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Monday, July 11, 2005

Mailbag: One of our Readers Wants to Be Blue---Proposes Two Separate Nations, One Red, One Blue and Describes the Benefits of This Proposal



-----Original Message-----From:
PMTo: Undisclosed-Recipient:; (Observer cannot verify factual accuracy)

Subject: I
want to be Blue again! Dear Red States

We're ticked off
at the way you've treated California, and we've
decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own
country, and we're taking the other Blue States with
us.In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii,
Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split
will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to
the people of the new country of New California.

To sum
up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave
states. We get stem cell research and the best
beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay. We get
the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand. We get Intel
and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You
get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture
capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.We get
two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red
states pay their fair share. Since our aggregate divorce
rate is 22 percent lower than the
Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy
families. You get a bunch of single moms.Please be
aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and
antiwar, and we're going to want all our citizens back
from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask
your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently
willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and
they don't care if you don't show pictures of their
children's caskets coming home We do wish you success
in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not
willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With
the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of
80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90
percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the
nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality
wines(you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90
percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech
industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living
redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven
Sister schools, plus Princeton, Harvard, Yale,
Stanford, CalTech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the
other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of
all obese Americans (and their projected health care
costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100
percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes,
99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100
percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob
Jones University, Clemson and the University of
Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank
you. Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red
states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale,
62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're
discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent
say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that
Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy
folks believe you are people with higher morals than
we lefties. By the way, we're taking the good pot, too.
You can have that dirt weed they grow in
Mexico.

Sincerely,the happy citizens of New California.

17 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:25 PM

    This is very funny! Thanks for sharing. I'm wondering if the various stats are correct. If they are, the meaning is fairly self-evident! And even if they aren't, the fact that a lot of people in blue states will believe them says volumes about perceived aggregate differences between the red and blue "cultures". In any case, maybe it's time for us from the left of center to fight back a little. The radical right has been using humor, questionable "facts", and sloppy scholarship to belittle us for a long time now. Maybe we've just been too nice. And no, most of us don't smoke pot and never did.

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  2. Anonymous9:43 AM

    I don't think this is funny at all. However due to the Constitution of the great United States people are allowed to spew all the nonsense they like.
    All I can say is don't call on the red to defend you when Osama or any one else makes Disney Land or San Diego Naval thier next target.
    Don't call on red to send aid in times of fire or flood.
    Don't call on red to control your medical expenses due to uncontrolled borders and illegal immigrants.
    Don't call on red when your pineapple runs out.
    I say goodbye to my husband for 3 months at a time to serve PROUDLY in Iraq, and believe me he is no evangilist son.
    So Nuevo California you may think you are so smart and have all the answers, but you are far from the mark.

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  3. Anonymous10:51 AM

    This is satire! No one is honestly caling for a new nation. However, many of the "facts" are true. And we are in this mess, because the Bush Administration has motivated people to vote against thier own best interests by playing to their fears. We aren't better protected under this administration. The war on Terror shouldn't have lost its focus and become bogged down in Iraq. Osama is still free and Iraq is a training camp for terrorists (it wasn't before we invaded it). This satire is far less offensive than the "smear campaigns" run by the radical right.

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  4. Anonymous12:56 PM

    Really, you think Kerry could be doing a better job? Satire or not it is still not humorus at all.
    Since you are so miserable here,why don't you move to Canada or another country and resign your US Citizenship?
    There are very positive things going on in Iraq, you choose to listen only to the main stream media regarding all of the bad, but thats your choice.
    We are not only in Iraq, we are fighting terrorism in many other places.
    I fail to see how the training of Iraqi's own citizens to defend themselves is considered bogged down.
    Do you even remember a place called Bosnia, I bet you were opposed to that mission as well.
    BTW we are still present in Bosnia,
    Do you remember who sent us there?
    I suppose when your blogging you can recall and recite only the items you think are acurate.

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  5. Anonymous1:18 PM

    I don't believe in this administration. I believe in the system. It is completely patriotic to demand accountability for what this administration has done. To follow blindly is unpatriotic. And yes, I do think Kerry would have done a better job. Furthermore, if If Bushes Dad's buddy's on the supreme court had not selected him in 2000 we wouldn't be in Iraq and we might have prevented the security failures that brought us 9/11. Condeleza Rice said "we had no idea they would fly buildings into buildings." Yet the 9/11 commission revealed 57 warnings. This commission also revealed ignored personal daily briefing titled "Osama determined to attach U.S." Unfortunately, the Bush Administration suppressed the findings until after the election. The Bush Administration also ignored Richard Clark's warning that Al Quada was our biggest threat and did nothing to combat terrorism in its first 9 months despite Clark's warning.

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  6. Anonymous1:24 PM

    P.S. Click on the latest on Karl Rove Scandal. That pretty much sums it all up. This administration is unwilling to fire a person who "outed" a covert CIA operative because her Husband was willing to expose that they had lied about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction.

