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73 thoughts on Perhaps it *is* time to secede

  1. Can you say, “hate mongering”? How did this party get the label “Christian”? Not that I use “Christian” as a yardstick by which to measure others, but DAMN, the Republicans sure do! Fucking hypocrites.

    I live in Va. and all the surrounding counties are adopting “We hate and despise and want to get rid of all the brown people who do all the crap work we wouldn’t be caught dead doing” policies. Prince William County is even spending extra money to “train” their police force on what methods to use to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest for anything. If I get a traffic ticket there, will they investigate my white ass? No way.

    So far our county is hanging tough and maintains a policy of welcoming diversity. We’ll see how long it stays that way.

    Sometimes I just hate everybody.

  2. It is so weird that conservatives who are usually so quick to espouse the ideas of the Old Testament can take a biblical idea like sanctuary cities, which the Torah explicitly commands to be set up, and then say that it’s a bad and wrong thing.

  3. What Zuzu said, but for a lot more reasons than that too. I have been wanting a velvet divorce for years.

  4. I concure. Can we get a movement started? The City-State of New York would be a fine country, even if it did have to import 99% of its food from what I trust will be its good friend and ally the USA.

    BTW: Wasn’t Bush’s one saving grace supposed to be that he liked hispanics and was going to make sensible, though probably not wonderful, immigration reforms? Guess not.

  5. The real problem with secession is that all that federal funding that all states rely on would go away. That’s no small number either so I cannot see it really happening in reality.

    As for immigration, I have no problem with it as long as it’s LEGAL. If they come here illegally, they have no rights… period. There are ways to come here legally and perhaps those limits need to be loosened. But the simple fact is that they are here illegally, they’ve broken the law and that is that.

  6. The real problem with secession is that all that federal funding that all states rely on would go away.

    By the same token, the city-states who seceded would not have to pay out taxes to the federal government. Right now, places like New York, California, and pretty much all of the blue states with big cities (also Texas) pay out more to the federal government than they receive in return (the red states, which tend to be more rural, get more than they contribute. So much for that vaunted heartland self-reliance).

    Dianne, I’d be willing to include the entire Northeastern megalopolis. Why not? We could get a lot of our food from New Jersey and New England.

  7. The real problem with secession is that all that federal funding that all states rely on would go away. That’s no small number either so I cannot see it really happening in reality.

    Except that, as has been reported for years, New York City pays the federal government $11 billion dollars in tax revenue that it never gets back in services (it goes to other states). So, if NYC seceded, and then charged its residents taxes in an amount equivalent to what they’d been previously paying, we’d actually be in a better financial position.

  8. I’d be willing to include the entire Northeastern megalopolis. Why not? We could get a lot of our food from New Jersey and New England.

    It’s a good point, but can we leave upstate NY behind? I’d like to see how they like finding out that, far from their taxes being used to support the “welfare queens” in NYC, it is, in fact, NYC tax dollars that pay for the roads their greedmobiles drive on. (Same point as you made, above, actually…)

  9. There is no free market economist in the world who believes you can have open markets and closed borders at the same time. Free trade agreements are arranged so that labor and capital will move to where the demand is, and wages and conditions will equalize across the entire market.

    I am not a big fan of unchecked market forces, personally, but for FSM’s sake, dudes, try to be consistent here.

  10. If they come here illegally, they have no rights… period.

    This is a stomach churning statement. Come to the US and lose all your rights…Being threatened, raped, abused, seeing your family members killed off, too bad. Your own fault for coming into the US. Never mind that very few US born citizens can trace their ancestors back to only legal immigrants. Never mind that the US was formed from land stealing and genocide. We’ve got ours, screw you.

  11. okay, overbroad statement. if someone can _find_ me a free market economist (not a politician, mind, an economist) who believes in regulating the flow of labor through strict enforcement of immigration policy, I would like to read their work. There. Fixed.

  12. The whole “let’s have the cities” secede sentiment is cathartic, but is not a particularly good idea to actually try to put into practice,IMHO.

    The main reason is that cities don’t exist in a vacuum. They have rural hinterlands, which tend to be more politically conservative. That’s why the blue state/red state dichotomy is flawed, because it doesn’t take into account the divisions internal to each state, when tend to run along urban/rural lines. So your urban dwellers might say, “Hey, let’s secede!” but their hinterlands upon which the cities depend might say, “Not so fast, my friends.”

  13. Furthermore, aren’t left-liberals/progressives supposed to be committed to a certain notion of the general welfare? I pay taxes for programs and services that I don’t use and may never use. But that’s not the point.

  14. Plus, y’all will be underwater from the melting glaciers, so start sawing and getting the buoyant material ready.

  15. i would be gung ho for my city to secede from the rural part of my state which is a micrcosm of the whole red states’ parasitism on blue state tax revenue…..except for the fact that i like to eat.

    until such time as i start growing my own crops….which certainly is not unthinkable….i’m not ready to secede from the parts of the country that put food on my table.

    interestingly enough, this is also a good reason to be against draconian anti-immigration measures. if the racist border-paranoiacs had their say, they’d end up paying $20 for a head of lettuce. not to mention the fact that there’d be no one to clean their houses.

  16. We had to go through many hoops and shell out a lot of money to legally bring our child home before we could adopt her. I don’t mind paying that (well I grumbled a bit) and I don’t mind paying my taxes. I support helping fund people who need help… as long as they are here legally. I think we have too many people here who need help now, that our support systems are overtaxed. I think we need to limit people coming in for awhile just until we get caught up a bit. BTW, why are we allowing companies to bring people from other countries to fill jobs? If we need nurses, there are tons of people in this country who if given the money to go to school could fill those jobs. Lets start helping the people here first then we’ll be better able to help everyone else.

  17. I don’t think our support systems are overtaxed because of a massive influx of immigrants, or even because the steady flow of immigrants puts an undue burden on them. Our support systems are overtaxed because they’ve been eviscerated by the government and popular opinion over the last 25 years. Most of the people going to the emergency room as their source of primary medical care aren’t immigrants.

  18. Furthermore, aren’t left-liberals/progressives supposed to be committed to a certain notion of the general welfare? I pay taxes for programs and services that I don’t use and may never use. But that’s not the point.

