Secession

[Tigermike 2,605]

Secession

By Tony Blankley

    I assume the Republican National Committee is busy recording and archiving the idiotic statements coming out of national Democratic Party leaders and commentators. There is no doubt that the election has not only yielded a victory for the Republicans, but also a bumper crop of self-destructive vitriol and bitterness from the Democrats.

    The opinion pages of the New York Times (that would be pages A-1- D 37 inclusive) have been running articles by prime cut liberals, the general themes of which have been that conservative Christians are the equivalent of Islamic terrorists and that the benighted provincials who voted for President Bush are simply hate-filled bigots who have no place in America.

    The apotheosis of this political dementia was put forward in my very presence on last week's McLaughlin Group by my friend and colleague Lawrence O'Donnell. Lawrence, in cool blood and in apparent full control of his senses, asserted that this election will give rise to a serious consideration of secession from the Union by the blue states.

    I should point out that, though Lawrence has been barking more than usual in this election season's TV commentary, he is a brilliant political analyst and a serious Democratic Party player. He was the late Sen. Moynihan's top Senate staffer. He comes from one of the great Democratic Party families. I believe it was his uncle who was President Kennedy's White House chief of staff. He is also the most gifted writer/producer on the NBC show, "West Wing." He is not one of those no-name nitwits who the cable shows pull from obscurity to recite Democratic Party talking points.

    I elaborate on his enviable pedigree and qualities of mind and experience, because if he says such a thing to a television audience of 6 million viewers, it must surely reflect some measurable body of senior Democratic Party sentiment. And although it is inconceivable that any senior elected Democratic Party officials would ever repeat or act on such a deranged notion, it is a measure of how deep is the Democratic Party elite's contempt for and estrangement from the American public.    

    In this regard, I couldn't help thinking of the founding election of the modern Democratic Party — the election of 1828, when Gen. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee defeated John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts by 139,000 votes out of 1.1 million cast.

    That election, which defined the Democratic Party that we have known for almost two centuries, has been called the first triumph of the common man in American politics. It pitted the moneyed interests of the Northeast against the farmers and working free laborers of the South and West. It was the first election in which almost all of the states (22 of 24) used direct popular election rather than state legislatures to elect the presidential electors.

    It was capped with a raucous inaugural celebration during which "rustic" common people shocked Washington society as they wandered through the White House celebrating, drinking and shaking President Andy Jackson's hand. And so started a bond between the Democratic Party and the typical working American that lasted 176 years — until last Tuesday.

    It's not that the Democrats lost an election, obviously both parties have lost numerous elections. But never before in my memory — which goes back faintly to 1956 — has either party in its loss reacted with such venomous contempt for the American people.    

      When we conservatives got shellacked in 1964 — with Barry Goldwater losing 61percent to 39 percent to Lyndon Johnson — we knew we had a lot of work ahead if we were going to educate the public to our views. But I can honestly say that, although I remember thinking that the public was misguided in its judgment, I never hated or felt contemptuous of the majority electorate — of my fellow countrymen.

    This dominant sentiment of the Democratic Party elite — that scores of millions of Americans are categorically unacceptable as fellow countrymen — is evidence of a cancer in the soul of that party. These Democrats, quite expressly, are asserting that "Christers," people who believe in the teachings of Jesus as described in the inerrant words of the Bible, are un-American, almost sub-human. Some of these Democrats would rather secede than stay in the same country with such people. If they were in the majority with no need to secede, what would they do? Their bigoted and absolutist view of religious people is at least a second cousin to the Nazi view of the Jews.    

    In Europe, the few remaining people of faith have recently taken to calling the increasingly more adamant European secularist majority "secular fundamentalists." While that phrase is unfair to the perfectly respectable fundamentalist religious sentiment, it shows how much more harsh and filled with fear the religious/secular divide is becoming.

    Fortunately, most rank and file Democrats are not infected with such secular bigotry. Democrats don't need to secede. They just need to purge their party of such of their leaders and intellectual vanguard as spew forth such rubbish.    

Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. His column appears on Wednesdays. E-mail: tblankley@washingtontimes.com

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041109-094911-5755r.htm

[TexasTiger 11,057]

I'm not going to get into an argument over this issue, but I do want to point out that I saw the McLaughin show he is referencing and he mischaracterizes what O'Donnell said. O'Donnell said that if a similar voting pattern continued, it was possible that in about 20 years voters in states such as New York and California, whose taxpayers put far more into Washington coffers than comes back to them, might question the value of continuing in such an arrangement. His point was more that such cultural divisions over time might lead to support for a split.

Secession

By Tony Blankley

     I assume the Republican National Committee is busy recording and archiving the idiotic statements coming out of national Democratic Party leaders and commentators. There is no doubt that the election has not only yielded a victory for the Republicans, but also a bumper crop of self-destructive vitriol and bitterness from the Democrats.

     The opinion pages of the New York Times (that would be pages A-1- D 37 inclusive) have been running articles by prime cut liberals, the general themes of which have been that conservative Christians are the equivalent of Islamic terrorists and that the benighted provincials who voted for President Bush are simply hate-filled bigots who have no place in America.

     The apotheosis of this political dementia was put forward in my very presence on last week's McLaughlin Group by my friend and colleague Lawrence O'Donnell. Lawrence, in cool blood and in apparent full control of his senses, asserted that this election will give rise to a serious consideration of secession from the Union by the blue states.

     I should point out that, though Lawrence has been barking more than usual in this election season's TV commentary, he is a brilliant political analyst and a serious Democratic Party player. He was the late Sen. Moynihan's top Senate staffer. He comes from one of the great Democratic Party families. I believe it was his uncle who was President Kennedy's White House chief of staff. He is also the most gifted writer/producer on the NBC show, "West Wing." He is not one of those no-name nitwits who the cable shows pull from obscurity to recite Democratic Party talking points.

     I elaborate on his enviable pedigree and qualities of mind and experience, because if he says such a thing to a television audience of 6 million viewers, it must surely reflect some measurable body of senior Democratic Party sentiment. And although it is inconceivable that any senior elected Democratic Party officials would ever repeat or act on such a deranged notion, it is a measure of how deep is the Democratic Party elite's contempt for and estrangement from the American public.     

     In this regard, I couldn't help thinking of the founding election of the modern Democratic Party — the election of 1828, when Gen. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee defeated John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts by 139,000 votes out of 1.1 million cast.

     That election, which defined the Democratic Party that we have known for almost two centuries, has been called the first triumph of the common man in American politics. It pitted the moneyed interests of the Northeast against the farmers and working free laborers of the South and West. It was the first election in which almost all of the states (22 of 24) used direct popular election rather than state legislatures to elect the presidential electors.

     It was capped with a raucous inaugural celebration during which "rustic" common people shocked Washington society as they wandered through the White House celebrating, drinking and shaking President Andy Jackson's hand. And so started a bond between the Democratic Party and the typical working American that lasted 176 years — until last Tuesday.

     It's not that the Democrats lost an election, obviously both parties have lost numerous elections. But never before in my memory — which goes back faintly to 1956 — has either party in its loss reacted with such venomous contempt for the American people.     

      When we conservatives got shellacked in 1964 — with Barry Goldwater losing 61percent to 39 percent to Lyndon Johnson — we knew we had a lot of work ahead if we were going to educate the public to our views. But I can honestly say that, although I remember thinking that the public was misguided in its judgment, I never hated or felt contemptuous of the majority electorate — of my fellow countrymen.

     This dominant sentiment of the Democratic Party elite — that scores of millions of Americans are categorically unacceptable as fellow countrymen — is evidence of a cancer in the soul of that party. These Democrats, quite expressly, are asserting that "Christers," people who believe in the teachings of Jesus as described in the inerrant words of the Bible, are un-American, almost sub-human. Some of these Democrats would rather secede than stay in the same country with such people. If they were in the majority with no need to secede, what would they do? Their bigoted and absolutist view of religious people is at least a second cousin to the Nazi view of the Jews.     

     In Europe, the few remaining people of faith have recently taken to calling the increasingly more adamant European secularist majority "secular fundamentalists." While that phrase is unfair to the perfectly respectable fundamentalist religious sentiment, it shows how much more harsh and filled with fear the religious/secular divide is becoming.

     Fortunately, most rank and file Democrats are not infected with such secular bigotry. Democrats don't need to secede. They just need to purge their party of such of their leaders and intellectual vanguard as spew forth such rubbish.    

Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. His column appears on Wednesdays. E-mail: tblankley@washingtontimes.com

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041109-094911-5755r.htm

120331[/snapback]

[Tigermike 2,605]

I'm not going to get into an argument over this issue, but I do want to point out that I saw the McLaughin show he is referencing and he mischaracterizes what O'Donnell said.  O'Donnell said that if a similar voting pattern continued, it was possible that in about 20 years voters in states such as New York and California, whose taxpayers put far more into Washington coffers than comes back to them, might question the value of continuing in such an arrangement.  His point was more that such cultural divisions over time might lead to support for a split.

The premise is that since the "Blue" states pay more taxes why should those taxes be sent to the "Red" states. What about the Democrat talking point of "looking out for the little guys"? To which one could counter that the "Red" states have been doing the fighting for the "Blue" states since this country became a country.

Senator Kerry and the Democrats made a big deal of his Vietnam service. It seems to me that the Blue states still owe for the disproportionate number of "Red State" servicemen killed in Vietnam. Where were the Blue states then? The statistics are similar for WWI & WWII as well.

Geographic Division..........Deaths Per

.......................................100,000

.......................................population

.

Mountain States................. 33.3

East South Central............. 32.6

South Atlantic.................... 30.8

South................................ 31.0

New England....................... 23.7

Mid Atlantic......................... 23.5

West.................................. 29.92

http://members.aol.com/warlibrary/vwc3.htm

[CCTAU 2,377]

Let'em go. I've stated several times we ought to kick the b*****ds out. We have them 2 to one on square miles alone. When they have exhuasted their real estate, they'll come begging. Can't grow your own food on concrete.

[TrueBlue72 0]

All those huge taxes that are paid by the blue states are primarily the result of the many corporate HEADQUARTERS in those states. Those taxes were NOT really earned in those states, the tax returns were simply filed there! CCTAU is right, let them go!!!!

Seriously, most of the work is done, most of the wealth is created, in the red states. Mining, manufacturing, farming, research is what creates the wealth of a nation, the blue states seem to be more attuned to the service industry, banking, legal, professional and such..... these do nothing to create wealth, just redistribute it. Not surprising that they would be democrats when you look at it that way!

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Let'em go. I've stated several times we ought to kick the b*****ds out. We have them 2 to one on square miles alone. When they have exhuasted their real estate, they'll come begging. Can't grow your own food on concrete.

120438[/snapback]

I agree 100%. But let's beat them to the punch and just go ahead and give them to France.

[Tigermike 2,605]

I disagree with any talk of Secession, I don't ever want to see this country broken up. For the most part it is merely ranting of sore and poor losers. I do find it somewhat shortsighted and hypocritical for the people of "Northern" states to be talking about secession when they fought a bitter war to keep the Union intact. Wasn't there more casualties in the Civil War than any war in our history? It wasn't very civil was it.

Every four years our country has a revolution. This time our side won. In four years who knows.

[jaydubb121 22]

On Bill Maher's show last Friday night he stated his desire for the South to try secession again. His quote was I believe "On second thought, go ahead" Then made several derogotary slams as to how the "real" USA would be better off without the South.

[GaTigerFan 0]

On Bill Maher's show last Friday night he stated his desire for the South to try secession again. His quote was I believe "On second thought, go ahead" Then made several derogotary slams as to how the "real" USA would be better off without the South.

120501[/snapback]

Maher also said something like "whats more important? Science or Jesus?"

I heard a sound bite... It floored me... I guess it won't matter to him when he's burning in hell... What can you expect really from a moron that thought the "hijackers were the real heroes on 9/11".... what a jerk.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

On Bill Maher's show last Friday night he stated his desire for the South to try secession again. His quote was I believe "On second thought, go ahead" Then made several derogotary slams as to how the "real" USA would be better off without the South.

120501[/snapback]

Maher also said something like "whats more important? Science or Jesus?"

I heard a sound bite... It floored me... I guess it won't matter to him when he's burning in hell... What can you expect really from a moron that thought the "hijackers were the real heroes on 9/11".... what a jerk.

120575[/snapback]

I love it and hope he continues his tirade for 4 years. People like him will assure another Republican victory in '08