Or, Too Bad Lincoln Won the Civil War
With the only two viable parties in the nation apparently swallowed whole by the large mouths on their most extreme ends, it’s apparently no longer possible to conduct debate without hate. Compromise, consensus, cooperation and conciliation are now literally nothing but curse words. Worse, with the parties so close to equal in voter strength, no issue is ever settled. Even elections are just excuses for risible recriminations, recounts and recalls.
Each side is convinced with unshakeable faith that the zealots of the other side are lying, thieving, scum fully intent on destroying the “American Way of Life.” Since unfortunately there is a lot of evidence they’re both correct, at least about the lying, thieving, scum part, tensions mount. “Nuclear options” are considered perfectly acceptable by our Senators. “Un-American Traitor” is the label/libel smeared on anyone daring to disagree with dogma. Four letter expletives are bandied about on the floor of Congress itself, from the VP no less. Come to think of it, it wasn’t much nastier in the halls of government just before the decidedly uncivil Civil War of 1860.
To preclude similar domestic violence from re-occurring, I propose what some call the Solomon Solution; i.e. Divide the country in half. A diagonal line drawn from, say, Monterey to Cape May could thereafter separate the nation with all Democrats migrating into Blue USA and Republicans heading for a totally Red USA refuse.
True, many’ll say Lincoln fought a war to prevent that very thing, but we are still paying the costs of that particular animosity yet today. Besides, have we forgotten that our Founding Fathers fought a war at this country’s creation to do the exact opposite of Lincoln’s Reunion Quest? To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson and the Nike company, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, Just Do It!”
In any event, rather than end up killing each other once again in North America, let’s adopt what we universally allow for that other purportedly “sanctified” institution -- marriage. In other words, let the two national parties divorce us all on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. It’s clearly better than continuing till death do us part by bullets.
The obvious choice would be for the area north of the “Repub/Demo” boundary line to be the new Democratic Party paradise since north of the line includes most of the Rust Belt states, the Ecotopia wilderness and the older metropolises where most of the Demos are anyway. South of the line captures most of the Bible Belt states, the Oily states and the former Plantation states which makes it wonderful territory for the Republicans who already think they own it lock, stock, sweatshop and gerrymandered district.
There would be some dislocations of course. Hollywood, for example, except Charlton Heston, Dennis Miller and the Baldwin Brothers, would have to move to Marin County and bunk with George Lucas, but that’s where all the movie business is going to be in the digital camera future anyway. The greatest sorrow of the Bling-Bling crowd most likely would be that convertibles and tanning would be less fun in the daily fog shrouding San Francisco. Similarly, the retired factory workers currently in Florida and Arizona would have to choose between warmth or comrades.
The relatively few Democrats or Republicans who are on the wrong side of the line would be asked to either relocate or remain forever silent. Yes, that seems somewhat harsh, but for everyone forced to move, there will be someone on the other side needing to swap houses. Besides, what is mere freedom of speech, mere freedom of assembly or a home of generations compared to everyone on the respective sides of the line becoming a true unquestioned supermajority able to finally do what they want unfettered by opposition or doubt.
By the way, this proposal does not actually require that north of the line automatically be Democrat and south Republican. Perhaps Bush and Dean (or Hillary) could arm wrestle for which gets which. Better yet, perhaps the Repubs should be forced to live where they must buy snow shovels and the Democrats banished south of the line to eat grits. Wonderful irony is available with that outcome. That way, each side would be forced to try on the others’ “shoes.” Who knows, we might even discover the other side had a few good points of view if everyone is forced to move where the grass is not greener.
Whichever way it goes, there are many otherwise unattainable things that should result once the split happens. For instance:
● Blue USA would be free to unionize every job and make the minimum wage equal to CEO’s salaries.
Red USA in contrast would be free to ship every job to Mexico in return for cheaper handbags.
● Red USA would be free to install video cameras in every bedroom to insure no deviant behavior.
Blue USA would be free to broadcast live on TV the bedroom videos being made in Red USA.
● Blue USA would be free to ban all guns plus all movies and video games featuring guns.
Red USA would be free to finally arm everyone with armor piercing assault rifles so the neighbors will be more polite.
● Red USA would be free to attack any weak little country containing dark hued people any time it jolly well pleases.
Blue USA would be free to let the weak but populous countries in the UN decide cows are universally sacred thereby making high carb diets verboten.
● Blue USA would be free to legalize all drugs (except alcohol, tobacco, viagra, steroids, or anything a Republican owned, campaign contributing, drug company may chose to produce).
Red USA would be free to ban all drugs (except alcohol, tobacco, viagra, steroids, or anything a Republican owned, campaign contributing, drug company may chose to produce).
● Red USA would celebrate full and unfettered religious freedom for all those who want to be evangelical Protestants.
Blue USA would celebrate the first witches’ coven designated as official cleric to Congress.
● Blue USA would be free to insist on absolutely clean air and water no matter the cost.
Red USA would be free to buy all the clean air and water it felt it needed from Blue USA.
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