Let's cut the south loose.

I ran into another one of those articles today, you know, the kind that really strike a chord with your heart and intellect simultaneously. This one was on Alternet in what appears to be a series of articles (I've quoted from them before and repeated a few catch phrases repeatedly) called Truthdig. This one was called "Is the South Dragging the Rest of the Nation Down?" and it was written by Allen Barra (click on his name to read the article) on July 3.

I'm probably going to quote from it several times over the next few days as it really seems to me to be of utmost significance. The time has come, I believe, to cut the south loose from the rest of the United States. They have not been happy as a part of our nation since well before the Civil War and the division this causes is ripping us apart.

In making his point that separation would be good for everyone, Barra refers repeatedly to another article which he read, i.e., Chuck Thompson's "Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession." (no link provided). In particular, Barra summarizes Thompson's main points as follows...

-"It's too bad that we just didn't let the South secede when we had the chance."

-"Everyone has joked about a modern-day secession. Politicians, like Texas Governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry, have even threatened it. But what would the measurable impact be if it actually happened? … In fact, for both sides, an exciting by-product of separation would be an explosion of southern tourism. … "

-"With time, Americans would start thinking of the South as another Mexico, only with a more corrupt government."

-"The South has operated like a competing nation in cannibalizing and degrading Michigan and the American auto industry."

-" … [A] union based on such a diametrically opposed approach to social organization-uncompromising Bible literalism versus protean secular law-is like a bad marriage that needs to end in order to save the children. … "

-"All these gloom and doomers … whining about a world on the brink of extinction are descendants of the Lost Cause defeatism fostered and fetishized in post Civil War southern churches. …"   

I think these are good points, but they are surely not the only points. (see upcoming posts).  And they all avoid the one thing I see as the biggest impediment blocking the split - our inter-connectedness. A mammoth portion of our defense budget has been spent building in the south and the enormous job of selling off those assets or moving them back to the Union states is ALMOST insurmountable.

I like to keep my posts short, so I'll end this here for now with all intentions of picking up on this topic again VERY soon.