    I totally agree – I don’t actually take much issue with the idea that, as someone who makes a very *comfortable* living, much of the taxes that I pay will benefit others. I think it’s (in theory) an excellent system, and I encourage the creation of more social welfare programs because I understand the imbalance that results from living in a capitalist society.

    What I take issue with are the numbskulls in Congress who use “cities” as a scapegoat for every (real or imagined) bugaboo that’s crawled up their collective asses. I just think it’s healthy to point out that, if they think us liberal urban dwellers are so bad and in need of being divorced from the rest of the country, we’d actually be the ones who end up ahead if such a thing were to ever actually come to pass.

  19. And to add something I meant to respond to earlier…

    If they come here illegally, they have no rights… period.

    Nevermind the sheer disgustingness of that statement. It’s factually incorrect. Our constitution does have certain rights that are limited to citizens, but for the most part, it protects you simply by virtue of the fact that you are on American soil. Even if you’ve committed a crime (and again, nevermind the fact that “illegal immigration” (which is a misnomer) is a civil misdemeanor, not a felony or even a “crime” as commonly thought of absent some other offense or repeated immigration law violations.

    The reason that New York is a so-called “sanctuary” state is that the state prioritizes actual crimes (particularly violent crimes) and doesn’t want undocumented aliens to fear (a) reporting when they’ve been victimized themselves or (b) being witnesses to other crimes.

  20. So your urban dwellers might say, “Hey, let’s secede!” but their hinterlands upon which the cities depend might say, “Not so fast, my friends.”

    Well, of course they’d object. OTOH, they’d wind up with all the military bases.

  21. I don’t really like cities. But that doesn’t mean I think cities shouldn’t get funding for things or that they’re unimportant. Because I try not to be a moron.

    Also, let’s not confuse the heartland/Midwest with the South.

  22. sam: What I take issue with are the numbskulls in Congress who use “cities” as a scapegoat for every (real or imagined) bugaboo that’s crawled up their collective asses.

    And what I take issue with, are the numbskulls right here who use “rural” as a scapegoat for every (real or imagined) political slight.

    Fundamentally, this is a ton of stupidity all around.

    Stupid #1: To start with, immigration issues are hardly limited to just the urban archipelago, the economics of contemporary agriculture are just as dependant on immigration, legal and illegal as the contemporary sweatshops and service industries. (Never mind the fact that “rural” America is surprisingly industrial, but not perceived as such because what you have are a plethora of small specialized plants scattered across the landscape in contrast to a centralized rustbelt.) Congress critters should be looking in their own back yard.

    Stupid #2: zuzu, Bruce, and Diane for rising to the bait and revealing that under all the liberal posturing, they are bigots willing to entertain their own variations on class warfare as long as they come out on top. By all means, fuck the south. Fuck queers with the gall to live in the wrong zip code. They diserve what they get. Fuck the people working long hours driving long distances every working day to provide health care. Fuck educators stretching limited funds in inadequite systems to meet the needs of children who are more targets of the anti-sanctuary movement than us privileged bloggers. Fuck the disproportionately brown people living on hundreds of acres of poisoned earth and watersystems. Fuck agricultural labor, and fuck the workers who went on strike this month.

    If you are not willing to say this explicitly, to the faces of those people you consider expendible in the service of a game of political “gotcha” then perhaps you should rethink your position.

  23. And most of what we call “rights” in the “bill of rights” are prohibitions on the actions of government. For example, the 5th Amendment flat-out dictates that the government can’t imprison or impose excessive fines without due process of law. The 1st prohibits certain acts by congress.

  24. Stupid #1: To start with, immigration issues are hardly limited to just the urban archipelago

    Yeah. No shit. Tell that to Tom Tancredo and his buddies in Congress, who are only targeting CITIES.

    Stupid #2: zuzu, Bruce, and Diane for rising to the bait and revealing that under all the liberal posturing, they are bigots willing to entertain their own variations on class warfare as long as they come out on top. By all means, fuck the south.

    Oh, *do* take that pole out of your ass. Who mentioned the South? Many of the “sanctuary cities” are IN the South.

    Find another strawelitist to play with, hm? I don’t see anyone proposing to cut off federal funds to the rural South for harboring immigrants, just the cities who actually provide those funds.

  25. Find another strawelitist to play with, hm? I don’t see anyone proposing to cut off federal funds to the rural South for harboring immigrants, just the cities who actually provide those funds.

    What, you mean, you did not say “Perhaps it *is* time to secede.”
    You did not say, “By the same token, the city-states who seceded would not have to pay out taxes to the federal government. Right now, places like New York, California, and pretty much all of the blue states with big cities (also Texas) pay out more to the federal government than they receive in return (the red states, which tend to be more rural, get more than they contribute. So much for that vaunted heartland self-reliance).”

    You said it, I just did the qui bono analaysis in regards to what that would actually mean, and who would actually be hurt if you decided to pack up your toys and go home. And I’m not invoking a straw leftist. I’m suggesting that an honest-to-FSM leftist would take a look at a proposal that undesirable groups are politically expendable in the interests of political vanity, and react with horror. I’m proposing that these coded appeals for some kind of class warfare in which large chuncks of the country are cut loose are conservative and reactionary in nature.

    I’m saying that this succession babble in which priveleged folk wash their hands of issues of social, economic and ecological justice outside of a particular economic geography is not all that dissimilar from gated community conservativism.

  26. The reason that New York is a so-called “sanctuary” state is that the state prioritizes actual crimes

    illegal immigration is an actual crime. i think you meant to say “non-victimless crimes”.

    (victimed crimes? crimes with victims in them? i need a positive to replace my double negative with…)

  27. This succession babble boils down to, “I have mine, now fuck off,” something straight out of the mouths of Randoid libertarians, and fundamentally alien to the central premise of liberalism that issues of economic and political justice can’t be mapped simply within political boundaries.

  28. And for that matter, it strikes me as very similar to the anti-trans sentiment expressed this week by gays and lesbians telling transfolk basically that they are on their own in regards to ENDA.

