The article that had been all over the web last week?  A proposal: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware be expelled from the Union.  Only the remaining 38 states would retain the name, "United States of America."

They really don’t want us around. 

Actually, it’s not a bad idea.  What shall we call this other (our) country?  And what motto shall we put on our currency?

  ___

Declaration of Expulsion: A Modest Proposal
It's Time to Reconfigure the United States

Mike Thompson, Human Events Online, Posted Nov 3, 2004

After a nod to Jonathan Swift – see A Modest Proposal (1729) - For Preventing The Children Of Poor People In Ireland From Being A Burden To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial To The Public – Thompson gets down to business.  And he’s not suggesting Irish babies for dinner.  He agues it would be legal to toss out the states mentioned above -

Branded unconstitutional by President Abraham Lincoln, the South's secession from the American Union ultimately sparked "The Civil War" (a name that was rejected by Southerners, who correctly called it "The War Between the States," for the South never sought to 1] seize the central government or 2] rule the other side, two requisites for a civil war).

No state may leave the Union without the other states' approval, according to Lincoln's doctrine--an assertion that ignores the Declaration of Independence, which was the vital basis for all 13 American colonies' unilateral secession from the British Union eight decades earlier. Lincoln's grotesque legal argument also disregards a state's inherent right of secession which many scholars believe is found in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Okay then – a state or two or three really ought have the right to pull out.  No big deal.  But why split the country in two now?  Irreconcilable differences…

… America has become just as divided as it was a century and a half ago, when it writhed in Brother-vs.-Brother War. Instead of wedge issues like slavery, federal subsidies for regional business, and high tariffs, society today is sundered by profound, insoluble Culture War conflicts (such as abortion and gay marriage), and debate about our role abroad (shall we remain the world's leader, or become an unprincipled chump for the cabal of globalist sybarites who play endless word-games inside the United Nations and European Union sanctuaries?).

For many decades, conservative citizens and like-minded political leaders (starting with President Calvin Coolidge) have been denigrated by the vilest of lies and characterizations from hordes of liberals who now won't even admit that they are liberals--because the word connotes such moral stink and political silliness. As a class, liberals no longer are merely the vigorous opponents of the Right; they are spiteful enemies of civilization's core decency and traditions.

Defamation, never envisioned by our Founding Fathers as being protected by the First Amendment, flourishes and passes today for acceptable political discourse. Movies, magazines, newspapers, radio/TV programs, plays, concerts, public schools, colleges, and most other public vehicles openly traffic in slander and libel. Hollywood salivated over the idea of placing another golden Oscar into Michael Moore's fat hands, for his Fahrenheit 9/11 jeremiad, the most bogus, deceitful film documentary since Herr Hitler and Herr Goebbels gave propaganda a bad name.

When they tire of showering conservative victims with ideological mud, liberals promote the only other subjects with which they feel conversationally comfortable: Obscenity and sexual perversion. It's as if the genes of liberals have rendered them immune to all forms of filth.

As a final insult, liberal lawyers and judges have become locusts of the Left, conspiring to destroy democracy itself by excreting statutes and courtroom tactics that fertilize electoral fraud and sprout fields of vandals who will cast undeserved and copious ballots on Election Day.

The truth is, America is not just broken--it is becoming irreparable. If you believe that recent years of uncivil behavior are burdensome, imagine the likelihood of a future in which all bizarre acts are the norm, and a government-booted foot stands permanently on your face.

This cannot be fixed.  And he says this is why Thompson thinks the unthinkable must become thinkable.

If the so-called "Red States" (those that voted for George W. Bush) cannot be respected or at least tolerated by the "Blue States" (those that voted for Al Gore and John Kerry), then the most disparate of them must live apart--not by secession of the former (a majority), but by expulsion of the latter. Here is how to do it.

Having been amended only 17 times since 10 vital amendments (the Bill of Rights) were added at the republic's inception, the U.S. Constitution is not easily changed, primarily because so many states (75%, now 38 of 50) must agree. Yet, there are 38 states today that may be inclined to adopt, let us call it, a "Declaration of Expulsion," that is, a specific constitutional amendment to kick out the systemically troublesome states and those trending rapidly toward anti-American, if not outright subversive, behavior. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. Only the remaining 38 states would retain the name, "United States of America." The 12 expelled mobs could call themselves the "Dirty Dozen," or individually keep their identity and go their separate ways, probably straight to Hell.

To hell?  This is one angry fellow.  Or one aggrieved and exasperated fellow….

And he does say a difficult-to-pass constitutional amendment really isn’t necessary.  The Republicans control the White House and both chambers of congress.  This can be done.  Now.

… Inasmuch as Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution specifies that "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union," it is reasonable that the same congressional majority may expel a state from the Union. Is there, after all, any human organization in existence (including a family or law firm) that may not disown, disinherit, ostracize, alienate or expel diabolical members? Whether the nation is purged of these 12 states via the Constitution or statute, the process of elimination must begin now, for the need of societal detoxification has waxed so overwhelmingly clear.

