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The South—I say, the South—shall rise again!

We have before us an ideal opportunity to solve the problem of what to do about social, political and economic gridlock. It’s actually very simple—restore the Mason-Dixon Line, extend it to the western border of Arizona, and force the South to secede.

All the political Christians in the North will flock south to join their extremist brethren. All the wing-nuts and gun-nuts and wack-jobs of the radical right, stupid and ignorant alike, will fan out over the land, from the bayous to the barren desert, embracing their kindred souls with the kind of unmitigated glee not known since the Ku Klux Klan went on its last night ride, torches blazing.

Secular humanists, critical thinkers, intellectuals, artists, gays and lesbians, minorities of every stripe and hue, and old-timey Christians who practice what Jesus preached, will pack up and head north, along with plain folks who have kept their marbles in the face of galloping hypocrisy, enshrined bigotry, and serial dimwittedness.

Think of it—the greatest mass migration of all time, enabling the North, purged of the Tea Party and the NRA, to resurrect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and get about the business of restoring democracy, with liberty and justice for all.

Of course, some in the North will have to be forcibly removed. Imagine the Trail of Tears as Wall Street bankers, financiers, high-flying CEOs, neocons, lobbyists, media moguls, and other white-collar criminals, stripped of ill-gotten gains, begin their long march to gated compounds deep in the heart of Dixie.

Imagine the new political landscapes.

In the North, genuine discourse as lawmakers once again decide how best to implement the will of the people, starting with single-payer health care and a sharp shift away from militarism.

In the South, same-old-same-old intransigence, though with a twist, as internecine warfare becomes the order of the day and arch-conservatives all try to outdo one another with their extremist agendas.

They can even call themselves the Confederate States of America, since they’re so intent on rolling society back to the mid-19th century. Only what are they going to do for slaves, if there’s no one left to pick on? Create new scapegoats!

That’s the beauty of market-based totalitarianism. They’ll have all the free labor they’ll need, compliments of a privatized educational system that feeds a constant flow of new blood into a privatized prison system. Free enterprise über allus!

[“No government—no taxes” sounds great until you start living with the results.]

(5/13/12)

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