    When do we get to decide to hold an entire popluation accountable to the perhaps-not-majority vote that defines elected office? Does California get booted out of the club for Schwartzenegger, and there is no talk of New York on probation for Guilliani.

  29. You said it, I just did the qui bono analaysis in regards to what that would actually mean, and who would actually be hurt if you decided to pack up your toys and go home. And I’m not invoking a straw leftist. I’m suggesting that an honest-to-FSM leftist would take a look at a proposal that undesirable groups are politically expendable in the interests of political vanity, and react with horror. I’m proposing that these coded appeals for some kind of class warfare in which large chuncks of the country are cut loose are conservative and reactionary in nature.

    You seem to imagine that cities are full of the upper classes. I thought we were supposed to be festering sinkholes of intractable poverty and crime and immorality. Which is it?

    In actuality, the people who get most hurt by anti-urban policies are the poor. It’s the poor of New York City who are hurt by those $11 billion bled from the City’s coffers every year and spent on stuff like subsidized mining and logging for big industry and the kind of big-Agro operations that are profiting off the backs of poor immigrants. That’s $11 billion that’s not available for the City to use for education, healthcare and social services, among other things (like infrastructure repairs or keeping the cost of mass transit down). And given the policies maintained by the bedwetting goobers in Congress, it’s not like those $11 billion are being spent on poor rural people, either.

    This succession babble boils down to, “I have mine, now fuck off,” something straight out of the mouths of Randoid libertarians, and fundamentally alien to the central premise of liberalism that issues of economic and political justice can’t be mapped simply within political boundaries.

    The point we’re making is that we *don’t* have ours in the cities. We’re supporting the places where someone like Tom Tancredo can demonize us and threaten to cut off our federal funding for anti-terror measures — even though *we’re* the targets, and *we’re* the ones actually providing that federal money.

    Gosh, I can’t imagine why an urbanite would dream about being able to shake those fuckers off.

    In any event, you still haven’t come up with anyone specifically trashing the South, so you’re going to have to give up on that one. You really do get wound up on this topic.

    BTW, I can tell you didn’t read the linked article. Maybe you should do that before you come back here breathing fire.

  30. California’s a state, not a city. And Giuliani, while mayor, continued on with the executive orders that prevented police from being deputized into the immigration service.

    When you’re done reading the article, answer me this: are people who live in cities just supposed to cheerfully accept all these attacks by these ignoramuses who wield a disproportionate amount of power over us? Are we supposed to just take it lying down?

    Clearly, you bristle at perceived attacks on wherever it is you live, even when none are being made. I’m not allowed the same?

  31. I just got back from a meeting at a large public hospital in NYC. Seen on a sign at said hospital: “We don’t care about your immigration status, we care about your health.” So there’s no denying it, we are a sanctuary city.

    By all means, f_ck the south.

    Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. I’m from Dallas, jerk. I know what the south is like. I also know that, for example, Bush’s “Texas accent” is pure Hollywood and no one in west Texas (where my family is from) sounds anything like that. There are a number of Texas liberals and they are far more hard core than the wimpy northern types.

    But the majority of Texans are, for better or worse, conservatives who don’t want more enlightened immigration laws or gay rights or even real racial equality. What are you proposing: ramming enlightenment down their throats at the barrel of a gun? It’s been done–it was called the “Civil War” and you could even argue that it was effective, but frankly it wasn’t so pretty and the country still hasn’t entirely recovered from it. If some states want to go their own way (peacefully) and leave the others to live the way they think best, what’s the problem? If some people in one of the new countries or the other feel that they are being oppressed, then they can immigrate…at least they can to the country that is “soft” on immigrants. The other way…maybe not. So maybe you should worry that we’re screwing over Manhattanite fundies and Vermonter homophobes, instead of worrying about southern gays.

  32. CBrachyrhynchos,

    Did you read what zuzu linked to in the post? I thought the post was an appropriate tongue-in-cheek response to what Tom Tancredo and others in congress are proposing.

  33. You seem to imagine that cities are full of the upper classes. I thought we were supposed to be festering sinkholes of intractable poverty and crime and immorality. Which is it?

    Now who is throwing up strawmen? I’ve made neither of these claims.

    And given the policies maintained by the bedwetting goobers in Congress, it’s not like those $11 billion are being spent on poor rural people, either.

    And the loss of that $11 billion will help the rural poor exactly how? I’m opposed to anti-urban policies. I’m opposed to anti-rural policies. I’m opposed to any policy that will, in effect, punish entire populations for the behavior of elected representatives. If you want to make the argument that we need better distribution of economic resources to meet real social justice needs, I’ll more than agree with you.

    But at this point you are backpedling by making that argument now rather than at the start of the post. The argument so far has nothing to do with equitable distribution of resources, and everything to do with the view that Tancredo’s district should be punished for electing him. Case in point:

    We’re supporting the places where someone like Tom Tancredo can demonize us and threaten to cut off our federal funding for anti-terror measures — even though *we’re* the targets, and *we’re* the ones actually providing that federal money.

    Gosh, I can’t imagine why an urbanite would dream about being able to shake those fuckers off.

    Well, that’s the problem. Of the hundreds of reasons to talk about how federal funds are budgeted, I can think of no legitimate reasons why the political views of an elected representative, no matter how repugnant, should determine funding.

    By all means, I can imagine why you want to “shake those fuckers off’ (and gloss over the fact that you consider rual queers, the poor and the elderly as expendible in the process.) But those reasons are illegitimate, based in prejudice, and incompatible with liberal values of ecoonomic, social and ecological justice. It is deeply wrong for Trancredo to threaten to punish cities for their politics. It is just as deeply wrong for you to threaten to punish rural districts for Trancredo.

    In any event, you still haven’t come up with anyone specifically trashing the South, so you’re going to have to give up on that one. You really do get wound up on this topic.

    This discussion doesn’t come in a vacuum. It was a reference to an earlier discussion as well as a very well-known essay on the topic of urban succession.

    And yes, I did read the linked article before posting. And I still stand by what I said. When you advocate for forming a confedration of city-states separate from those politicians you politicaly dislike, you are treating those people outside of those city-states as politically and morally expendible. “I have mine, now fuck off.” I can think of few words more gentle than bigotry to describe this.

