The
following “letter” is making the rounds on Face Book. Such a great letter deserves a reply.
DEAR RED
STATES; WE'RE LEAVING.
We've
decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the
other Blue States with us.
In case you
aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,
California, New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois
and all the Northeast.
We believe
this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of
the new country that includes Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and
Washington D.C.
We also get
the vast majority of the major shipping ports. So good luck with getting goods
in or out of the country affordably.
We also get
Costco, Starbucks and Boeing. You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem
cell research and the best beaches.
We get the
Statue of Liberty. You get Branson, Missouri.
We get
Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get 85
percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Mississippi.
We get
two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair
share.
Since our
aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we
get a bunch of happier, intact families.
Please be
aware that California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want
all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your
evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths
for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their
children's caskets coming home.
With the
Blue States unified, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's
fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of
the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve
French wines at your state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the
high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods,
sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools -- Brown, Columbia,
Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Penn, Princeton, and Yale; and Mount Holyoke,
Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and Radcliffe colleges; plus
UCLA, UCB, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red
States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese
Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S.
mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes,
99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all
televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Rand Paul.
We get
Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally,
62 percent of you believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death
penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent
that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe
you are people with higher morals then we lefties. (See that part about
divorces. ...)
Oh, and you
can have all the new COVID-19 cases since you're too dumb and self-centered to
wear masks.
Peace out.
We are the
people of the Blue States
Dear Blue
States,
It was
so nice to hear from you. What an
interesting proposition. It turns out, all
the comparisons to 1860 are true; the Democrats really do favor dissolution of
the Union if they cannot have their own way.
(And, apparently, the late unpleasantness of 1861-65 wasn’t "just" about
slavery. See, e.g., Professor Jonathan
Turley’s article at https://jonathanturley.org/2010/09/24/uncivil-action-was-lincoln-wrong-on-secession/.) But I digress.
So, you've decided you’re leaving and taking your Blue
Buds with you to “form our own country.”
That’s nice, dears, but we will just have to
see about that.
You may get LA, San Francisco, and Sacramento
and the burned out remains of Portland and Seattle, but a whole lot of
Californians, Oregonians, and Washingtonians would be very glad, indeed, to see
you go. When you leave the United States
and form whatever little Baltic States you imagine, applying the West Virginia
principle, we will be glad to wave goodbye to those who are seceding from
us and to welcome, as President Lincoln said of West Virginia, those who are
seceding to us.
About Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Washington D.C. Not that it matters in your opium dream, but territories cannot secede. They will still belong to the United States (a nation of which you will no longer be a part.) You’re leaving, remember? You can take whatever part of your former States that really want to go—we won’t stop you—but you get only those parts that affirmatively want to do so. You don’t get to pick and choose. Can you spell referenda?
Shipping ports? Really? Boston stopped being a major port shortly after the tea leaves settled. We will still have Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, San Diego, and St Louis. And don’t be so sure that New York City/Newark, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, will still be “major ports.” Where will the goods shipped there be going? They are merely ports of entry. If the tariffs we will place on goods shipped into those city-states when they try to leave for the United States, shippers may realize shipping through those ports is too costly. Explain empty docks and piers to lots of unemployed stevedores , warehouse workers, and associated employees. But you will finally have your dream: you can all pay your “fair share” to support all those folks your departure put out of work.
Starbucks and Costco, you can have. Boeing? Wanna bet? With you gone, Boeing can quicken its move to South Carolina, reopen its works in Wichita, and build new plants in places where the ratio of sunny days to rain is something significantly more than 1:1. Hey, Seattle, explain that to all your out-of-work aircraft workers. Tesla and the space industry are coming with us, too, thanks to your one-party California government who told Mr. Musk to get out. Intel, Apple, and the rest of Silicon Valley may decide that they want to stay in the United States in with the rest of the Central Valley rather than the garbage infested streets of San Francisco.
Stem
cell research is an interesting point.
