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A while back, I wrote about an absolutely wacky, downright neoConfederate resolution adopted 43-1 by the Georgia Senate at the end of its most recent session.
Among other nutty things, the resolution resurrected the archaic 19th century claim that states have the power to “nullify” federal laws they don’t like. The resolution also advanced the novel argument that passage of certain kinds of laws — including, but not limited to, “prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition” — “shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America.”
In other words, if Congress passes a law reinstating the ban on assault weapons or tightening the law against ammunition capable of penetrating bullet-proof vests, it would be like hitting a national “self-destruct” button — the United States of America as we’ve known it ceases to exist, and we become 50 individual nations.
In that first column, I tried to give our state Senate the benefit of the doubt, noting that the measure had been hidden in a bunch of resolutions approved without being read by most senators. I also tried to ignore the findings of a subsequent poll of Georgians sponsored by the Daily Kos site. According to that poll, 43 percent of Georgia Republicans believe our state would be better off as an independent nation than as part of the United States; 32 percent of Georgia Republicans approve of the state seceding from the Union.
I averted my eyes from that poll because frankly, I did not believe those findings and did not want to believe it. But I’m now being forced to reassess that stance because of statements from Georgia Republican leaders, who presumably know their party members better than I do.
Larry Peterson of the Savannah Morning News has advanced the story by polling the six GOP candidates for governor. According to Peterson, four of the six support the resolution, one opposes it and the sixth refused to take a position on whether nullification and secession were are good ideas.
These are people running for the highest office in the state, including the three frontrunners for the GOP nomination. The winner of that nomination would in turn be favored to be our next governor.
More accurately, if events take a turn, I guess that person could become the first president of Georgia.
For example, state Sen. Eric Johnson of Savannah, who voted for the resolution, said he would do so again. “This is not a hollow threat,” he told Peterson. “We are simply reasserting our authority to protect the rights, freedoms and desires of the people we are elected to serve.”
A spokesman for Secretary of State Karen Handel said he assumes that she too would support the resolution.
And Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine says that if he had been a state senator, “not only would I have voted for it, I would have been one of the original sponsors.” Oxendine is the candidate leading in early polls for the GOP nomination; polls also give him a lead over leading Democratic candidates.
And as Creative Loafing recently reported, Oxendine is also the man who sent out the following update on Twitter about how he and his wife, Ivy, had spent last Saturday:
Is this truly what Georgia has come to? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
267 comments Add your comment
Disgusted
May 14th, 2009
2:13 pm
This is absolutely disgusting. I am a conservative Christian. I am also a patriotic American. No politician who rejects the American flag and the American Constitution will ever get my vote. Talk of secession is treason.
I Report :-)/ You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
2:19 pm
I believe it is up to We The People to decide, not the socialists nor the urinalists.
Other than that, I say let’s go for it.
bwa
I Report :-)/ You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
2:21 pm
Acorn, the failed major cities of the US and some crank northern states all voted for “change” and now they are gonna get their very own country to change.
The rest of us like the country the way it has been for 233 years.
We just need a new Declaration of Independence from our little king.
Goldie
May 14th, 2009
2:21 pm
Yes, Jay — I was born in Atlanta, I’ve lived in other places around the U.S. as an adult, and I’ve pretty much given up hope for the state of GA to ever come out of the 19th century, much less the 20th century. You have to laugh to keep from cryin’… but, this state is really a big mess.
Truth
May 14th, 2009
2:24 pm
19th century??? How?
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
2:24 pm
Sorry, disgusted, but talking about secession is NOT treason.
And while I don’t think that any serious talking about secession will ever come about, I think the thought that states CAN decide whether or not a law is detrimental to their state and simply ignore it is certainly something that should be discussed.
This country was founded on the notion that individuals have rights first and foremost, states getting second crack at them, and finally the Federal government. We have grown too far away from that notion, and in fact, have reversed that process to where the Federal government now controls most of the power in this country, drives unfunded mandates to the states, and expects the individual to just go along.
You want treasonous activity, look no farther than your elected U.S. Representative as he or she votes to increase federal power over the state and the individual.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
2:25 pm
I’m with you, Jay. These guys get paid! With taxpayer money! To reenact the Civil War! What next. Will Oxendine start off his campaign by sending out Confederate currency with his picture on it? Talk about your party re-branding — something that starts with a big bold capital “L” sounds fitting.
jt
May 14th, 2009
2:26 pm
YEEEEEE HAWWWWWWW
Doggone/GA
May 14th, 2009
2:26 pm
It’s better than a soap opera! Get out the popcorn, prop up your feet, lean back and have fun watching.
jt
May 14th, 2009
2:27 pm
NEOconfederate. WTF?
Joe Matarotz
May 14th, 2009
2:29 pm
What are you talking about, Jay? I read your article. There was no benefit of the doubt. You pointed out that they were basically idiots, and (gasp!) you were right. So why backpedal now? Is this to give the impression that you are becoming a fair and balanced reporter? You’re not, so you can stop pretending. On this topic, you were right then and you’re right now. Then again, even a broken watch is right twice a day.
Bennett
May 14th, 2009
2:29 pm
Georgia is a welfare state, i.e. it gets more money from DC than it pays in.
By all means, secede. The US will certainly send aid when you come begging.
Doggone/GA
May 14th, 2009
2:31 pm
“NEOconfederate. WTF?”
“neo” means “new” – there can’t be any OLD confederates, they’ve all died. All we have now is the “new” confederates who never gave up on the possibility of winning the rebellion and restoring a “nation” that never was.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
2:36 pm
Yes, Georgia is this crazy.
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2009/05/01/ga-governor-candidate-hates-abortion-loved-animals/
Next question?
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
2:38 pm
irrelevant one @ 2:24,
Watch your blood pressure, sweetie, I want a good time tonight.
getalife
May 14th, 2009
2:40 pm
cons are not patriotic and are free to leave our country.
Get out.
Truth
May 14th, 2009
2:40 pm
The Southern Anthem… Also the greatest song EVER!!!
Elvis “An American Trilogy”
Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old things they are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away dixieland
Oh I wish I was in dixie, away, away
In dixieland I take my stand to live and die in dixie
Cause dixieland, thats where I was born
Early lord one frosty morning
Look away, look away, look away dixieland
Glory, glory hallelujah
Glory, glory hallelujah
Glory, glory hallelujah
His truth is marching on
So hush little baby
Dont you cry
You know your daddys bound to die
But all my trials, lord will soon be over
Glory, glory hallelujah
His truth is marching on
His truth is marching on
ty webb
May 14th, 2009
2:43 pm
getalife,
Jay’s blog entry doesn’t mention Conservatives. It only mentions Republicans. There is a difference.
I Report :-)/ You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
2:43 pm
Georgia is a welfare state, i.e. it gets more money from DC than it pays in.
The per capita income for the City of Atlanta in 2005 real dollars is $25,254.
For the rest of the State of Georgia it is $40,155.
Anybody care to take a stab at why Georgia is a “welfare” state?
This doesn’t even take into account the confiscatory sales and business taxes that Atlanta charges outsiders just to keep their nasty little berg afloat.
Why do you think we want to shed our little Obozo voters, to get rid of our primary source of income, bwahahahahahahahaha, clown.
T
May 14th, 2009
2:55 pm
I don’t get it.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
2:56 pm
irrelevant one @ 2:53,
Well, I would, honeypie, but the last time you used it you got it all sticky and messy. Will you buy me one for my very own?
jt
May 14th, 2009
2:57 pm
You heard it here first.
The adherents of the R & D party are hereby called NEO-TARDS.
Someone complained earlier about sheeple.
Dennis
May 14th, 2009
3:03 pm
I sort of like this possibility.
Georgia becomes an independent country, the US Army invades, quickly captures Georgia’a Rulers, and confines them in the brand new Combatant Holding Facility located in Maine or Pennsylvania or Nevada.
Next the US military oversees Georgia’s reconstruction. Spending Billions of Dollars. High Speed Rail is constructed from Atl to DC. Eventualy Georgia is allowed to hold free elections wherein no person, Democrat or Republican, who was ever elected to state office is allowed to run.