  34. Not to be all pedantic or anything, but if you’re going to spend an hour lecturing zuzu (any myself) on how wrong we are on this topic, the damn word is “secession”. Not succession.

    While you’re at it, you might want to look up the word “sarcasm”.

  35. Now who is throwing up strawmen? I’ve made neither of these claims.

    You keep accusing me of engaging in a class war, and being an elitist. Since I’m talking about cities seceding, evidently you must think that cities are full of elitist upper class people.

    And the loss of that $11 billion will help the rural poor exactly how?

    Like I said, it’s not helping them much now. It’s going to military spending, and subsidizing the profits of the mining and logging industries on government land (not to mention corporate welfare).

    But at this point you are backpedling by making that argument now rather than at the start of the post. The argument so far has nothing to do with equitable distribution of resources, and everything to do with the view that Tancredo’s district should be punished for electing him.

    I wasn’t aware I made much of an argument in a one-sentence post.

    Well, that’s the problem. Of the hundreds of reasons to talk about how federal funds are budgeted, I can think of no legitimate reasons why the political views of an elected representative, no matter how repugnant, should determine funding.

    Guess what? The political views of an elected representative (actually, a whole bunch of them) ARE ALREADY DETERMINING FEDERAL FUNDING. This is the problem.

    It is deeply wrong for Trancredo to threaten to punish cities for their politics. It is just as deeply wrong for you to threaten to punish rural districts for Trancredo.

    Honeybun, let’s review here: Tom Tancredo is a Senator. I am a blogger. He has the power to cut off funding to large cities because of his fear of brown people. I have only the power to engage in idle utopian fantasy.

    And given that I haven’t outlined my 10-point plan for partition and rescuing the rural queers and liberals and anyone who’d be adversely affected by living in the kind of lilywhite Jesusland paradise that Tancredo wants to live in (not to mention booting out the Jonah Goldbergs and Ann Coulters from my urban fantasy paradise), you’re really making a leap by accusing me of bigotry or treating anyone as expendable.

    Hell, I’d even let *you* in, regardless of how unpleasant you’re being.

  36. BTW, why does this get under your skin so much. You freak the fuck out anytime any of this comes up.

  37. zuzu: When you’re done reading the article, answer me this: are people who live in cities just supposed to cheerfully accept all these attacks by these ignoramuses who wield a disproportionate amount of power over us? Are we supposed to just take it lying down?

    It doesn’t require much imagination to come up with counter-arguments that don’t involve treating entire groups of people as expendable at the whim of politics. In fact, I think that’s perhaps the best answer, federal funds for security should be allocated on the basis of need, not on conformity to a political doctrine.

    And some other arguments come neatly to mind. You can point out Tancredo’s bigotry without resorting to that of your own. You can point out the fact that this isn’t even a problem (as noted in the article.) You can point out that one of the reasons we have distributed law enforcement systems is to meet local needs.

    Clearly, you bristle at perceived attacks on wherever it is you live, even when none are being made. I’m not allowed the same?

    Well yes, when “doing the same” means advocating throwing a population of people under the bus in the name of politics, then I feel that’s political decision that should be challenged.

    Dianne: What are you proposing: ramming enlightenment down their throats at the barrel of a gun? It’s been done–it was called the “Civil War” and you could even argue that it was effective, but frankly it wasn’t so pretty and the country still hasn’t entirely recovered from it. If some states want to go their own way (peacefully) and leave the others to live the way they think best, what’s the problem? If some people in one of the new countries or the other feel that they are being oppressed, then they can immigrate…at least they can to the country that is “soft” on immigrants.

    Well personally, I’ve traveled all over the US, and I’ve seen only a few places where people were not engaging in the tough and slow process of social change. My view is that the people who are most vulnerable, are the least able to immigrate to a different part of the country. My personal little activism hobbyhorse is that we need LGBT support resources, in every school, and in every town in the United States. The casualties of not having these resources rival those of our military involvements.

    So yeah, I do see a problem with cutting entire communities, counties, parishes, or states loose and letting whatever happens happen. Those who redline communities as expendable need be held responsible for the costs in human lives and health, as if they committed manslaughter and battery with their own hands.

    Part of the solution is IMO national solidarity and support for local activism. And another part of the solution is federal regulations like the 14th amendment, civil rights laws, hate crime provisions of the omnibus crime bill that give local and state activists tools to address oppression in the courts.

  38. So yeah, I do see a problem with cutting entire communities, counties, parishes, or states loose and letting whatever happens happen. Those who redline communities as expendable need be held responsible for the costs in human lives and health, as if they committed manslaughter and battery with their own hands.

    You’re being awfully dwamatic here.

  39. As for immigration, I have no problem with it as long as it’s LEGAL. If they come here illegally, they have no rights… period

    Haven’t read the whole thread yet, but, no. Not according to international law, anyway.

  40. zuzu: You keep accusing me of engaging in a class war, and being an elitist. Since I’m talking about cities seceding, evidently you must think that cities are full of elitist upper class people.

    I don’t think that’s necessary. I do think that seccessionists are operating from a relative position of privelege.

    Like I said, it’s not helping them much now. It’s going to military spending, and subsidizing the profits of the mining and logging industries on government land (not to mention corporate welfare).

    Then make the argument that it’s unfair to subsidize those industries, and don’t make the argument that they should loose funds because Tancredo is a jerk.

    I have only the power to engage in idle utopian fantasy.

    Well, even if it was just a utopian fantasy, I think that utopian fantasies can be criticized on their own merits, especially when they involve demographic exclusion.

    The fantasy doesn’t exist on its own, it thrives in a cultural environment that considers communities expendible, and argues that our activism efforts in smaller communities are futile. We should just give it up and immigrate to utopia. It’s not all about the utopia of seccession. It’s about the dozens of ways in which small-community activists are stuck in a double-bind, to blame because their efforts don’t always translate into electoral success, and foolish for not merging into larger urban communities. The seccession argument is just another line that says, “you don’t matter.”