And that is followed be a statistical analysis, of sorts, of the election results.

Thompson concludes –

The demographics revealed by the two most recent presidential elections are radically different and have resulted in "Two Americas" (but not the simplistic "Two Americas" [one rich, one poor] envisioned by Kerry's Marxist-tongued running mate, John Edwards):

BUSH USA is predominantly white; devoutly Christian (mostly Protestant); openly, vigorously heterosexual; an open land of single-family homes and ranches; economically sound (except for a few farms), but not drunk with cyberworld business development, and mainly English-speaking, with a predilection for respectfully uttering "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir."

GORE/KERRY USA is ethnically diverse; multi-religious, irreligious or nastily antireligious; more sexually liberated (if not in actual practice, certainly in attitude); awash with condo canyons and other high-end real estate bordered by sprawling, squalid public housing or neglected private homes, decidedly short of middle-class neighborhoods; both high tech and oddly primitive in its commerce; very artsy, and Babelesque, with abnormally loud speakers.

Bush USA also is far safer, its murder rate being about 16% of the homicidal binge that plagues Gore/Kerry USA--2.1 per 100,000 residents, compared with 13.2 per 100,000 (from a study by Professor Joseph Olson, Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota).

I’m sure of all this, but that’s his contention.  And he contends the new, improved, small “real” United States would be a paradise –

A downsized, post-expulsion United States still would be geographically big enough (and personally generous enough) to welcome millions of authentic refugees from the ousted former states, real Americans who crave lower taxes, smaller government, safer neighborhoods, more secure borders, greater moral leadership, and all the other aspects of a markedly better society-- one that spawns harmony, not cacophony; excellence, not dependence; justice, not histrionics; education, not brainwashing; enterprise, not welfare, and Godliness, not devilishness. As for the dozen ex-American states, they could always petition the UN and EU for foreign aid. Moreover, with any good luck (or bon chance), socialist Canada would annex our jettisoned territory, eh?

The he cites some law.

Richard in Rochester says in return -

Are we allowed to second this proposal?   That’s some pretty damned impressive blather!

Indeed it is.

But even the liberals don’t want to secede or go to, or become… Canada!

Dan Savage in The Stranger -

Certain distressed liberals and progressives are talking about fleeing to Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up there and in our heart-of-hearts, we hate hockey. We can secede emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban values. The Republicans have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City (Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be. Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan.

Oh yes, out here in California, in our local Los Angeles Times, Patt Morrison has be having a fine old time toying with the idea that California certainly should secede from the union, unilaterally.

If at First You Don't Secede ...

At the least, California can think like a nation.

Patt Morrison
November 10, 2004

… A few weeks ago, I argued in print for restoring the California Republic in the event of a victory by President Bush. As a solo act, California is the world's fifth- or sixth-largest economy. We kept our assault weapons ban when the feds let theirs expire. We support medicinal marijuana while the feds still classify weed right up there with heroin and crack. The American president wants the Constitution to ban gay wedlock once and for all; the California governor says he doesn't care "one way or the other" whether homosexuals get married.

To all of you, and especially those who already applied to me for Cabinet positions in the new California Republic, I must break this news: Erwin Chemerinsky, the former USC constitutional scholar who is now residing in a secure, undisclosed red state [He’s at Duke University in North Carolina now], informed me that there is simply no constitutional mechanism for California to secede. I suppose we could arrange a no-fault divorce, but think of the custody battles: They'd get the creationism museum in Santee, we'd keep Yosemite. From there it would get nasty.

So, I concluded, we don't need no stinkin' secession either. It's virtually a done deal already.

… By the 20th century, we were a figurative "island on the land," splendidly isolated by imagination and geography. And geologically, if you believe disaster movies, one good shaker and California could snap off the continent like a saltine cracker.

Economically, we've struck out on our own too. Led by California, almost every one of the blue states is a federal tax-donor state. We send more tax money to Washington than Washington sends back to us, meaning the blue states are subsidizing the very red states — those capitals of rugged individualism like Alaska and North Dakota — that seem to loathe us.

Clearly, California, as the premier blue state, supposed bastion of liberalism, can pay more federal taxes because it is more prosperous. Why? Why does the Almighty allow this? Why do millions of us flourish — people that a right-wing ad reviled as "latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving … body-piercing, Hollywood-loving" Californians.

For one, Californians believe in gravity, not to mention stem cell research. We don't stick science and innovation in the back seat while religion drives the car. For two, in a nation founded on taking risks, California still fervently practices what the rest of the country preaches. It welcomes the new and different. Wherever you are from, you too can grow up to become a Californian. And for three, your private life is private. …

You get the idea.  Who needs Canada?  Or Oklahoma?