Net gain for Georgia.
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:03 pm
One day soon, Susan Myers is actually going to post something on-topic, and thoughtful.
OK, maybe not soon . . . but one day.
mike
May 14th, 2009
3:05 pm
I have thought that the rhetoric about the death (and insanity) of the GOP was vastly overstated. Apparently it was not. What planet are these guys living on?
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
May 14th, 2009
3:06 pm
Secession is not the answer as we love the United States and the constitution is, apart from Jesus’ sacrifice, the greatest achievement by mankind, ever. Rather, the answer is excising Jew York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, California-cation along with providing a free train ticket to those debauched locales to every welfare mama with three or four suckers under their arms, the hmos, pacifists, liberal, and other similar moral degenerates.
We, then, in great states like Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia can get back to a society based on traditional Judeo-Christian values where our families won’t have to be subject to the immoral rants of the liberals (see Bill Mohron, Jeanine Garanimal, and Kerry (never) Wirght) or the filth put out by the Hollywierdos. Our tax dollars, if we have to pay ‘em at all, won’t have to support the rotten Acorn, or to screw secured creditors as was done in the Chrysler bankruptcy, and to fund baby-cide.
We could even make George Bush or Dick Cheney our new president. Our version of “don’t ask – don’t tell” would be that we won’t ask the liberal sheople what they are thinking and they won’t be able to tell us anything at all.
To all the liberals, hmos and
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
3:06 pm
The only certainty I see from the GOP is that they are indeed null…and devoid…of functioning brains. What are they down to now, 17 percent. Less. By the way, keep up the good work, GOPers. The DoDo will finally be re-united with its off-spring.
mike
May 14th, 2009
3:10 pm
Dave R –
“I think the thought that states CAN decide whether or not a law is detrimental to their state and simply ignore it is certainly something that should be discussed.”
It was discussed (and settled) a long time ago. The question as to whether states can nullify federal laws was probably the most debated question in the first half of the 19th century. There is a mountain of precedent to say that they can’t. The decision is a good one, as we never would have gotten to where we are without it and such an arrangement would at best leaves us as impotent as the EU and at worst at war with each other.
I agree with you on most matters, but this talk from our state officials is insane.
Bennett
May 14th, 2009
3:10 pm
@2:43: Your straw men don’t change reality: Georgia depends on the federal government. We’ll be glad to keep Atlanta, though it only means that the Republic of Georgia will go downhill that much sooner and we’ll have to beef up the border patrol to keep your refugees out of the US. Though of course we wouldn’t do that.
You’ve got your little resolution. Time for the next step. Put up or shut up.
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:14 pm
C’mon, Taxpayer, you can do better than your usual rant against Republicans, can’t you?
Now, be a good boy and argue the merits of the initial post, or argue against it – with something other than rhetoric.
For instance, why shouldn’t states simply ignore those programs the Federal government passes but refuses to fully fund? Isn’t an unfunded mandate a good place to start this discussion?
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:16 pm
Bennett, that number is not significant. Something on the order of 3% or so. I think we could make that up very quickly, especially if we no longer have to fund Federal mandates we do not agree with.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
3:17 pm
To all the liberals, hmos and
[clunk]
Wyld? you still there? Or was the over-stimulation from all that exciting SEE-cession talk enough to make you pass out? Or worse?
hellooooo?
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
3:17 pm
irrelevant one @ 3:03,
It’d be mighty thoughtful of you to buy me one of my own, and keep your, ummm, body parts away from it. Will ya, babe?
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:18 pm
Looks like today will not be the day for Susan.
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:20 pm
Mike, how about unfunded mandates? Isn’t that a good place to start? Refuse to implement, bring the case to court, and let’s see how it goes.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
3:21 pm
This nutball talk and kinky teabagging is the dying gasps of old conservative (Southern) white men angered and disappointed because their time has finally passed. It’s actually quite enjoyable seeing them suffer.
WhoCares
May 14th, 2009
3:21 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If the republican party is so dead and irrelevant why do y’all pay so much attention to them. Could it be that the ten or so loyal libs that hang out on this blog have a sinking feeling that they are not really the majority even if they do see their name in print?
getalife
May 14th, 2009
3:23 pm
ty,
cons are the gop base silly.
Do not engage me with your bs.
Truth
May 14th, 2009
3:25 pm
I think Susan just soiled her Depends
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
3:25 pm
irrelevant one @ 3:18,
Not my day! But you promised! My precious luvuhboy, they’re even giving Viagra away now. You won’t even have to pay for it. Please, pretty, pretty please?
Get Real
May 14th, 2009
3:25 pm
It was unpatriotic in 2003 to be opposed to the Iraq war. Either you were for BushCo, or with the terrorists. In 2009, it’s quite alright though to speak of seceding from the Union. Go figure.
RetLTC
May 14th, 2009
3:25 pm
Let’s see Dave R. What would the tax rate be for the citizenry of a seceding state once they lost all funding from their former federal benefactor? Texas is probably the only state that could hold it’s head above water for more than a year or 2. A state like Georgia would sink like a rock. It also boggles the imagination to think of a “sovereign” Georgia run by this present group of bubbas. LMAO!
mike
May 14th, 2009
3:26 pm
Mike:
“Mike, how about unfunded mandates? Isn’t that a good place to start?”
Unfunded mandates are big problem, but the states don’t have the right to ignore them. The answer is to get the Republicans in Congress and at the state level to make cogent arguments about their damaging effects than have them talking about secession, which in my conservative mind is treasonous.
getalife
May 14th, 2009
3:26 pm
The solution is simple.
Those who voted to secede, leave the country.
Get out.
Our country will be much better without the cons.
Love it or leave it.
EJ Moosa
May 14th, 2009
3:26 pm
It’s no surprise that the states that love the Federal government the most are the ones with the greatest problems today: California, New York, Maryland, Michigan.
So how many of you are better off today than you were a year ago? We swapped a crappy President for a socialist/marxist one, and everyone seems surprised that the private sector economy is not recovering. The private sector produces while the government sector seduces with promises of fairness.
To think that all fifty states are going to sit back and endure more and more of the shovel fulls of mandates such as unemployment for people receiving Pell grants so they can go to the already overcrowded universities is a laugh. Some will take decisive action away from the idiotcratic leadership we are seeing by Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and friends.
Get Real
May 14th, 2009
3:28 pm
While driving up GA 400, a conservative republican wondered why he had to pay taxes. He hit a pothole and blew a tire, then wondered why that part of the road wasn’t fixed.
mike
May 14th, 2009
3:29 pm
Get Real –
“It was unpatriotic in 2003 to be opposed to the Iraq war.”
Oh please. Many folks like to make this silly claim, but it doesn’t have much basis in fact. I’ve seen liberals on this board accuse conservatives of being unpatriotic more times than I can count and Wanda Sykes called Rush Limbaugh the 20th hijacker in front of an applauding press corps, so spare me.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
3:29 pm
Individual rights certainly gives each of us the right to choose what government to which we will submit, but at what point do I have to leave my state to get to property that is not controlled by a “government” which declares my federal government its enemy. I expect my federal government to protect my right to be a citizen of the United States even if the state government attempts to go to war with America. Many Georgians cherish a history of treason and treachery. Will loyal Americans have to flee a government which sets the Stars and Stripes as their enemy, abandoning their home and property, or will the United States of America protect the rights of its citizens from leadership that abandons our nation to create their own power? America allows a great deal of freedom for states, even those states which persecute their own citizens, however, if those states insist on drawing a line in the sand, I choose the land of my forefathers as opposed to those who tried to destroy the United States of America. Republicans are insane, but the glory of our Republic, and the freedom of our Democracy isn’t up for grabs by any party. Prosecute those in government who seek to overthrow it. If “we the people” want to change things, we will do it without their guns, thank you.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
3:29 pm
It is amusing to pick on the wannabe seceded ones and watch them Puff’NStuff.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
3:30 pm
Lies @ 3:25,
How would you know? What are you doing in my drawers?
mike
May 14th, 2009
3:31 pm
Get Real –
“While driving up GA 400, a conservative republican wondered why he had to pay taxes. He hit a pothole and blew a tire, then wondered why that part of the road wasn’t fixed.”