    Another fundamental reason why it pisses me off is that it’s a frame that ultimately plays into the hands of conservatives like Trancreo. It’s in the Republicans’ best interest to manufacture the illusion of small-city and rural consensus. And I feel it’s in the best interests of Democrats to reveal the lack of consensus, to say, “no we don’t take it for granted.”

  41. Dianne:

    If some states want to go their own way (peacefully) and leave the others to live the way they think best, what’s the problem?

    BIG problem. What if you happen to live in a state that decides to outlaw abortion? Or prosecute gay people as criminals? Etc. Your answer was that people should just emigrate. But emmigration–especially under duress or for negative reasons–often involves severing lifelong ties to land, friends, and family that most people will find devastating.

    Plus, will everyone be able to leave the states they don’t want to live in? Not everyone has the money and resources to relocate.

    I haven’t read all the back-and-forth with CBrachyrhynchos, but he/she does have at least one very good point: If you say “let the ‘red’ America do what it wants and leave us alone,” you’re condemning millions of people who can’t relocate or aren’t born yet to live in terrible social conditions.

  42. I see it as a matter of life and death because I’ve come closer than I wish to loosing friends, and I’ve seen people that I knew turn up dead in suspicious circumstances. When you look at the costs of racism and poverty from a health-care policy perspective, there is no doubt that the costs of oppression are lives lost, lives shortened and health compromised on a scale that dwarfs the official violent crime rate. So I really, reallly hate the suggestion that we should wall ourselves into an almost utopia and fiddle while the rest of the county burns. I hate the glimmer of a suggestion that is what we should do.

  43. CBrachyrhynchos, where are you getting “expendable” from? You keep saying it, but I have never anywhere seen zuzu say rural areas or the South are expendable. Am I missing a post where she suggested bombing rural areas, or cutting off their federal funding, or doing anything other than peacefully seceeding?

    And I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up about this anyway… it was a throwaway remark said in very understandable frustration, I don’t see her rushing out to start a “NYCers for secession!” group.

  44. So many issues, so little time…
    Immigrating illegally is not a crime — there’s no criminal stigma attached to it, and no punishment for it, other than deportation.

    Never mind that very few US born citizens can trace their ancestors back to only legal immigrants

    Well, I can. And so can everyone in my extended family on both sides. And I’m pretty sure, so can the 100 million living descendants of the 12 million who passed through Ellis Island. And everyone who, like me, had at least one parent with a green card. True there are people like my friend Gloria, not descended from any immigrants, whose ancestral home was annexed by the U.S.

    But I laugh at any Republican plan purporting to limit illegal immigration. A plentiful supply of workers who don’t dare complain about wages or working conditions is a Republican’s wet dream. If they do complain, back to Mexico (or El Salvador, or China, or the West Indies, etc. etc.) they go. Horrors not seen since the Triangle Shirtwaist fire have happened in recent memory, but few care because, like the workers trapped by the padlocked exit doors of the burning chicken processor, the bad things are happening to those afraid to speak up.

    The people most hurt by illegal immigration are the low skilled legal residents whose wages have been cut, and who have to put up with unsafe working conditions in order to have a job at all. I don’t see a solution to this as long as employers can pit one group of workers against another.

  45. dear zuzu, if you secede could you make the rents in new new york more affordable so i could leave the rural heartland behind and join you in this new liberal utopia? i have no problem at all letting bigots burn so long as new new york allows in those who dont want to be part of crazy fundie jesusland.

  46. Well, even if it was just a utopian fantasy, I think that utopian fantasies can be criticized on their own merits, especially when they involve demographic exclusion.

    WELL, THEN IT’S A GOOD THING MY UTOPIAN FANTASYLAND DOESN’T INVOLVE DEMOGRAPHIC EXCLUSION EXCEPT FOR THE TANCREDOS AND COULTERS OF THE WORLD, NOW ISN’T IT?

    Jesus fucking Christ, dude, read for comprehension instead of just for outrage.

  47. Jesus fucking Christ, dude, read for comprehension instead of just for outrage.

    Oh zuzu, you’re trying to take the fun out of everything.

  48. I see it as a matter of life and death because I’ve come closer than I wish to loosing friends, and I’ve seen people that I knew turn up dead in suspicious circumstances. When you look at the costs of racism and poverty from a health-care policy perspective, there is no doubt that the costs of oppression are lives lost, lives shortened and health compromised on a scale that dwarfs the official violent crime rate.

    Yes, I’m sure no one in the state of New York has been personally affected by poverty, racism, crime, or oppression. And wouldn’t that $10 billion of tax dollars that are donated through taxes to a country that hates New Yorkers, except when it’s time to wave a flag against terrorism, help to eradicate those problems…

    … Oh, wait, when it comes to the hatred of the Brown People, Republicans won’t even pay their half-hearted lip service to the I Heart New York! mantra. Gosh.

  49. zuzu: WELL, THEN IT’S A GOOD THING MY UTOPIAN FANTASYLAND DOESN’T INVOLVE DEMOGRAPHIC EXCLUSION EXCEPT FOR THE TANCREDOS AND COULTERS OF THE WORLD, NOW ISN’T IT?

    So basically what you are talking about is a city-state that does not have any borders or geography to speak of. It’s a city-state that includes the house I live in, and the house across the street, but probably not the house next door. A city-state with boundaries more complex than the most obvious gerrymandering, and would be the quintessential definition of gerrymandering. It would also have borders in three dimensions because most certainly Christopher Hitchins would not be a member, but the person occupying the hotel room below him would.

    roses: CBrachyrhynchos, where are you getting “expendable” from? You keep saying it, but I have never anywhere seen zuzu say rural areas or the South are expendable. Am I missing a post where she suggested bombing rural areas, or cutting off their federal funding, or doing anything other than peacefully seceding?

    Setting aside the pork-barrel issue for the moment. Just about any form progressive taxation combined with a liberal social safety net is going to involve a net flow of funds from urban to rural areas. In at least one way, we already have “peaceful secession” in the the form of locally-funded and managed school systems. The result of this is blatant de facto segregation of schools by both race and social class, because FSM forbid that the property taxes of the newly-incorporated gated township be used to help support the 100% free lunch school on the other side of the city line. Failing schools mean falling property values, and reduced commercial investment, so the end game is a death-spiral into poverty for those systems out of which people decided to “peacefully secede.” The bottom line is that tax secession as advocated won’t do anything to harm the Tancredos and Coulters of the world, but it will effectively destroy services such as medicaid, medicare, social security, and federal school subsidies.