What makes you think all research hospitals and universities are limited
to your States, especially your little city-states. Sure, funding may—may-- depend on State
research grants, but with the tax base you will have in your enclaves, don’t
expect that there will be much spare cash to do much of anything. The best beaches? You’ve got to be kidding.
“We
get the Statue of Liberty. You get Branson, Missouri.” OK.
Fair trade. One is a statue from
France and the other, along with Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans, is a home
to a truly unique brand of culture.
Venture
capital and entrepreneurs? Those folks
do make (or lose) tons of money, but in this computer-centric age, they can do
it anywhere, and in a country that will have the US dollar, all of the gold in
Fort Knox, and commercial rents that will please their accountants. You get whatever
you wish to call your new currency, but it won’t be backed by much. Here’s an idea that should appeal to you:
call it the ruble.
No, we
get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You
get whatever you can squeeze from burned out, unemployed stones of your city
states. And believe me when I say that
anyone who has any income or assets will flee your “fair share” pipe
dream. Explain that to all the folks who
have lived on government largesse for nearly a century.
You get
a bunch of happier, intact families, eh?
Want to bet?
So, “California
will be pro-choice and anti-war,” you say.
Perhaps any part of the former
State of California will be, but you may want to re-think that choice thing. You’re going to need to breed a lot of children
to work to support your welfare State.
Our citizen-soldiers are welcome to return to
you as soon as their enlistments are completed.
Some may actually take you up on it, but when they realize that their VA
benefits that they got for actually enlisting are going to look awfully good to
your tax collectors, they may just stay here with their country-men and
country-women who actually appreciate their patriotism and sacrifice.
Now,
about fresh water. LA is going to get awfully dry and thirsty
when the Colorado River diversion goes away.
Pineapples? Assuming that all of
Hawaii goes with you, perhaps, but I doubt that you will see them. They will be too expensive for you once the new
nation of Hawaii turns its face west to Japanese and Chinese markets. With all that water from the Colorado River,
I doubt that we will be short of lettuce.
The high-tech industry is very portable:
your model leader, Comrade Stalin, proved that whole industries can be
transported over mountain ranges in very short order. And we will have the population, the roads,
and the money to do just that. And, of
course, the Central and Silicon Valleys may just decide that being Americans is
a lot better than being whatever you decide to call LA, San Francisco, and Sacramento. I mean all of those are Christian (Roman
Catholic) names and we know that you detest the “dogmatic Catholic faith.”
Coal?
We’ll survive. All living redwoods,
sequoias and condors? Sadly, there are not as many of those left after your Californian
governor let the forests burn.
So you
figure you are going to get all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools -- Brown,
Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale; and Mount
Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and Radcliffe colleges. By my count that is 15 schools. We will still have Penn State, Illinois, The
Ohio State University, Purdue, and I’ll bet the faculties of those 15, plus
UCLA, UCB, Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, and others will suddenly decide that living
in a destitute city-state that cannot support those schools is a bad deal.
Sorry
to hear that you don’t like “fat people” but you won’t have to worry about that
anymore. You’re going to be on short
rations pretty quickly.
Tornadoes
are truly mean and vicious bastards, but we have managed to survive them since
we got here. Same for hurricanes. But we
get very few earthquakes, so it’s a fair trade all around. Southern Baptists, Catholics, Jews, and
others, we’ll be glad to have. Sorry
that your new constitutions are not going to include the First Amendment
guarantees that our Constitution includes.
Hollywood you can keep. Yosemite
is ours.
As to
the rest of your rant, well you have always been really good at ranting. We won’t miss that. Covid?
Really? And NYC and California
have done so well, so we will treat it and find a cure for it, and we’ll even
share it with you after all of our own citizens are cared for.
Finally,
remember the last reconstruction. You
aren’t going to believe some of the amendments to our Constitution you are
going to be forced to ratify in order to come back. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Texas will remember. Or maybe not…. We can have that conversation when you come
groveling.
In the meantime, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I am a citizen of the United States of America.