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  7. Anonymous1:39 PM

    Seems like your happy to condemn this administration for the some of the sins of the Clinton admistration who after all had the God given sense and where withall to bomb an aspirin factory run by AL Queada? Terrorism was not invented by G W.
    Ever wonder why the US bombed an aspirin factory run by the Taliban in Afghanistan?
    Clinton had 8 years to act against terrorism yet he did nothing, how is that GW's fault? The terroists became better organized, more skilled...

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  8. Anonymous1:56 PM

    Keep watching fox news.

    I am not going to defend everything Clinton did. I don't follow blindly. But much of the 9/11 intelligence came in the months leading up to it. Furthermore, during his last several years in office, he lost some ability to go after Al Quada, because he new the far right would be screaming "wag the dog" he is causing a conflict to cover up his sex scandal. And yes, Clinton being involved with an intern and lying about it was wrong. Just seems less important than lying about the reasons to go to war.

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  9. Anonymous4:44 PM

    Thanks for pointing me to Fox News here is what i found!

    Victory in Spite of All Terror
    Tuesday, July 12, 2005
    By William Kristol


    "You ask, What is our policy? I will say; It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us. . . . That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory--victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival." --Winston Churchill, first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons May 13, 1940

    The armed forces designate the struggle in which we are currently engaged as the GWOT--the Global War on Terror. The term encompasses everything from the military battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, to covert operations, intelligence gathering, and diplomatic efforts all around the world.

    The term "global war on terror" has come in for considerable ridicule from sophisticates on the left, and for some disparagement from Bush supporters on the right.

    Much of the left believes that the various struggles against different forms of terrorism are better understood as local challenges, and are not part of one "global" struggle; that in any case the effort shouldn't be thought of as a "war"; that "terror" is far too broad a term to use to categorize the deeds of the very different opponents we face.

    Meanwhile some on the right are made nervous by the "Wilsonianism" of "global," the militarism of "war," and the rhetorical imprecision of "terror." Of this last point in particular, some conservatives have made intellectual sport, pointing out that "terror" is a tactic or a method, that you can't fight a war against a tactic, and that we should more bluntly acknowledge that what we are at war against is radical Islam.

    But President Bush and the U.S. military are more right than their critics. Over the last decade, the attacks have ranged from Nairobi to New York, from Bali to Madrid, and from Casablanca to London. This suggests that it is reasonable to consider the struggle a global one. The bloodiness of the attacks suggests it is reasonable to call this a war. And the fact that the attackers' strategy depends entirely on creating terror among civilized people--and the fact that terror in the West is necessary for the jihadists to accomplish their more concrete political aims in the Middle East--suggest it is by no means unreasonable to speak of a war against "terror."

    After all, we shun and condemn acts of terror. Our enemies embrace and glorify such acts.

    Last Thursday's attack on London is the latest in the global war on terror. But it was not the only attack that day. On the same day, "the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq," as the Washington Post put it, announced it had killed Egypt's top diplomat in Baghdad, Ihab Sherif. Yet how is this "insurgent" group different from the "terrorist" group "the Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe"? It isn't.

    The insurgents in Iraq are terrorists. They are killing innocent civilians just as surely and just as ruthlessly as their allies in London. Could the war on terror have been successfully prosecuted without removing Saddam? We at The Weekly Standard do not believe so. Given the terrorist ties between al Qaeda and Saddam, given what a victorious Saddam, freed of sanctions and inspectors, would have meant to the cause of extremism and anti-Americanism and, yes, terrorism in the Middle East--we cannot imagine leaving Saddam in power.

    Yet, however one comes down on that judgment, it cannot be denied that the current war in Iraq is part of the global war on terror. Indeed, it is that war's central front. Not only because there are so many terrorists in Iraq, but because, as Abu Zarqawi has acknowledged, creating a successful democracy in Iraq will be the beginning of the end for jihadist terrorists worldwide.

    The terrorists who attacked London demanded that Britain pull out of Iraq, as well as out of Afghanistan. It could well be that the deplorable decision of the Zapatero government in Spain to accede to the terrorists' demand to withdraw from Iraq inspired al Qaeda to see whether they could achieve a comparable success in Britain. But in that respect, the resoluteness of the Blair government and the British people could well mean that July 7--despite the terrible cost in innocent lives--will turn out to be a setback for al Qaeda. Certainly we must do our best to help make it so.

    "We will show through our spirit and dignity that our values will long outlast theirs," Tony Blair said Thursday. "The purpose of terrorism is just that--to terrorize people, and we will not be terrorized."

    This is the necessary, and admirable, first response. The second is to do everything it takes to crush the terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, and elsewhere; to deter or remove regimes that cooperate with terrorists; and to insist on practical change in nations whose dictatorial regimes provide a breeding ground for terror. Victory in this respect may never be final or complete. But victory remains nonetheless the indispensable aim for the civilized world, if it is to remain civilized.

