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Does this libtard have a point? Better Off without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession
Powell's Books ^ | August, 2012 | Chuck Thompson

Posted on 08/21/2012 8:12:12 AM PDT by teflon9

Lets talk about secession. Not exactly the most suitable cocktail party conversation starter anywhere in the country, but take that notion deep into the heart of Dixie and you might find yourself running from the possum-hunting conservatives, trailer-park lifers, and prayer warriors Chuck Thompson encountered during the two years he spent traveling the American South asking the question: Would we be better off without em?

The result is a heavily researched, serious inquiry into national divides which is unabashedly controversial, often uproarious, and always thought-provoking. From a church service in Mobile, Alabama, where the gospel entertainer announces "Islam is upon us!" to a store selling Ku Klux Klan memorabilia on a quaint little street in South Carolina — Thompson lifts the green velvet drapes on a South that would seem to belong more to the time of Rhett and Scarlett than the dawn of the twenty-first century.

By crunching numbers, interviewing experts, and roaming the not-so-former Confederacy, Thompson — an openly disgruntled liberal from the Northwest — makes a compelling case for southern secession. What would the new nations look like if Virginia governor Bob McDonnell was elected as the first President of the Confederate States of America? If a southern electorate was left to fend for itself while the North did damage control on an auto industry decimated by cut-rate, union-defying southern voters for the last hundred years? If the BCS championship football game were replaced by a North vs. South Coca Cola/ Starbucks Blood Bowl™? If Florida went to the South and Texas to the North in the most complex land-and-population grab in American history?


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History; Humor; Travel
KEYWORDS: adios; differences; irreconcilable; secede
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Powell's calls this: "Better Off without Em is a deliberately provocative book whose insight, humor, fierce and fearless politics, and sheer nerve will spark a national debate that is perhaps long overdue." It's more like a snarky, elitist and highly stereotypical view of "the South", but does he have a point buried somewhere in all that bile?
1 posted on 08/21/2012 8:12:15 AM PDT by teflon9
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To: teflon9

Only problem is most of the West and Midwest would go with the South this time leaving the Leftists to starve in their enclaves in the North East, the Rust Belt and the West Coast.


2 posted on 08/21/2012 8:15:13 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)
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To: teflon9

All the insults against the South and conservatives in general asside, I’m ready to get the National Divorce proceedings going.


3 posted on 08/21/2012 8:17:20 AM PDT by MachIV
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To: teflon9

Great notion—to divide and conquer ourselves so that our enemies don’t have to do it for us.


4 posted on 08/21/2012 8:17:42 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: teflon9

In the absence of hard-working, tax-paying Southerners, the liberal North would collapse economically in short order.

(Didn’t you just love the dripping condescension in this piece?)


5 posted on 08/21/2012 8:18:26 AM PDT by Arm_Bears (Re-distribute my work ethic, not my wealth.)
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To: teflon9

No he’s an idiot like any other idiot who buys into the red state blue state manipulation.

If he wanted to have a point he should suggest that the cities secede from the rest of America. They would die but they would learn something.


6 posted on 08/21/2012 8:18:34 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: MachIV

How come it is that nobody gives a thought to how this will affect foreign relations . . . ? A divided USA will encourage enemies greatly.


7 posted on 08/21/2012 8:19:05 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: teflon9

I wonder sometimes if they have thought this through. Liberal Elitism and their NIMBY attitude have driven the large bulk of the military South. Have they considered this point when making this argument?


8 posted on 08/21/2012 8:20:31 AM PDT by USMCWife6869
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To: teflon9
Yawn. Another elitist takes up the old meme of anti-Southronism.
Nothing new to see here, move along.
9 posted on 08/21/2012 8:21:32 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: teflon9

Guess where the industries that vacated the north and upper midwest went?

South.

Yeah, sure. Let’s leave. This time, peacefully.