More nonsense. Georgia has had some of the best roads in the country for decades and it has been run by conservatives throughout that time.
Conservatives primarily oppose high taxes because they strangle the economy. Feel free to give us the contrary argument.
Jay
May 14th, 2009
3:32 pm
Susan, Dave — get a hotel room or clean up your act.
RetLTC
May 14th, 2009
3:34 pm
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr, based upon your 3:06, maybe you should lobby your congressman and senators to have the Gitmo detainees relocated to Georgia. That way you have a turnkey militia to augment your Talibaptist society. The Gitmo Taliban and the Georgia Talibaptists do have a lot in common, do they not?
Redneck Convert
May 14th, 2009
3:34 pm
Well, boy howdy! It’s about time they acted on my idea of the Southren States of America! Us Conservatives ain’t never going to get back in the White House, so I say let’s build our own White House. We can get our two Congress seats back that we had to give up on account of these civil rights laws and I see all kind of jobs coming from selling the little plastic black jockeys that people can put out in their yard without getting a bunch of guff about it.
Won’t the Northreners heading to Miami be suprized when they get to VA and see a sign that says Welcome to the Southren States of America. Sonny Perdue, President.
Anyhow, me and everybody I know will be voting against anybody that won’t take the Pledge. No taxes, almost no guvmint, lots of gun stores, and just a whole bunch of prisons for all the lawbreakers we’ll catch.
I’m taking a couple cases of PBR off of the truck and sellabrating tonight. Have a good night everybody.
Mort Merkel
May 14th, 2009
3:36 pm
We all know GOP wingnuts see the federal government as the enemy, except when they control it. It’s mindblowing how nutty they are.
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:38 pm
I swear, ALL OF YOU need to read the constitution. The STATES are SUPPOSED to have more power than the Fed!! Remember that the American Revolution was a fight against GOVERNEMENT! To ensure the federal government did not get too much power, the Constitution states what powers the Fed has, and ANYTHING ELSE is left up to the states to decide. That’s why Obama can’t FORCE the states to take bailout money, he thinks he has the power, but he doesn’t. All of you must be poor too, because if you were one of the ‘evil rich’ you wouldn’t be supporting this guy. I’m poor, just a long time ago my parents taught me to think for myself and not for the collective ‘hive mind’ liberals have.
I have a question-When the hell did the Liberal mentality go haywire?? My parents taught me that life is what you make of it-you work hard and earn your living, nothing is given to you on a silver platter. But here comes the backwards-arse libs who think their ‘entitled’ to wealth that they NEVER EARNED! Right to healthcare?? Can you please tell me where this RIGHT came from?? None of you can-because it’s not a right. Not even God, Allah, or Buddah can give you free healthcare! If God wanted you to have free healthcare, he would have made to where we never got sick, morons!
Just when did you people (yeah, i freaking said it) start to think things you didn’t earn were supposed to be given to you?? Can anyone answer that? I would sure the hell like to know how to get money without working for it! The rich have the ‘toys’ they have because they are SMARTER THAN YOU!! Guess what, THEY ARE SMARTER THAN ME! But here’s the difference, I know they worked harder than me for what they EARNED, just like they worked harder than you-and I’m not a jealous freak. i know that if i work just as hard, i can have what they have. And i don’t think i deserve it, I KNOW I HAVE TO EARN IT!
RetLTC
May 14th, 2009
3:40 pm
Susan, Georgia cherishes a history of Jim Crow. They presently are making a strong attempt to get back to their roots by putting in place their present “Juan Crow” system in order to nostalgically return to a time and place where only white was right.
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:41 pm
Uh, Jay? You might wish to direct your comments to Susan. You might also wish to police your blog every now and again and see if those that are posting are actually trying to have a cogent discussion, or just snarking off.
Of course, some of your most prolific posters would have nothing to do if you did police them.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 14th, 2009
3:41 pm
I wouldn’t be in favor of secession but no matter what any of the politicians do, for good or bad, Georgia is my home and I ain’t going anywhere.
ty webb
May 14th, 2009
3:43 pm
getalife,
You are aware that there are conservative democrats, aren’t you? or are those democrats “bs”?
Copyleft
May 14th, 2009
3:44 pm
I realize Jay was asking a rhetorical question, but…
Yes. Georgia conservatives really ARE this blinded by ignorant hatred. They really DO hate America this much. And they really, sincerely, would rather see this country destroyed than to see the Democrats successfully solve its problems.
That’s why “Neanderthal” is so often paired with “conservative.”
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:45 pm
OK, folks, let’s just ignore the whole secession thing, shall we?
Let’s stick to nullification. Or if you want to keep it simple, let’s stick with unfunded mandates.
Why should a state be OBLIGATED to follow a law that does not contain the funding with which to implement it?
RetLTC, what do you say to that? Try reason. Not rhetoric.
Chris
May 14th, 2009
3:46 pm
Talk of secession in the South just weeks after the first African-American is inaugurated as the country’s president? This has nothing to do with “state’s rights” today anymore than it did the first time we tried it. It’s racism.
They don’t call it the Southern strategy for nothin’. Georgia Republicans (among others) are racists and Oxendine’s “confederate gray” comment is more evidence of that.
getalife
May 14th, 2009
3:47 pm
ty,
They vote con because they leave in a con district.
blue dogs are political cowards.
They are free to leave the country too.
Hit the road jack.
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:47 pm
Conservatives hate America?? Buddy, Conservatives BUILT AMERICA…try again. Rhetoric…some Rhetoric anyone? Bueller…Bueller…?
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
3:47 pm
For years these wingnuts have screamed that anyone who disagrees with them “hates America.” Now we see who really hates America.
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:48 pm
Copylefty, how do “conservatives” hate this country any differently as it is becoming, than how “liberals” hated this country for what it used to be.
This is NOT your father’s U.S.A. And it isn’t getting any better.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
3:49 pm
Uh, Dave R? Nobody is forcing you to be on this blog, just like nobody is forcing you to be in this country. If you don’t like it here, then leave.
EJ Moosa
May 14th, 2009
3:49 pm
Right on Tray,
if these folks had any sense of what states were SUPPOSED to be like, then they would have a different opinion.
It’s hard to imagine that people are against slavery, yet are willing to work for a Federal Government and give all they produce to that same government during 1 of the next 4 years. Which year are you going to work for the Feds?
Problem with Atlanta...
May 14th, 2009
3:50 pm
It’s surrounded by Georgia. Just look at the SAT scores, high school drop out rates and % of residents who go to college.
The state has more than its fair share dumb rednecks who think the civil war is still being fought.
A secession bill – should anymore be expected of the elected representatives? At least the representatives reflect their constituents.
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:50 pm
Georgia republicans are racist? Oh, and blacks in georgia aren’t?? That’s right, racism is a one way street-tell that to white kids beat up outside of six flags by a gang of blacks…
by the way, you are all aware that Obama will widen the race relations gap, not close it, right? I don’t give a SHI* if this guy is balck or not, he’s an IDIOT, that’s the more defining factor of my dislike towards him. Here he is trying to be a CEO of numerous companies, but his best accomplishment is ‘Community Organizer’. it take a lot to run a business, and D’Ohbama doesn’t have the experience, knowledge, or know how…
Joey
May 14th, 2009
3:51 pm
My Country. Love it or leave it coming from a Progressive. I had to stop and laugh.
You Democrat guys are behaving exactly, well probably worse, than many Republicans did after the 2002 and 2004 elections. Dems/Repubs are dead, irrelevant, leaderless, etc., etc.
That pendulum thing from earlier, it is reality.
mike
May 14th, 2009
3:51 pm
Tray –
“I swear, ALL OF YOU need to read the constitution. The STATES are SUPPOSED to have more power than the Fed!!”
The Supreme Court disagrees with you (and theirs is the opinion that counts.) Google Prigg vs. Pennsylvania and Ableman v. Booth. The nullification issue was settled over a century and a half ago.
