate! How DARE you say such a thing!" "Rape?" I asked, flabbergasted. "I said RATE--as in 'suicide rate.' RATE--as in 'alcoholism rate'! Please listen to me, Alan. Is your phone bad?" With no apology to his mystified guest, Alan disconnected the lesbian's call and radically changed the subject: "Do you think John Kerry is a traitor?" "Yes, Alan. One who commits treason," I observed coolly, "by definition is a traitor. Kerry went to Paris and consulted with our Communist Vietnam enemies, not with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Subsequently, Kerry publicly endorsed the outrageous Communist 'peace plan,' not his own country's plan. "In uniform, Kerry during the war and under oath before the U.S. Senate also accused his fellow American soldiers of indiscriminately raping and killing Vietnamese civilians and destroying their villages just for the fun of it--false charges that were welcomed and used by the Communist nation's cruel jailers for years to torture American prisoners. Therefore, Mr. Kerry is a double traitor." Unguided-missile Colmes finally reached the smoking-burnout stage, spewing invectives and ridicule at me as fast as his facile, bifurcated tongue could wag. "How can you just sit there and libel a statesman like John Kerry?" he sputtered. "How dare you sit in judgment of a great American patriot!" My answer: "Apparently you have forgotten, Alan, but you asked me to 'sit in judgment' of John Kerry--you asked me if I thought he was a traitor. I didn't bring up the subject." Pausing, I asked, "By the way, can you tell your audience how the Constitution defines a traitor? Go ahead. Surely you must know." Retorted Prof. Colmes testily: "I'm not going to play your little quiz game!" "It's not a game, Alan," I said. "Are you ignorant and don't know the answer, or are you afraid to speak the truth? The Constitution defines a traitor as someone who in time of war adheres to our enemy and gives the enemy 'aid and comfort'--those are the exact words. Listen, Alan, listen." His response was a curt good-bye before going to the final break of the hour to promote rupture-easers and get-rich-quick books from unknown con-artists. When I submitted "Declaration of Expulsion," I felt a bit like Jonathan Swift must have when he wrote "A Modest Proposal," a tongue-in-dark-cheek suggestion that the "excess" babies born to Irish Catholics should be eaten by Englishmen as a cheap source of meat. After my 45-minute broadcast encounter with a typical American liberal, however, I believe that expulsion of the most egregiously leftwing states is anything but a slight "joke'; it is, in fact, clearly the serious and necessary path for rescue and revival of the United States of America. I am also sure that God will be understanding when the U.S.A., a reborn nation with revised borders, reaffirms the entire First Amendment and does not change its name at this time, even if well intended, to Jesusland. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'