10 posted on 08/21/2012 8:23:47 AM PDT by OpusatFR
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To: teflon9
Review: "Thank you for the copy of Better Off without 'Em, but I'm afraid it's New York and San Francisco that I think should secede." P.J. O’Rourke

Yep, hee hee hee

11 posted on 08/21/2012 8:24:07 AM PDT by Texas Fossil (Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one)
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To: Olog-hai

1/2 our military, would still be the best in the world.
...China is claiming islands from Japan.
Egypt remilitarizing the Sinai.
Iran has been working on getting nucs for a DECADE,
even during Bush’s years.
Christians being killed from the Phillipines to Nigeria.
...and America as a “whole” does nothing.
With the Marxists allied with the Muslims, the economy of the world is being destroyed.
-
all evil requires, is for good men to do... nothing.
and right now, a LOT of good men, are effectively doing...
nothing.
-
a strong vibrant “half”, taking a much more active role,
would be of vastly greater benefit.


12 posted on 08/21/2012 8:30:25 AM PDT by Elendur (It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: teflon9
You'd think that the Johnny Rebs would have learned their lesson the LAST time they started this secession crapola.





(Do we have to go dig up General Sherman and send him down there to burn Atlanta down again?)
13 posted on 08/21/2012 8:31:40 AM PDT by Emperor Palpatine (Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!!!!!)
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To: teflon9

Most of these whackos don’t really think much, and stuff like this is just fodder for the liberal nutballs, who mostly teeter on the edge of sanity anyway.

As New Orleans showed us all, when the food, fuel, and water run out, the average Dem voters turn on each other, violently. A liberal paradise.


14 posted on 08/21/2012 8:32:55 AM PDT by tcrlaf (Election 2012: THE RAPTURE OF THE DEMOCRATS)
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To: teflon9

We wouldn’t mind, that’s for sure.


15 posted on 08/21/2012 8:36:39 AM PDT by arderkrag (An Unreconstructed Georgian, Forever in Rebellion.)
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To: Olog-hai

How come it is that nobody gives a thought to how this will affect foreign relations . . . ? A divided USA will encourage enemies greatly.
///
we are already divided. our allies, CANNOT count on us, from one election to the next.
(just as businesses, find it impossible to make long range plans)
a stable economy, and stable foreign policy our allies can trust and depend on, would be a vast improvement.
with the current polarization, it is simply impossible.


16 posted on 08/21/2012 8:37:12 AM PDT by Elendur (It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: MNJohnnie

Actually, CA produces over half the Nation’s food.

But, I have been advocating this for awhile now. Neither side is EVER going to convince the other. We are going to lurch back and forth from election to election. Before we get into another real civil war, let’s just call it a day and split in two.

So I agree . . .let’s divide into two Nations. Would be doable over a 10-15 year period. Not easy, but doable.


17 posted on 08/21/2012 8:39:27 AM PDT by RIghtwardHo
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To: teflon9

OK! Fine by me! I’m glad the Yankees are starting to see the error of their ways, even if it took them 150 years to do so. Normal Americans, including Midwesterners and Far West citizens who want to embrace healthy American values, can live in the CSA. The rest of the libs can stay north of the border fence we’ll put up.

It would probably be best if all the Klansmen, racists, and haters moved north, however. They’d be more at home up there. Yes, there’s some racism in the South, but the worst racists I’ve ever met were in major Northern cities.

The only trouble I foresee is that within a few years the Northern States of America will collapse economically, and they’ll be beating down the doors to sneak in here illegally. Kinda like Mexico.


18 posted on 08/21/2012 8:40:52 AM PDT by ottbmare (The OTTB Mare)
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To: Emperor Palpatine

Um, did you read the article? This is not a Southerner proposing secession, this a libtard proposing to eject the Southern states from the Union with the exception of Texas - those rotten b@stards want the best part of the South for themselves.

As to Sherman, were he alive today he’d have already recaptured Washington DC from the traitors who currently run it.


19 posted on 08/21/2012 8:41:34 AM PDT by MeganC (The Cinemark theatre in Aurora, CO is a 'Gun Free Zone'. Spread the word.)
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To: Olog-hai

Precisely!

Why do you thing the Brits backed the Confederacy so hard during the Civil War. It had a lot more to do than the Limeys wanting to ensure cotton supplies for their textile factories. The British were becoming increasingly worried about growing American power and wanted to see the country split in two to neutralize the threat as they saw it.

Of course, considering that PM Viscount Palmerston was a devious, finagling, Machiavellian SOB this shouldn’t surprise anyone.


20 posted on 08/21/2012 8:42:12 AM PDT by Emperor Palpatine (Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!!!!!)
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