Chris
May 14th, 2009
3:52 pm
Tray @3:50. Thanks for proving my point.
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:52 pm
EJ, i’ve been working for the Feds (unknowingly) since i got my first job long ago bagging groceries and stacking cat food!!
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
3:54 pm
Uh, Kamchak, where does one go when one wants to live in freedom, rather than Government servitude?
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:54 pm
Mike, the CONSTITUTION AGREES WITH ME, AND THAT IS THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND!! not some judges… But, you’re a Dem, and it’s quite clear they all ignore the Constitution.
Brad Steel
May 14th, 2009
3:55 pm
Cafeteria Tray @ 3:47 screams: “Conservatives BUILT AMERICA…”
Oh please. What was it? The GI bill? Eisenhower’s highway program? The federal subsidization of home ownership? Or some other obviously conservative program that “BUILT America”?
What crap.
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:56 pm
Well, I’m done for my day, have a great one all of you, Dem or Repub or Other.
“confuse a liberal-use facts and logic”
Tray
May 14th, 2009
3:57 pm
Uh-Conservatives did build America, right after the war for our freedom, Liberals weren’t even invented then…
Bosch
May 14th, 2009
3:57 pm
People talking of secession really are a bunch of whining ninnys. They can’t handle the grown ups being in charge now – so they whine, pitch fits and hissies and threaten to leave.
GO!!! Please!!!
Bosch
May 14th, 2009
3:59 pm
Tray,
Dude – the Founding Fathers were liberals – they fought for change and to break away from England – hence the word “liberal.” If they had been conservatives they would have wanted things to stay the same – hence the word “conservative.”
Really.
Tom
May 14th, 2009
3:59 pm
And TRAY is STILL bagging groceries and stacking cat food!
A crazed Repub canary – in search of a cage! Typical.
George American
May 14th, 2009
4:03 pm
Tray,
You are close and certainly on the right track when you say the constitution is the “SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND!! Actually it is second to “The Bible,” the supreme law of the universe. The order of law is determined in this order:
#1. “The Bible”
#2. “The US Constitution”
#3. “The Bill of Rights”
#4. “The Georgia Constitution”
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
4:03 pm
Dang, this is getting good. If this is any sign of what the race for the governor’s office will be like, bring it on. “Is you is or is you ain’t my constituency?” shall be the battle cry. The one that is most pro-secession will win the election! Will they each be bragging about their Georgia lineage as well. “Well, my great great great great great grandpappy fought side by side with General Jackson right here on this very patch of dirt that I live on.”
getalife
May 14th, 2009
4:05 pm
N RAMSEY, SR., 43RD.
Ga. has one patriotic Senator.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 14th, 2009
4:06 pm
Tom:
Serious question here. Why would there be anything wrong with working in a grocery store? It’s honest work that needs to be done.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
4:07 pm
Right one, Hillbilly. And, Tray sounds as though he is well qualified.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
4:07 pm
Uh Dave R, it’s not my job to be your real estate agent, or your Internet director. You have repeatedly expressed your dissatisfaction at being here, but yet you remain.
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
May 14th, 2009
4:11 pm
Since Mike is telling jokes, howzabout ol’ Wyld Byll tells you a true story that happened to one of his friend, TNee, in an airport lounge during 2004.
Turns out ol’ Tnee was in Boston during the Democrat Convention and he was scheduled to fly out the morning after the convention. Now, ol’ TNee was a G5 (actually 550) that is decked out to the nines. Weather was bad in Boston and the airports were all backed up, TNee landed in Nashua to avoid the traffic and taken a car into the city. Anyway, TNee had bumped into Jeff Immelt earlier in the week and Jeff, remembering Tnee was in Nashua, called up and asked if Tnee could drop Jeff and a couple of his friends in different locations so that they would not have to wait for Boston to untangle.
When Jeff gets to Nashua, he has Bill Bennett (headed to Pittsburgh), Hillary Clinton (headed to Albany), and Barack Obama (headed to Chicago) with him.
As fate would have it, the weather takes a decided turn for the worse and the group has to spend a considerable amount of time together. For Tnee, this was great he doesn’t follow politics and, while he isn’t a political junky and was intimately familiar with their backgrounds, Tnee enjoyed getting to know all three as he is a consumate people person.
After a while, TNee looked at Bennett and said, “Bill, you must have been a Williams undegraduate.” Bennett was amazed and asked him Tnee knew that. Tnee told him, “The clipped nature of your vowels, the logic with which you construct your sentences, and the manner in which your firm theological foundation informs your view all lead me to believe that studied under a learned a great deal from Mark Taylor at Williams.” Bennett was amazed.
He then looked at Hillary and said, “And you, my dear, are a Georgetown graduate with a Yale law degree.” Hillary was shocked and demanded to know how Tnee figured here out. Tnee said that it was obvious that she had a great moral understanding that could only be earned at the feat of the jesuit scholars at Georgetown and a remarkable ability to twist logic and fact that could have only been earned in a perverse environment like Yale Law. Hillary fumed, but acknowledged Tnee’s conclusions.
After that Barack Obama, like a puppy jumping at Tnee’s feet, demanded that TNee guess his background. Tnee said, “Sir, you were the easiest of the group to determine – Columbia undergraduate.Barack was incensed, he said that was a long time ago, that he was a world traveller, he’d been to Harvard, he was a card carrying member of the black community and he wanted to know what the Columbia “tell” was that TNee found. Tnee said, “I didn’t need to see through any of thos things, I read your Columbia class ring when you picked your nose.”
Waronxmas
May 14th, 2009
4:13 pm
I propose a compromise. The City of Atlanta, and any of the core counties that wish to join, should break off from Georgia and create the District of Atlanta. The capitol could move to Savannah or Albany for all I care. No military controlled border. No messy/stupid war of secession. Everyone just gets what they want.
Georgia would be left to their own devices to do whatever it is they like doing (Nascar and abstinence I would assume, and keep them quite about all this secession talk. Atlanta would become the second largest city proper in the country if all the big five counties come along which would give us bragging rights (an Atlantans dream vindication) and allow us to fornicate/sodomize/weed smoke/abortionate/miscegenate/be socialists without any trouble.
Btw, I’m only half joking with this post. I think it could work
Sandy
May 14th, 2009
4:19 pm
One word: Appomattox.
Brad Steel
May 14th, 2009
4:19 pm
Waronxmas @4:13
Yeah! sign me up and keep fighting the good war!
….the 2nd largest city… It would help Atlanta’s city-envy problem.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
4:22 pm
So, apparently Arizona State teaches classes in “Proper Techniques for Indiscriminately Observing Nose Picking” and “How to Tell Tall Tales about Nose Picking”.
Citizen of the World
May 14th, 2009
4:33 pm
These people who talk of secession remind me of those little kids who want to take their ball and go home when the game isn’t going the way they want it to.
Brian
May 14th, 2009
4:37 pm
A question for all that constantly bash Georgia. Are you a native Georgian? If not, why did you move here if you think we are so backwards? Save the South! Put a Liberal Yankee Democrat on a bus to North of the Mason-Dixon line!
Wes
May 14th, 2009
4:52 pm
Jay,
This is not a real news story. You say 43% of GA Republicans think we should secede. That means that you’ve got a block of voters that someone going through the Republican primary can’t ignore. It also suggests that the vast majority of Georgians are against it.
Are you really that surprised that politicians are trying to appease a portion of their base? Isn’t it a little more concerning that because of this trait in both parties we can’t get rid of farm subsidies, earmarks, and all the other government waste?
Bennett
May 14th, 2009
4:55 pm
Dave R, Whiner and all other would-be GA secessionists:
Blog comments do not a revolution make.
Don’t back down now.
DO IT.
Midori
May 14th, 2009
4:57 pm
I want some of what Byll is smoking.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
5:06 pm
Jay, I just noticed your 3:32.
Not long after I started posting here, Dave R posted something about a tingle running up my thigh, so I just assumed that anything goes here.
So sorry for the mixup.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
5:11 pm
“Are you really that surprised that politicians are trying to appease a portion of their base?”
