Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, December 4, 2012
Politics But We'll Miss Your Contributions to Society So Much, Rural and Undereducated Conservatives!
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:14 AM
Secession fever hasn't abated! ThinkProgress notes:
Twenty five percent of registered Republicans want their state to secede from the United States, according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling.
5
@3
You mean miss subsiding their farms. Take away all the tax dollars from cities keeping farmers in business, and either they, or whomever buys their land from them, will have no choice but to sell food on the open market. It's not like there's some other food consumer market with more money to spend than the liberal US cities.
You mean miss subsiding their farms. Take away all the tax dollars from cities keeping farmers in business, and either they, or whomever buys their land from them, will have no choice but to sell food on the open market. It's not like there's some other food consumer market with more money to spend than the liberal US cities.
6
We'd be happy to let them go if we didn't have a duty to enforce Federal civil rights laws on behalf of all the non-white, non-male, non-Christian minorities in the red states.
Suck it up. We're in this together.
Suck it up. We're in this together.
7
@5: To be fair, those farm subsidies are not just flushing cash down the drain. They enable America to produce more food, with less costs, leading to food costs that are the envy of the world.
Something like 5% of our incomes goes to feeding ourselves. This is a monument of human achievement. Eliminating the subsidies would send food prices skyrocketing, essentially damning lots of poor people to starvation, and would dump a ton of middle-class families right back into poverty. The economic impacts of this would be profound and terrible.
I am happy to subsidize our food supply. Because I care about the middle class and the poor. Why is it that healthcare should be subsidized (as I am sure most of you believe), and food should not be?
Something like 5% of our incomes goes to feeding ourselves. This is a monument of human achievement. Eliminating the subsidies would send food prices skyrocketing, essentially damning lots of poor people to starvation, and would dump a ton of middle-class families right back into poverty. The economic impacts of this would be profound and terrible.
I am happy to subsidize our food supply. Because I care about the middle class and the poor. Why is it that healthcare should be subsidized (as I am sure most of you believe), and food should not be?
8
50 years ago, it was Buckley against the Birchers...
I don't know that the Republicans have anyone, singularly or as a coalition to tell the crazy, non-governing, nü-Conservative, radically regressive, insular idiots to sit down and shut up in a way that might rescue the party from their outsize influence.
The worst part is, I don't think that this spells doom for the Republican party as enough of the electorate simply votes R, that they can make it the rest of the way with smoke and mirrors, money, gerrymandering and suppression.
I don't know that the Republicans have anyone, singularly or as a coalition to tell the crazy, non-governing, nü-Conservative, radically regressive, insular idiots to sit down and shut up in a way that might rescue the party from their outsize influence.
The worst part is, I don't think that this spells doom for the Republican party as enough of the electorate simply votes R, that they can make it the rest of the way with smoke and mirrors, money, gerrymandering and suppression.
10
All bark and no bite.
If, in some alternate universe, they were actually allowed to secede, they'd shit their pants well within 6 months and come crying back to momma.
There's not a chance in hell they'd survive on their own.
If, in some alternate universe, they were actually allowed to secede, they'd shit their pants well within 6 months and come crying back to momma.
There's not a chance in hell they'd survive on their own.
11
@7 - Subsidizing our food supply is a travesty when the overwhelming majority of those receiving subsidies are mega-ag corporations that show very solid balance sheets. The days of small Joe Farmer are long gone.
13
So, go already.
If you can't convince the rest of your state, you can renounce your own citizenship: don't let the border door hit your ass on the way out of the country.
If you can't convince the rest of your state, you can renounce your own citizenship: don't let the border door hit your ass on the way out of the country.
14
@7
Does that 5% include the subsidies? Without the subsidies, would prices "skyrocket" to a level higher than what we pay for food, including the subsidies? Why would that be?
Removing the subsidies introduces instability, which makes life harder for the farmers. Food consumers could still stabilize prices with food stamps. And you know the food stamp program would expand with a Congress not hamstrung by the red states. I don't see a problem on the consumer end.
Does that 5% include the subsidies? Without the subsidies, would prices "skyrocket" to a level higher than what we pay for food, including the subsidies? Why would that be?
Removing the subsidies introduces instability, which makes life harder for the farmers. Food consumers could still stabilize prices with food stamps. And you know the food stamp program would expand with a Congress not hamstrung by the red states. I don't see a problem on the consumer end.
16
I'll admit that my mind often wandered during my home-schooling lessons in Jesus Math. Help me out: 25% is a majority, right?
17
@3 hahahaha. You know it's not 1938, right?
99% of Republicans wouldn't know the first thing about farming or whatever idiot romantic notion those idiots have about being "makers."
My family are 4th generation farmers in south eastern Idaho. Not only are they democrats but the percentage of ANY party in their "rural" county, or any other, that are actual farmers is minuscule. Most work at Monsanto or other corporations. Just like everywhere else.
The overwhelming percentage of Republicans in these secession movements are suburbanites with shit jobs or social security collecting "deadbeats." Nobody would miss their stupid asses.
99% of Republicans wouldn't know the first thing about farming or whatever idiot romantic notion those idiots have about being "makers."
My family are 4th generation farmers in south eastern Idaho. Not only are they democrats but the percentage of ANY party in their "rural" county, or any other, that are actual farmers is minuscule. Most work at Monsanto or other corporations. Just like everywhere else.
The overwhelming percentage of Republicans in these secession movements are suburbanites with shit jobs or social security collecting "deadbeats." Nobody would miss their stupid asses.
18
@7 yes, subsidizing makes food less expensive at the check-out register - but more expensive overall when you factor in the inefficiencies it adds to the tax code, the impact of corporate farming that's driven by these subsidies, and the lower overall quality of the food we end up with in a subsidized system.
If cheep food is the goal, we could just go for Soylent Green and eat for free.
If cheep food is the goal, we could just go for Soylent Green and eat for free.
19
"Daddy, why are those states red?"
"That's the third-world, honey. Now finish you dinner. People in Texas are starving."
"That's the third-world, honey. Now finish you dinner. People in Texas are starving."
20
And what percent of that 25% is currently getting some sort of federal entitlements? Would this supposed Confederate States of America Part 2 provide the same entitlements? I kinda doubt it.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
It's Spring! Who's Ready for Street Harassment? by Cienna Madrid
-
New Gun Enthusiast... by Dan Savage
-
SL Letter of the Day: Gonna Boil My Laptop After Answering This One by Dan Savage
-
America Doesn't Care About Black People by Charles Mudede
-
Bigot Florist Files Countersuit by Dominic Holden
-
Slog Super Poll: Who Should Be Mayor? by Dominic Holden
-
Tim Burgess Quits the Mayor's Race by Dominic Holden
-
Meanwhile in Toronto by Dan Savage
-
In Which I Do Not Declare My Candidacy for Seattle City Council by Goldy
-
Slog Overnight by Dan Savage
Stranger Personals
The Stranger
RSSSeattle Art & Performance Quarterly
A complete guide to Seattle's current art, film, dance, and theater season.
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (21) RSS