In an article from that bastion of liberal big government, the Washington Times, there is an article, "Blue states buzz over secession", that goes to great lengths to show how much the states that voted for bush (read as "the South") needs the money from the northern states. These "progressive" government advocates never cease to kill me with their misrepresentations, especially when it comes to numbers. Do they understand how numbers work? I'm not sure.

It is often stated that the states in the south get far more money from the federal government than they give to it. How very true . But where is all that money spent that those generous feds give us? Let's see....who has virtually all of the military personell in the United States? Who has virtually all of the equipment for the armed forces? That's right, they include those numbers when coming up with this insane statistic designed to keep people in the South entranced with the idea that we are somehow financially dependent upon the northern states. The actual allocation of all this money the feds are "giving" us is never included with these off the cuff remarks. The above mentioned article, for example, when stating what the money is spent for, says that its spent on everything from "Social Security to everything else". Hmmm. Seems to me everyone in America regardless of their geographical location is entitled to the same benefits (if you can call it that) from Social Security. What about this "everything else"? What is that? Well, since most of the troops in the United States military live in Southern states, it is obvious that the money to pay them will go to the South. But this is no act of financial generosity. As anyone who has ever served in the military can readily attest, the income gained from this service is far from flattering. Paying the most basic bills for survival is difficult in many circumstances for military personell. Statistically, people in the states to the north are far less likely to join the military than those of the South. This has something to do with financial status and opportunity in the form of paid education and training, but it goes far deeper than that. The people of the South were volunteering for the military in majority numbers long before the feds would pay for fringes like college education.

So factor in the military expenditures in the south and then tell me the actual numbers.

Additionally, there is something else to be said about the South (and all the other "red" states) regarding this glorious receipt of all of these government "benefits" -many, if not most people who label themselves "conservative" or share a more traditional outlook on the function of government do not want these "benefits", and moreover consider them in many instances forms of intrusion by the government.

So if you all up north want to secede, go right ahead. But if you do, more of you will have to grow a spine and join the military for your new nation, because I guarantee our troops are not going to pick up and move north for you. What will probably happen is that you will all get together and start a support program for each other until someone comes along and ends you. Good luck with that.

As a side note, not everyone that voted for G.W. Bush wants perpetual war in an infinite number of nations, and considers such a scenario as fundamentally un-American. However, when the alternative is a socialist regime of endless programs and intrusions, many will take atrocities without to avoid atrocities within. A lesser of two evils thing. At the end of the day, when there are just two parties left, and they both wish to re-define the Constitution, if we are to pick one of the two it is simply a matter of picking the one that will cause the least amount of damage.

Actually, I hope someone does make it out of the US. If they make it before Texas, it won't be very far before. Regardless of what the rest of the states think about us, we are self-sufficient, and we need nothing from Washington DC. Please come and extract your oppressive programs and institutions post-haste. You can even have the Bush family back (you didn't think they were from down here did you?)