Probably not–he just likes winding people up now and again. Don’t we all?
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
5:13 pm
Secession is treason, by definition. We’re in the middle of two wars, and I take that very, very, seriously. Nobody believes secession is even feasible; all this chest-thumping is the worst sort of pandering, and purely for personal aggrandizement. If Oxendine, Perry, et al. want to indulge themselves in fantasies, let them do what Newt did, and write historical fiction. Our nation is in deep, deep trouble, and this crap is not helpful.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
5:13 pm
Midori
This is a response to your 4:02 yesterday. A few weeks ago I suggested that eating locally produced honey is a homeopathic remedy for your allergies. Unfortunately this will not cure your current condition, but it will help in the future. The Dekalb Farmer’s Market on Ponce de Leon has a wide selection of honey. Weeks Honey Farm from Omega Ga. has been my choice for two years. Omega isn’t exactly in the environs of Atlanta, but it works for me. My two favorites are the wildflower honey and the tupelo honey.
EJ Moosa
May 14th, 2009
5:14 pm
Wes @ 4:52
The number of people who support secession will only grow from here. If you have already decided enough of the Federal government stepping on the autonomy of the states, you are not likely to change your opinion, especially under the Obama reign of government.
And obviously, this is not a Georgia only issue. It is growing around the nation. And it is not a southern issue, unless Montana has been relocated.
jasper
May 14th, 2009
5:15 pm
Its interesting how history repeats itself. SC threatened seccession over nullification rights against federal tariffs in the 1830’s. Most other southern states passed on it due to Jackson’s saber rattling. SC eventually caved as well. Jackson was thought a tyranncal despot lording increasing federal power over the states by his adversaries.
America survived Jackson, it will survive Obama as well.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
5:16 pm
Brian @ 4:37
Yep. Born on Peachtree Street.
Midori
May 14th, 2009
5:17 pm
Kamchak — MY HERO!!!!
Thanks very much
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
5:21 pm
It’s surrounded by Georgia. Just look at the SAT scores, high school drop out rates and % of residents who go to college.
Heh, a dimwit liberal that cannot even read the AJC-
METRO SAT SCORES
Here are 2008 results from metro Atlanta school districts. Each section is worth 800 points with a perfect score of 2400.
District
………Reading…Math…Writing…Total
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Atlanta…..436….424….440…….1300~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cherokee….525….537….513…….1575
Clayton…..428….422….418…….1268
Cobb……..510….514….499…….1523
Decatur…..530….513….512…….1555
DeKalb……452….443….444…….1339
Fayette…..518….528….505…….1551
Fulton……527….538….528…….1593
Gwinnett….504….522….495…….1521
Marietta….489….500….471…….1460
State…….491….493….482…….1466
Nation……502….515….494…….1511
266 points below the state average.
And if we took out the Atlanta and Clayton scores, Georgia would be ranked higher than the national average.
Obozo.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
5:22 pm
Make that 166 points below the state average.
Pogo
May 14th, 2009
5:23 pm
Guns and this succession thing are a result of what one hell of a lot of people see as the eroding away of their personal freedom and their basic distrust of the current administration and the current Congress. If you don’t believe it, look at weapons sells and ammunition sells nationwide in the last six months. This should tell everyone that people are now preparing themselves, in the most basic way possible (self defense of their homes and families)for what they think is going to happen in the future. Does anyone think that all of these guns and ammunition are just being bought by “Conservative Nuts”? I don’t think so. The numbers are way too high. The American people do not trust their government and quite frankly, why should they? Can you tell me exactly why anyone should trust our government? Can you tell anyone why they should trust anyone in our government that has been in power in the last 30 years? We have been lied to, we have been played as fools again and again by those that use race, political parties and class warfare as weapons to further their agendas. These are dangerous times. Succession is not the answer but neither is socialism as proposed by Obama. The only thing that will ever solve our problem is to have an educated and informed voting public and that pipedream is about gone. Relying on this belief places us in an impossible position. The Democrats, (just as Lenin and Stalin did) rely upon their supporters being pretty much ignorant and poor. Most are either ignorant or want smart and want to the play the government system to their benefit monetarily to maximize their personal situations. The Democrats, while never admitting it, want their supporters as uninformed as possible. Their take on it is, the more uninformed of issues they are, the easier they are to control. That is socialist doctrine in a nutshell and Obama and all the rest in control right now are playing this to the hilt. Distrust will grow.
Another word; there is a movement afoot now not to do business with any of the businesses such as GM, Chrysler and the banks that accepted our tax money. I support this movement. Why should I pay my after tax dollars to a company that took my hard earned tax money just to survive? I encourage all Americans not to do business with these dinosaurs. We should have let them sink. Exactly how much per job are we willing to pay for people to keep their taxpyaer subsidized union jobs and for their executives keep their high paying jobs?
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
5:26 pm
Yeah, your army would be “bad to the bone” after all the Conservatives left out, bwahahaha-
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her eyes wide, her hands gesticulating wildly, on Thursday laid out a third version of what she knew and when she knew it on the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, edging ever closer to debating what the meaning of the word “is” is.
You’d backstab yourselves to death and then surrender, to someone.
Anyone.
Wes
May 14th, 2009
5:27 pm
EJ Moosa,
I completely agree that the federal government is too big.
I would mention that you should consider the ramifications of secession. Ask yourself how many people are employed at Ft’s Gordon and Benning and the other military bases around the state. Think about Home Depot, UPS and Delta that would up and leave rather than risk losing access to the rest of the US. Then realize that Obama has more than a few supporters in the state.
Unless this movement includes a significant majority of the states and states that were not overwhelming in voting Republican in the last election, we’re not going anywhere.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
5:49 pm
May 14 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Heeeellloooooooooooo??????????????????
Is there anybody in there?
jt
May 14th, 2009
6:01 pm
Pogo -
I can tell that your last post was passionate.
And made sense.
You will find that most neo-tards are repelled by the truth.
jt
May 14th, 2009
6:03 pm
Thank you Jay for reining in Susan Meyers.
Her comments were scandalous.
Frederick Douglass
May 14th, 2009
6:15 pm
How can someone offer a credible synopsis of socialism when they can’t differentiate between “SELLS”, and “SALES”? Must’ve been educated in
Atlanta city schools.
Midori
May 14th, 2009
6:20 pm
not only that Frederick – they can’t spell “socialist” either.
the ninnies keep adding a “s” to the end.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
6:20 pm
Well, this blog sure has more than its share of 17 percenters. I wonder what brought them out of the woodwork. After all, Jay did not say FairTax™ and that’s usually the only thing that gets these GOPers all excited. A double dose of Viagra can’t even get them this worked up. Bunch of coneheads. What can it be!
getalife
May 14th, 2009
6:28 pm
Andy’s head exploded again.
Clean up at 5:49 Jay.
Ew.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
6:45 pm
Good one, getathejoke, it even almost made sense.
Almost.
I thought it was rather ironic to see SpendZilla babbling on about government borrowing money but I guess that one went totally over your head, didn’t it?
With you liberals in mind, I’ll try to dumb down my comments in the future, k?
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
6:50 pm
Seems these GOPers need someone to help them out with recent events. Here’s a little bit to help you 17 percenters along.
getalife
May 14th, 2009
6:54 pm
Andy,
I don’t think you can dumb down your comments any further but he is spending like w and using his policies.
You should like that, little ray of sunshine.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
6:56 pm
Doubt it. If they did and lost the protection of the United States government and such, Cuba or Mexico could invade and annex Georgia if they so desired, just a Russia was able to simply roll over its own Georgia, or regions of that nation were simply able to break away and form their own nations like South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Give the fact that Atlanta tends to lean rather towards the Democratic, as does a huge swath of the state around Columbia, both these areas would likely prefer to remain part of the U.S. rather than secede, so the U.S. could of course act to prevent these areas of the state from seceding and remain part of the United States. The New nation of Georgia would lose the area that provides the bulk of its economy in that case.