    And there is the political side of secession as well. The problem with these partioning schemes is that few parts of the U.S. are firmly blue or red. Most of the U.S. is some shade of violet or mauve. There is no “blue” or “red” America around which you can safely draw a map. If you draw an arbitrary line on a piece of paper, you do little to isolate yourself from the opinions described as repugnant, because they can be found within a mile, if not the current block.

    Meanwhile, the civil war was, in part, a consequence of a similar attempt at peacefully partitioning the United States along political lines. It gave us “bloody Kansas,” and the ill-conceived experiment of having different law for different parts of the country probably made the conflict worse. In fact, one of the primary arguments raised here for secession (by Diane) is this idea civil rights should be optional at the whims of local majorities.

    It’s impossible to implement secession as advocated here without gutting both social services and the ability of activists to leverage federal civil rights law. Those people who depend on either are expendable according to secession arguments.

  50. RKMK: Yes, I’m sure no one in the state of New York has been personally affected by poverty, racism, crime, or oppression. And wouldn’t that $10 billion of tax dollars that are donated through taxes to a country that hates New Yorkers, except when it’s time to wave a flag against terrorism, help to eradicate those problems…

    Straw man here. I didn’t say that no one in New York has been affected by poverty, racism, crime or oppression. What I’m arguing is that any “fair” system of taxation that is progressive with income/value, and allocates funds on the basis of need is going to result in the net transfer of funds out of cities with a strong tax base.

    And “country that hates New Yorkers,” would you like a straw hat and a pouch of snuff to go with that stereotype. The angry hayseed who hates New York is just as much of a myth with a grain of truth in a minority as the snobbish urbanite who hates flyover country. As a myth it makes for good comedy sketches and bad policy.

    Even if all of us did, it shouldn’t matter when we fill out an application for financial aid, medicare, medicaid, social security, or federal disaster relief. What we like or hate should not be a factor in seeking federal employment. Expenditures should be based on merit or need and not whether we hold the same opinions as the guy receiving the check. Likewise, anti-terrorism funding should be based on identified needs an not the political orientation of the people who got the largest number of votes in the last election.

    There is a word for distributing tax dollars based on how much they support you, corruption.

  51. And for that matter, it strikes me as very similar to the anti-trans sentiment expressed this week by gays and lesbians telling transfolk basically that they are on their own in regards to ENDA.

    When do we get to decide to hold an entire popluation accountable to the perhaps-not-majority vote that defines elected office? Does California get booted out of the club for Schwartzenegger, and there is no talk of New York on probation for Guilliani.

    No. Just, no. I see your point about coalition politics, but that was the privileged half deciding to fuck a bunch of vulnerable people over again after those people spent decades making equal contributions in exchange for equal inclusion. Transpeople and trans community leaders don´t generally go around talking about how the gays deserve to be blown up, or how homosexuality is immoral and indefensible. Not so for the putative representatives of red states, or their elected officials. Nor is “on their own” an accurate gloss of the Frank position. It would be better paraphrased as, “See you next election cycle! No hard feelings, eh?” Frank doesn´t want to break with transpeople. He just wants solidarity to be a one-way street. If anything, the open hand and the sneering face are a pretty good analogy for Tancredo and his apologists. And I´d be happy to write off any gay voter or gay organization that failed to complain.

    Zuzu is not upset because of the money itself. In her throwaway comment, she voiced a frustration with the simultaneous demands and demonization that city dwellers constantly hear from elected officials that red states fail to boot out of office. New York serves three political purposes: it provides money, it´s a handy foil for everything good about America, and 9/11 as Doomsday Device. An actual New Yorker has every right to be sick about that.

    And speaking as a San Franciscan who gets to be a citizen of Sodom on the Bay whenever the values voters need a pivot babe, don´t bother trying to salvage my state from the deluge, okay?

  52. piny: No. Just, no. I see your point about coalition politics, but that was the privileged half deciding to fuck a bunch of vulnerable people over again after those people spent decades making equal contributions in exchange for equal inclusion.

    I see it as exactly analogous. You have a group with relative privilege in the form of progresive state and municipal legal systems, a strong tax base, and better access to education and information infrastructure. This group is advocating for a policy that will fuck millions of people who rely on what limited federal safety net we have, national activism coalitions, and federal civil rights laws grounded in the 14th Amendment.

    And for what benefit? Tancreo probably wouldn’t be personally harmed by secession. Neither would a large chunk of his voting base. As a claimed resident of the South Florida metro area Coulter would likely be a citizen of this city-state confederation, along with most of the right-wing elite.

    Who really stands to be fucked when a relatively priveleged group starts talking about redrawing the political map for their benefit? In most cases, it’s the less privileged who are left behind.

    And don’t blow smoke up my ass about “equal contributions.” I was unaware that Debbs and Chavez had been written out of history, or that the smaller cities where critical civil rights battles were fought had beeen erased from the map. I’ve been fighting long and hard going on 18 years now. There is a heck of a lot more going on in political activism that can’t be dismissed because it failed to yield a majority in a political race.

    Zuzu is not upset because of the money itself. In her throwaway comment, she voiced a frustration with the simultaneous demands and demonization that city dwellers constantly hear from elected officials that red states fail to boot out of office.

    And I’m voicing a frustration with the simultaneous demands and demonization that “red state” activists constantly hear from city dwellers. Demonizing your allies because they failed to deliver a 50% majority vote in the last election is a wonderful ticket for success.

  53. And *gasp* perhaps the best way to deal with Tancreo and his ilk is to repeat our success in 2006 at booting out repugnant representatives. But this *gasp* means recognizing that not everyone who lives outside of the urban enclaves is a city-hating republican group-think zombie.

    And attributing the spoken opinions of a representative to the views of all persons in his/her district is a pretty obviou fallacy.