    London reminds us that there really is, in this case, no substitute for victory.

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  10. Anonymous5:54 AM

    I don't believe the originial post said much if anything about the military and I don't recall ever asking them to defend me against terrorists because they can't. Good Lord, they can't keep the 10 mile stretch between Bagdad and the airport open. And I'm not denigrating in any way the men and women who are sacrificing so much to be there and to serve the country. But I believe the war on terror will not be won by the army. It will be won by the force of ideas. And one of the points of the original post was that the blue states seem to be a little more comfortable with ideas - not that there aren't intelligent people everywhere, and with all kinds of opinions about the world - we all know this. The US military can, and has, made us a great power, but it can never make us a great people.

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  11. Anonymous7:05 AM

    Really, no one died under Clinton, what about Somalia?? You don't think we lost any service people in Bosnia/Croatia? Check your facts!

    The original post indicated that California wants to succeed from the union. Good luck and all you blues could move right in.
    California wants to be a new country, how would it protect it's citizens? I guess those ideas that wx man has will stop any attack.

    My brother is serving as well as several friends so I to have a pretty clear picture of whats going on over there.
    It's not all the grim bad news that is regularly aired in the press.

    We are not in Iraq because of the attack on the US, our military is in Afghanistan becuase of the twin towers
    We are in Iraq becuase Sadam Hussien ignored the UN 16 times.
    You can blame Bush 100% for all of it, but what you can't ignore is the people in the senate and the congress had to agree to go into Irq in the first place.

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  12. Anonymous7:57 AM

    Nope your wrong again, Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about Monica, Don't you think Bush would have been prosecuted for lying about starting a WAR?

    You are correct about being a born and bred republican, but that doesn't mean I agree with every thing Bush has done or said.

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  13. Anonymous11:50 AM

    I agree with thegards.., with the exception are you saying London/Brittian should pull out because of what happened last week? That I would not agree with.
    lynn

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  14. Anonymous12:06 PM

    From the downing street memo (british memo summarizing talks with washington in July 2002 prior to going to the UN). I think this is pretty clear evidence of the Bush Administration lying. Google search Downing street memo for entire memo.

    "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

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  15. Anonymous12:28 PM

    I started to write a reply to your comments but I will leave it at this,
    For me personally I enjoyed getting the checks from the government when the rebates came out.
    I am better off financially and other ways through this adminstration than I was with the last.
    I respect your right to your point of view.
    I don't care if yours agrees with mine or not. It does not have to, because we live where we do in the country that we do we can say pretty much anything...unlike Iraq under Saddam.

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  16. Anonymous1:06 PM

    So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack — the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole — Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

    At the time of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, his administration was just beginning, and he was embroiled in controversies over gays in the military, an economic stimulus plan, and the beginnings of Hillary Clinton's health-care task force. Khobar Towers happened not only in the midst of the president's re-election campaign but also at the end of a month in which there were new and damaging developments in the Whitewater and Filegate scandals. The African embassy attacks occurred as the Monica Lewinsky affair was at fever pitch, in the month that Clinton appeared before independent counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury. And when the Cole was rammed, Clinton had little time left in office and was desperately hoping to build his legacy with a breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Whenever a serious terrorist attack occurred, it seemed Bill Clinton was always busy with something else.

    The First WTC Attack
    Clinton had been in office just 38 days when terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000. Although it was later learned that the bombing was the work of terrorists who hoped to topple one of the towers into the other and kill as many as 250,000 people, at first it was not clear that the explosion was the result of terrorism. The new president's reaction seemed almost disengaged. He warned Americans against "overreacting" and, in an interview on MTV, described the bombing as the work of someone who "did something really stupid."

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  17. Anonymous2:31 PM

    Clinton made mistakes and Bush has made mistakes. One thing that neither administration has addressed is one of the major reasons for middle eastern extremists. OUR DEPENDENCY ON FOREIGN OIL. This drives our Middle Eastern policy, which incites the terrrorists. Extremists want us out of the middle east. Am I defending their behavior? NO, Terrorism is terrorism and terrorists should be brought to justice. However, neither administration has done much to wean our depency on foreign oil. How about an energy policy that includes tax incentives for hybrid cars, E85 vehicles (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline), biodiesel, etc. More federal research money spent on developing future alternative fuels (can hydrogen be a viable source in 15-20 years?). Subsidizing an oil industry that is making record profits, while gas is becoming less affordable makes no sense? Oil is a limited resource and we are on the fast track to depete it. If we didn't depend on the oil would we really need military bases on middle eastern soil? It's time to devise ways to give our energy policy a major overhaul. Sticking with the status quo and throwing more money at the oil companies isn't going to lessen our dependency on foreign oil. If we don't come up with alternative fuel sources before demand excedes supply, it will be devastating to world economies.

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