Whats driving this secession talk is basically the fact that the state is slowly moving into the blue column. with Democrats making up 47 percent of the vote in the 2008 election with trends suggesting that in 2010 this divide will get even closer.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
6:58 pm
Hey, has anyone else noticed, now that we don’t have a Secretary Of State, that we really don’t need one?
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
6:58 pm
Something dumber than ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Riiiight.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
7:03 pm
Thats cause you dont listen to the international news. Clinton gets as much press and is as popular as Obama is in Europe and Asia
Bosch
May 14th, 2009
7:06 pm
I really don’t like it when people throw out the race card, and I’m certainly not trying to do it, but I find it rather interesting, and not coincidental, that people are talking about secession. Big government, especially big federal government, and spending and all the things that these whining secessionist ninnys have never seemed to be bothered with before are all of a sudden talking about leaving. They are yelling about it now, when that’s been the norm since WWII. Now? Oh, all of a sudden it’s un-American and they want to form a new country.
I want to think it’s different, but I don’t. Anyone want to call me a rascist – go for it. I’m not the one wanting to secede.
Bosch
May 14th, 2009
7:07 pm
I left something out of my 7:06 – I find it rather interesting, and not coincidental, that people are talking about secession now that we have a black President.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
7:11 pm
Lets see, the Atlanta Metro Area looks like a big blue blotch on the electoral map and the Atlanta Metro area makes up 5,278,904 people of the total roughly 9 million population of the state.
McCain won this state by about 204,000 votes. In 2004, the youth vote made up about 14 percent of this states population, in 2008 18 percent. Obama won his largest amount of voters among the young in this state, and the trend towards younger voters leaning towards the Democrats in this state is not changing. The assertion that as the young get older they change party affiliation does not hold much water. It is rare that people switch party affiliations. A young democrat may support a liberal Democrat, and when they get older, support a Conservative Democrat, but switching parties is rare.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
7:12 pm
Oops I was looking at the wrong column. The youth vote in 2004 was 11 9percent, 18 percent in 2008. The second largest increase in the country
georgian by birth floridian because I'm lucky
May 14th, 2009
7:13 pm
Bosch not calling you a racist, sure that is some people’s motive. However do you really think that ALL are doing it based on race?
If you do it is your opinion and are more than entitled to it, but may I ask why it is you feel this way?
godless heathen
May 14th, 2009
7:13 pm
Talk of secession is crazy talk. A Constitutional Convention might be more appropriate.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:15 pm
Off topic
Looky, looky what I found! Now maybe some of you knew this already, but I sure didn’t.
Billo didn’t think gay marriage was wrong back in 2002, and he wasn’t so fond of holy rollers.
http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/funny-bill-oreilly-didnt-think-gay.html
@@
May 14th, 2009
7:17 pm
So what’s wrong with wanting to keep my tax dollars where they can be closely scrutinized, jay.
And to think….
we could put some politicians in the unemployment line.
That alone would be reason to support secession.
It’ll never happen but a girl can dream, can’t she?
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:18 pm
jt @ 6:03,
Ahhh, poor baby, I’m sorry I offended you. Not!
TUESDAY VANDY GIRL
May 14th, 2009
7:18 pm
“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground:
That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people’ (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.”
Thomas Jefferson, founding father (evil slave holder to you leftist collectivists)
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:20 pm
Bosch @ 7:07,
You hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly what’s going on. They’ll try to lie their way out of it, but it doesn’t change the truth.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
7:21 pm
Here’s the thing about SEE-cession.
1) Those who whine about it never being explicitly forbidden in the Constitution conveniently forget that our first such document called for a “perpetual” union. If it was so important for 18th-century Southrens to bail they should’ve got it in writing. They didn’t.
2) After the 1861-5 unpleasantness, Gen. Grant referred to the conflict as “the Rebellian.” I always figured that calling it “The Civil War” was a way to meet the defeated parties halfway. Yet these bozos continue to deny it was even that–they still want to refer to it as “The war of northern aggression.” How sad.
3) No states are going anywhere.
That is all.
georgian by birth floridian because I'm lucky
May 14th, 2009
7:24 pm
Maybe I am way off, but how is legalizing, weed any different?
I am actually in favor of the decriminalization of pot, but just curious if you all feel that Arnold and all the state leg. in florida are guilty of treason, or are stupid and racist too?
Why are they allowed to ignore federal laws and I haven’t heard complaints?
georgian by birth floridian because I'm lucky
May 14th, 2009
7:25 pm
my bad on typing florida should have been california. maybe it is legal…
@@
May 14th, 2009
7:27 pm
Come to think of it, it’s the only circumstance in which I’d be willing to surrender more in taxes.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
7:28 pm
I find it rather interesting, and not coincidental, that people are talking about secession now that we have a black President.
Yeah. I was going to address that too and forgot. Have you ever wonder how surly they’d been if, say, Obama had barely won the EVs but lost the popular vote? And only got the EVs through the intervention of the Supreme Court?
Yeah, there was a lot of ferocious anger expressed in some pockets of the left, most notably in that fabulously cathartic infamous rant posted at “—thesouth.com” (wherein the first word started with “f” and rhymed with “buck”). But that was four years later.
These guys, they’re loaded for bear, and it’s what, 110 days into the administration? Wow.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:29 pm
Off topic
I knew it! Carrie Prejean and Fixed Noise. It had to happen.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/05/14/miss-california-on-cable-news-fox–friends-gives-carrie-prejean-her-chance.html
Bosch
May 14th, 2009
7:31 pm
georgian by birth…….,
I thought I was pretty clear on why I feel that way, but I don’t think it’s coincidental that some want to secede now when their complaints have been the norm for many years – they’ve had ample opportunity in the polling booths to change it, and there was never talk of leaving before. Sure, they could have had some kind of awakening after noticing that their party is growing more and more irrelevant with every waking hour, and like I wrote, I don’t like to think that, but I do. Simple.
Oh, and I’m all for legalizing pot and all drugs too. Slap a tax on it – budget problems solved.
TUESDAY VANDY GIRL
May 14th, 2009
7:31 pm
I have no desire to see any state leave (ok..I DO want to see large parts of california fall into the ocean, but thats plate tectonics not politics) however, for those who like to keep harping that we “lost” the 1861-1865 war, we lost that battle but southerners won the war..we dominated congress for much of the last 146 years ..thats why everything in atlanta NOT named after a black preacher hustler is named after Richard B. Russell
as a side note when liberal teachers enjoyed pointing out that reconstruction was forced on rebellious southerners, I enjoyed pointing back that Jim crow resulted from reconstruction ,,consider it blowback…and I always take comfort than more northerners died in the war than did so on my ancestors side.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:35 pm
TVG @ 7:31,
So, did you meet any interesting people in the slammer?
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
7:36 pm
Susan @ 7.29, I saw your linked story. question:
How will anyone be able to tell the CA bubble-brain from the interchangeable, surgically enhanced bottle-blonde they normally have on the show?
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:40 pm
DBG @ 7:36,
Totally interchangeable. I imagine Fixed Noise paid for that boob job. A boob job in more ways than one.
Cherokee
May 14th, 2009
7:44 pm
Whiner if you hate America so much – you and your friends are sure free to leave.
And yeah, Jay, to your topic, Georgia is *that* backward.
getalife
May 14th, 2009
7:51 pm
Crazy times.
First AA President.
Another depression.
Torture.
And now, perhaps another civil war.
The first one belongs in the 21st century.
The others are not.
Susan Myers
May 14th, 2009
7:52 pm
Some people are saying our country should get back to how it used to be and how it is supposed to be. What can they mean by that? This country is constantly evolving and changing – that is the beauty of it and why it has been so successful. This certainly isn’t the first time in history our country has expanded the role of federal government – in fact, it has been expanding since it was founded. This also isn’t the first time we’ve run large deficits with the budget. A lot of people wax nostalgic about the ‘good old days’ and about how things used to be so much better, when in reality, those ‘good old days’ never really existed. By most measures, our country is in better shape socially and (until very recently) economically than at any point in its history…
Gotta get through here, almost time for Keith Olbermann. I sure don’t want to miss a second of it tonight.