  54. So basically what you are talking about is a city-state that does not have any borders or geography to speak of. It’s a city-state that includes the house I live in, and the house across the street, but probably not the house next door. A city-state with boundaries more complex than the most obvious gerrymandering, and would be the quintessential definition of gerrymandering. It would also have borders in three dimensions because most certainly Christopher Hitchins would not be a member, but the person occupying the hotel room below him would.

    No, you’d have to move. This is *my* utopian fantasyland, after all. Moving expenses, of course, would be included. And Hitchens would have to go.

    Setting aside the pork-barrel issue for the moment. Just about any form progressive taxation combined with a liberal social safety net is going to involve a net flow of funds from urban to rural areas. In at least one way, we already have “peaceful secession” in the the form of locally-funded and managed school systems. The result of this is blatant de facto segregation of schools by both race and social class, because FSM forbid that the property taxes of the newly-incorporated gated township be used to help support the 100% free lunch school on the other side of the city line. Failing schools mean falling property values, and reduced commercial investment, so the end game is a death-spiral into poverty for those systems out of which people decided to “peacefully secede.” The bottom line is that tax secession as advocated won’t do anything to harm the Tancredos and Coulters of the world, but it will effectively destroy services such as medicaid, medicare, social security, and federal school subsidies.

    Where do you live where school funding is based purely on local taxes? School funding is yet another area in which suburban districts screw urban ones. AAMAF, the last governor of New York, a Republican, fought tooth and nail against a suit filed by NYC schoolkids for equal funding. And why? Because suburban and upstate Republicans (particularly the ones from the districts where they got to count prisoners for purposes of school funding and other aid formulas) didn’t want to give NYC kids any more schooling than was necessary to prepare them to flip burgers. And that’s exactly what Pataki said.

    And *gasp* perhaps the best way to deal with Tancreo and his ilk is to repeat our success in 2006 at booting out repugnant representatives. But this *gasp* means recognizing that not everyone who lives outside of the urban enclaves is a city-hating republican group-think zombie.

    That’s swell, but there’s not a whole lot those of us who *do* live in progressive districts can do about that. So it’s up to you. And in the meantime, we get threatened by dipshits on a regular basis.

  55. And BTW: urban school districts are notoriously bad (probably because they get starved for funds). Yet property values are just fine.

    Failing schools mean falling property values, and reduced commercial investment, so the end game is a death-spiral into poverty for those systems out of which people decided to “peacefully secede.” The bottom line is that tax secession as advocated won’t do anything to harm the Tancredos and Coulters of the world, but it will effectively destroy services such as medicaid, medicare, social security, and federal school subsidies.

    Not that you’ve been paying any attention to what I’ve been saying, but the people who will be left in the Jesusland portion of the country will be the ones who say they don’t want taxation, federal school subsidies, or medicare. So they can have their libertarian paradise! In *my* utopian fantasyland, the poor will be welcomed, and antipoverty programs will be fully funded and free of interference from the kinds of people who make Jesusland their home.

    And once again, I have to ask: what in the hell chaps your ass so much about this?

  56. I see it as exactly analogous. You have a group with relative privilege in the form of progresive state and municipal legal systems, a strong tax base, and better access to education and information infrastructure.

    No, seriously, dude, have you paid any attention at all? NYC public schools are a mess. That $11 billion would help an awful lot.

    And I’m voicing a frustration with the simultaneous demands and demonization that “red state” activists constantly hear from city dwellers. Demonizing your allies because they failed to deliver a 50% majority vote in the last election is a wonderful ticket for success.

    What, an occasional “fuck the south” out of frustration vs. people with actual power to cut off funding talking about cutting off funding.

  57. zuzu: That’s swell, but there’s not a whole lot those of us who *do* live in progressive districts can do about that. So it’s up to you. And in the meantime, we get threatened by dipshits on a regular basis.

    I actually think that people in progressive districts can do a lot by framing how they talk aboout these issues. The red/blue state frame works in the best interests of conservative politicians, so directing the criticism at representatives and avoiding painting voting populations with a broad brush would do a lot. It doesn’t feel like a coalition when your successes are ignored and you are held accountable for the statements of representatives you worked against.

  58. Your problem is universalizing an attack on Tancredo into an attack on you, personally. Because I really don’t see how you could think that “bedwetting goobers in Congress” applies to you.

    You’re boxing with shadows. Not to mention projecting. And given how quick you were to pull out the coastal urban elites card and accuse me of class warfare, I’d say that you need to work on your susceptibility to conservative framing.

    Not to mention, when the Republicans in the last election cycle demonized cities, demonized Massachusetts and the Northeast, I didn’t hear too many protests from Southern/Midwestern liberals about that. It might be nice to know that you guys aren’t also anti-urban, you know? The Democrats spend an awful lot of time talking up how wonderful the Heartland is, and not responding to attacks on so-called urban elitists or to attacks on city-dwellers. Yet we’re supposed to just smile through being Sodom on the Bay or Gommorrah on the Hudson for the purposes of scoring some kind of moral point, while simultaneously fluffing the very people who bitch and moan about how elitist we are.

    It works two ways, you know.

  59. zuzu: Your problem is universalizing an attack on Tancredo into an attack on you, personally. Because I really don’t see how you could think that “bedwetting goobers in Congress” applies to you.

    Well, now that you’ve clarified that your fantasy-land involves some sort of magical rearrangement of the political and physical geography of the universe, It’s not a problem. But the original proposal of redlining those areas of the country you didn’t want to live with is an attack on me and mine, just as Tancreo’s generalization are an attack on you and yours.

  60. But the original proposal of redlining those areas of the country you didn’t want to live with is an attack on me and mine, just as Tancreo’s generalization are an attack on you and yours.

    WHAT ORIGINAL PROPOSAL?????

    Jesus Christ.

  61. I see it as exactly analogous. You have a group with relative privilege in the form of progresive state and municipal legal systems, a strong tax base, and better access to education and information infrastructure. This group is advocating for a policy that will fuck millions of people who rely on what limited federal safety net we have, national activism coalitions, and federal civil rights laws grounded in the 14th Amendment.

    I´m with zuzu. What group?

  62. And don’t blow smoke up my ass about “equal contributions.” I was unaware that Debbs and Chavez had been written out of history, or that the smaller cities where critical civil rights battles were fought had beeen erased from the map. I’ve been fighting long and hard going on 18 years now. There is a heck of a lot more going on in political activism that can’t be dismissed because it failed to yield a majority in a political race.

    Who´s blowing smoke up your ass? I´m complaining about your willingness to appropriate one group´s complaints in an effort to punish another. You bootstrapped your own complaints to a struggle that doesn´t track.

  63. And I’m voicing a frustration with the simultaneous demands and demonization that “red state” activists constantly hear from city dwellers. Demonizing your allies because they failed to deliver a 50% majority vote in the last election is a wonderful ticket for success.

    If you can point to where Zuzu did that–you know, actually said one word against anyone who had any stated problem with Tancredo or people like him, wherever these supposed targets happened to live, however they happened to spend their time–I will cede the debate. All you´re doing is conflating her own attack on Tancredo with your creaky hobbyhorse, and it´s ridiculous. It was ridiculous about thirty comments ago.

  64. I actually think that people in progressive districts can do a lot by framing how they talk aboout these issues.


    Oy.

    The day I take diplomacy advice from you is the day I take cunnilingus advice from Dan Savage. You came in here on a throwaway comment, proceeded to attack a whole bunch of things Zuzu never said or implied, e.g., “everyone who lives outside of the urban enclaves is a city-hating republican group-think zombie,” and now that the throwaway nature of the throwaway comment has finally penetrated your iron-plated skull, you´re reduced to arguing that what we didn´t say shouldn´t be said. I know you´re not representative of red-state activism, and I´m glad.

  65. Mike, fuck off. Illegal immigrants, like everyone else, have human rights. Period. You can argue till the cows come home on what their America-specific legal rights may be. Have fun. But the day you claim someone has no rights at all is the day you surrender your moral decency. Period.

    CBrachyrhynchos, speaking as a proud rural-identified queer, you are making no earthly sense. Reread for comprehension, take a deep breath, and then maybe try again, though I’d rather not encourage you. I mean, fer serious, compadre.

  66. I’m a vegetarian, a lesbian, a feminist, working in the arts in a very red state and believe me- I feel your frustration at backwards politicians.

    But I’ve seen these ‘jokes’ (about seceding) so damn many times and I am sick of them. They paint a whole state with a broad brush and basically imply that we don’t matter. The whole red state-blue state dialog started it, and unfortunately it’s led us to a really divisive mindset.

    Even though my state is one of the reddest based on recent elections, there are actually more registered Democrats here than Republicans. I think that there is real value in being here, in working locally to raise awareness of candidates and issues, to mobilize communities with lower representation at the polls. I am as frustrated as ANYONE about the folks we keep electing, and I encounter fundamentalists almost every day- I am NOT defending them!

    But these secession jabs just smack of superiority, when we should be trying for solidarity. It doesn’t always come down to red states vs blue states… even Massachusetts has a Mitt Romney. There are progressives everywhere. There are right-wing fundies everywhere. If feminism matters, then every feminist- every woman matters.

    I love my home. I work for a better one every day, but I love it, and I hate people who have never been here making assumptions about it.

  67. piny: If you can point to where Zuzu did that–you know, actually said one word against anyone who had any stated problem with Tancredo or people like him, wherever these supposed targets happened to live, however they happened to spend their time–I will cede the debate. All you´re doing is conflating her own attack on Tancredo with your creaky hobbyhorse, and it´s ridiculous. It was ridiculous about thirty comments ago.

    It’s in the opening post. “Perhaps it *is* time to seceed” doesnt’ just imply that the problem is about regions of the country collectively. It does so explicitly. And in the first 23 responses, only one person bothers to say that political geography is more complex than the regionalism invoked. Throughout those critical 23 responses the problem is described in terms of states, counties, hinterlands and the solution is described in terms of “city-states” and “megalopolis.” There are only two oblique mentions of congressmen, and nothing that calls out Trancreo by name.

    And yes, I will fully apologize for going over the top and being less than constructive with my responses. But I still consider that my interpretation that regions of the country were being collectively demonized for the statements of congressmen to be reasonable given the flow of discussion prior to my initial post. If we disagree that is a reasonable interpretation, I’m happy to let the issue drop. I think we have a consesus on the issues that really matter, and I don’t want to contribute to the mutual axe-grinding.

  68. It’s in the opening post. “Perhaps it *is* time to seceed” doesnt’ just imply that the problem is about regions of the country collectively. It does so explicitly. And in the first 23 responses, only one person bothers to say that political geography is more complex than the regionalism invoked. Throughout those critical 23 responses the problem is described in terms of states, counties, hinterlands and the solution is described in terms of “city-states” and “megalopolis.” There are only two oblique mentions of congressmen, and nothing that calls out Trancreo by name.

    About half of those comments were a side-discussion on immigration. And there were a bunch of pretty facetious comments about how cities might eat. Only one person bothered because most people didn´t read into it what you did. That´s because it´s not there. Who exactly is in charge of the laws made in those states, and who is responsible for the tenor of its political discussions? The mailman?

    And, I´m sorry, but I do not agree that you were being reasonable. I think you were being unreasonable. Expressing a desire to get the fuck away from horrible red-state legislators who do nothing but demonize cities while gutting them for the sake of political grease–which is what Zuzu was doing–does not pronounce one way or the other on the politics or intellect of their constituents, merely on the harm that those legislators are doing. It doesn´t idenfity a collective problem; it´s just a frustrated gesture towards a broad solution.

    She did not say or imply that people in rural areas were all reactionary fools (waves at Lauren). She did not say or imply pretty much any of the things you attributed to her in between calling her a numbskull and a bigot. Again, no one but you needed the cloudcuckooland tenor of these comments made explicit. I´ll eat a slice of Zuzu´s baby meringue pie if anyone up there was being even a little bit serious about seceding, given that it´s about as likely to happen as Junebug learning to sing lieder.

  69. Piny – eat the pie. I want it to happen. Constitutional convention now. Show the redneck states the exit sign. My dream would be that Maryland or at least Virginia could become a border state, or something close to one.

    I do not consider those who celebrate post-modern nostalgia for the Confederacy of their ancestors my countrymen.

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