G’night.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
7:56 pm
The only parts of California I would like to see drop into the sea are the areas between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Mostly Republican.
Amusingly most of the nations advanced technology comes out of either California or the Northeast. The south cant claim many contributions to the modern world. Its why they chose Florida to launch rockets from. No big loss if anything blew up or crashed on it. Same reason that they put all sort of biological mechanical factories here in Georgia. No big loss if some biological hazard breaks out, and the state passed laws so the companies cant be held responsible if they kill several million at one shot
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
7:59 pm
Another reason for the “secesh” talk is the latest polls for the 2010 Governors election. Oxendine and Barnes are pretty much in a dead heat in the latest Research2000 poll.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
8:01 pm
What they mean by getting back to the way it used to be is taking the vote away from women, blacks and all other minorities, gays back in the closet, etc.
Pollsters are good at parsing bigotry and similar things.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
8:06 pm
By most measures, our country is in better shape socially and (until very recently) economically than at any point in its history…
Susan Lyers- Yeah, I know, Bush was a pretty good president.
Matter of fact, a few more months of Obozo and Bush will be considered a great president.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
8:10 pm
The only parts of California I would like to see drop into the sea are the areas between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Actually, I don’t find the talk of any part of any state (or any part of the world for that matter) enduring some horrible natural disaster to be funny in the least. For the record. Bad enough when some secessionist cretin says it, but you? Are you really no better than that?
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
8:20 pm
What Bosch and others don’t realize is that those of us who are finally fed up with the ever-expanding reach of our federal Government is because of the HUGE expansion of powers in just the last 4 months. We never dreamed of $9 TRILLION deficits being spoken of as throwaway lines. We never dreamed of the Government taking over private businesses to the extent this one has. We never dreamed of a Congress that would abdicate their power when it suits them, and ignore the results of their actions when it doesn’t.
No one (except a few of us) could have predicted that the creep towards Socialism would become a full-fledged forced march in just 4 months.
It is time for some state to stand up and say “No more”. No more unfunded mandates. No more taking rights away from individuals. No more growth of the Federal power structure.
Maybe it’s time for Georgia or Texas to take the lead on this one.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 14th, 2009
8:21 pm
“Bush will be considered a great president.”
Filed with your other hilariously wrong predictions, Andy. Thanks!
Later, all.
Keeping It Real
May 14th, 2009
8:21 pm
WOW!! If the muslim terrorists were to read this blog, they would know how to defeat us. Just create situations where our fear and dislike of each other fuels the flame of a social civil war. I guess we Americans are just like everyone else…self preservation at any cost.
I guess the republicans who want to form an independent state are playing up to their constituents. However the confederate gray room for the the new Oxedine baby is a little scary. Did he really say that he was painting the baby’s room confederate gray? LOL.
Red Foreman
May 14th, 2009
8:22 pm
Georgia was a great place until the libtards like you Jay, infiltrated our state, polluted it, then whine about everything like a little school girl. Do us a favor and hop on that tard train to DC with Cynthia , so you can worship your savior, Presbo da Clown and that Wicked Witch of the West, Pelosi. You dont deserve to walk the same soil as us natives!!! EFF you Jay!
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
8:27 pm
Oh, and NJ? NASA built Cape Canaveral in Florida for two reasons. The primary one was that it was the closest sate to the equator, which would make launches more cost-effective for satellites going into equatorial orbits. The second was due to it’s large coastline which allowed them to fire rockets out over the ocean so as not to endanger humans during boost phases.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
8:34 pm
On Sunday May 3rd Andy posts “GFY” then says– no I didn’t swear “GFY”= good for you.
On Sunday May 10th Andy posts “POS” then says–no I didn’t swear “POS”= perverted obozo suckhole.
Andy: you have cursed on two Sabbaths in a row and then lied about it. Explain to me about your advocacy of the truth.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
8:40 pm
The problem with Republicans and conservatives is that they talk about personal liberty all the time but have passed more laws that attempt to control personal behavior than Democrats have. Most anti gay laws, anti Drug laws, pretty much anti anything that has to do with personal behavior laws, have had been conservative issues, and not democratic. Conservatives with all their talk about small government, like big interference when it comes to personal issues.
On the other hand liberals dont give a damn about people personal behavior.
Starting with the Volstead Act, named after Republican Andrew Volstead, vetoed by Woodrown Wilson and then the veto overridden, and inspired by a bunch of right wing tea totalling religious whacko’s. The Rockerfeller Laws, after Republican Nelson Rockerfeller. The anti drug campaigns of Fiorello La Guardia, another Republican responsible for decades of absurd “Reefer Madness” propaganda about marijuana.
The only Democrat responsible for one of the early drug laws, the Harison Act was the son of Jefferson Davis’ personal secretary and a relative of Robert E. Lee. and the legislation was an extension of his religious teatotaling beliefs.
Of course many of these drug laws had their racist motivations, beleiving that blacks hopped up on any number of drugs would commit vile sexual acts on the flower of white womanhood.
And of course in the last three decades we had Ronald Reagan who in the interests of starting any sort of war, started the War on Drugs.
We have Nixon in 1970 and his Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, which reinforced narcotics penalties. While the Democrats prefered the less expensive rehabilitation and education methods.
During the mid 1990s, the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton emphasized treatment for addicts while limiting support for overseas antidrug campaigns. Republicans, led by conservative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the Speaker of the House, have argued that the administration’s approach fails to effectively diminish the supply of illicit drugs. Yet such hardline policies as determinate sentencing advocated by Republicans have resulted in a U.S. prison population proportionately larger than that of any other country.
About HALF of all Americans in people in federal prisons are in for drug offenses, approximately and in all jails about a million are in jail for some drug related crime, either possession of amounts that are deemed to be large enough to prosecute for intent to sell and which more often than not are merely for personal use (in some states having more than one joint or two joints is possesssion with the intent to sell, and having 20 dollars worth of crack cocaine broken into small usable pieces is also considered possession with intent to sell)
Every year in the United States 2 million people are arrested for some drug charge, the vast majority minor possession discovered during a traffic stop for some minor infraction:
This year, about two million people will be arrested for a drug offense. In a great number of these cases, young Americans guilty of nothing more than the possession of a politically incorrect intoxicant – ranging from marijuana to crack cocaine – will be separated from their families, stripped of eligibility for student aid, and eternally exiled from the world of gainful employment. This unfolds hundreds of times each day while we – the privileged – sip our martinis and dare wonder why they don’t make better lives for themselves.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-citrano/an-opportunity-for-presid_b_167140.html
Then when you add the number of people in jails for prostitution, etc, a true picture of these advocate of small government and personal liberties emerges. I want THEIR big government priorities off the American people’s backs.
Frederick Douglass
May 14th, 2009
8:47 pm
I hope y’all know that John Oxendine is a Lumbee indian, just thought I’d throw that out there in case he escaped a beheading or something.
jt
May 14th, 2009
8:53 pm
Atlanta + Federal Goverment = Detroit
Before the federal goverment was involved, Atlanta had more black millionaires than anywhere in the world. (After reconstruction and before the civil rights era.)
Dave R
May 14th, 2009
8:54 pm
And NJ, the Democrats are responsible for restricting our ECONOMIC freedom more than the Republicans restrict our PERSONAL freedom.
A pox on both houses. Some of us are just intellectually honest enough to see both sides. That doesn’t apply to you.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 14th, 2009
9:06 pm
About HALF of HALF of the folks in GA want to leave the union – again.
Cool! As my meemee in law says, “don’t let the door hit ya’ where the good Lord split ya’.
Since nearly three quarters of us think differently, you won’t get our Georgia. You will simply have to go.
I have already suggested Somalia, they really and truly could use you guys and gals. Perhaps Cuba, I’m pretty sure you could “take” Raoul. You might get the old Jonestown property as a foreclosure sale. Invade Monaco or Lichtenstein. The American Virgin Islands! That’s the ticket! Ya’ll should love that.
Are these 21st century secessionists crazy? Some. The others are ignorant or evil.
Whatever.
Here’s the door.
First:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738_2.html
Then:
http://www.expedia.com/daily/hotels/default.asp
Such foolishness indeed.
(
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
9:06 pm
UpChuck- You are stalking me now.
This is not cool.
Perhaps you should seek medical attention, no?
Bosch
May 14th, 2009
9:10 pm
Get real Dave R. – your campaign of “no more” is complete bs. You’ve had your time with no talks of secession – you’ve had your chance and your line of ideology has failed.
It’s as simple as that.
If you were so concerned, you should have acted years ago, not when there is someone qualified and competent enough to do something to change our country in the right direction.
Your campaign of “no more” is too late. Now the grown ups are in charge, finally.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
9:16 pm
Again, more B.S. American economic mobility has shrank to its lowest levels since Reagan, As a result of 30 years of Republican laws to create a wealthy corporate aristocracy 42 percent of American born will remain in the lower economic classes they are born into. Prior to Reaganomic between the Great Depression and 1980, was the period in which the most economic mobility existed. Again the result of a regressive tax code that concentrates wealth in the hands of investors, rather than producers of wealth.
Republicans have virtually created a stratified economic system in which neither opportunity or social mobility exists to any great degree, and the United States has the one of the lowest economic mobility ratings in the developed world. Economic mobility is inversely proportional to taxation. The lower the top marginal tax rate, the lower the economic mobility, the higher the top marginal tax rate, the higher the economic mobility.
To put it simply the Republican assertion that the harder you work the more chance you have of economic mobility has proven totally false for more than 100 years. Primarily due to Republican tax ideas which favor speculative investment over work, Wall Street over Main Street, and so on.
Which is why more people entered the middle classes during the high tax period between 1933 and 1979 and more have fallen from the middle class and into poverty during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. Hard facts that cannot be denied. The lower the tax rates, the more money becomes entrenched in the hands of a few people at the top and the higher the tax rates, the more money goes into the hands of workers because the only way the wealthy can avoid having their wealth taxes at high rates is to create wealth on main street rather than take the easy way of making money by speculation on Wall Street.
Both growing income inequity and social economic stagnation occur when the wealthy can suck more money out of businesses, which actually require them to do hard work to earn their wealth, and putting it into speculative markets, where the most work you do is call your stock broker.
Republicans create profits for the few, Democrats create wealth for the many, which is the TRUE method of raising every boat at the same time.
Republicans have killed the American Dream by lowering taxes on investment rather than labor.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
9:20 pm
Every list of every economic indicator show this to be correct. When Republicans cut taxes on the wealthy they NEVER trickle it down by creating new jobs or starting new businesses. They invest in speculative ventures that make much more profit than the hard work of starting a new business, growing it etc,
Which is why growth of GDP has always been DISMAL under Republicans and low taxes, averaging two percent, and has always been twice as high under Democrats and higher taxes.
ALL the numbers prove this is so.
bob
May 14th, 2009
9:21 pm
what do you call it when cities like san fran are right now choosing to ignore the federal imigration laws and give sanctuary to illegals? how is that different from what georgia might choose to do if they don’t like some dictate from dc? is it ok if you have a liberal perspective on what you choose to ignore?
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
9:21 pm
Which is why FEWER people actually fall into the economic ranges which would require a social safety net under Democrats and more fall in those ranges under Republican tax agendas
bob
May 14th, 2009
9:23 pm
hey nj – if the government takes more and more of your income via taxes and redistributes it to the non-productive, is that trickle down economics!!
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
9:26 pm
The coneheads should be working on getting their spaceship repaired so they can head back to their home world — all 17 percent of them. I’m sure Oxendine can lead the way.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
9:36 pm
Andy
No. No medical attention needed. Stalking? I that something you desire? Never mind that’s not happening either. These blogs are archived, sport, so anyone who is interested in verifying my claims can go to Sunday May 3rd and Sunday May 10th and read for themselves your posts and the context in which you wrote them, and judge for themselves the veracity of my claims. You swore on the Sabbath and then lied about it, twice. For those who do not know: Andy = I report: you whine.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
9:36 pm
Or as Rutgers economic historian, James Livingstone points out:
Then as now, these supply-side arguments have two defects. First, the history of the 20th century is the record of increasing productivity and output as functions of declining net investment. Economic growth doesn’t require greater investment after 1919, in other words, so it certainly doesn’t need higher profits or executive incomes. In fact, any shift of income shares away from labor and toward capital—any shift away from consumption and toward saving or investment—will be a cause of crisis, not of growth.
For if higher profits aren’t needed for investment in goods production (the “real economy”), they will force their way, as unruly surpluses, into the available speculative sites, for example into the stock market of 1926-29. Or into “high-end consumption.” Or into subprime mortgage lending. Whatever.
The recent private equity mania (“leveraged buy-outs” of publicly traded companies) exemplifies these three tendencies of overwhelming capital surplus, as Ben Bernanke often said before he took up his more taciturn duties at the Fed.
But the stock market has not been as reliable as long-term investors and short-term scalawags alike would want. The dot.com bust still spooks everybody except me, but I’m the historian who compares it to the crash of 1901-02. And how many yachts can a rich man steer toward his own private coast of utopia? Where else to turn? To the housing/mortgage market, of course, the available speculative site where prices were surging after 1995, even after the stock market tumble of the turn of the century.
Second, tax cuts have never, I repeat, have never caused increased investment—not in the 1920s, not in the 1960s, not in the 1980s, and not in our own time. The empirical record is uniform: net investment keeps falling no matter what. Don’t take my word for it. Consult Peter G. Peterson, a co-founder of Blackstone (a private equity group just gone public), and a former cabinet member under Nixon and Ford.
There is no cause-effect correlation between lower taxes and greater investment because, again, economic growth no longer requires, or even allows, increasing net investment. At the macro level, we can improve productivity and output just by replacing and maintaining our existing capital stock—we certainly don’t have to make any additions to it.
So to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals is to invite them to place their augmented incomes in the hands of people who have no choice except to bet this new money on the available speculative site, in this instance on the housing/mortgage market. There’s no place else to put it if they want to get a return better than a savings account or a stodgy mutual fund. It was a “liquidity driven bull market,” as David Rosenberg, the chief economist at Merrill Lynch, puts it (FT 8/16/07). And it has regulated all others because the bulk of the surpluses generated by tax policy went there. When it turned, everything else did
http://hnn.us/articles/41985.html
The largest lie Republicans have ever told is that tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs and stimulate the economy.
Its false. The ONLY thing that grows this economy is the productivity of its labor force, not capital investment, not tax cuts.
Republicans attempt to confuse Americans by asserting that profit and wealth creation are the same thing. Not only are they not, high profits, according to Adam Smith are DESTRUCTIVE to an economy. It is better to prevent excessive high profits by taxation and encourage businesses to create more consumer by using high taxes to allow them only to avoid high taxes by hiring more employees or raising their wages, which will create more consumption.
The supply side argument that lower taxes creates a better economy has been completly been proven false by the economic catastrophes and scandals that occured during the Reagan administration when low tax rates resulted in speculation in REIT’s, caused huge numbers of hostile takeovers which destroyed hundreds of wealth creating businesses, the junk bond debacle, the failures of the S&Ls and not the last presidents insane tax cuts which are directly responsible for the speculation that caused the housing bubble and the current Great Depression. Because finally two economists from the liberal and conservative side of the economic world have states it, this is a depression and the only thing preventing the horrors of the 1929 depression is BIG GOVERNMENT.
Most B.S. Consevatives have no idea that 2 out of three dollars of all savings and other assets owned by the bottom 98 percent of Americans would have been completely lost had it not been for big government.
And the Republican assertions that an economy will come out of such an economic contraction by itself is false. There are plenty of historical examples of economies collapsing and the civilizations those economies upheld collapsed and vanished and no new economy rose up for centuries.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
9:37 pm
Well isn’t this some rather odd lightening?
Quite a show.
Jay
May 14th, 2009
9:40 pm
NJ, the off-topic lengthy lectures aren’t really getting you anywhere…
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 14th, 2009
9:43 pm
UpChuck- Do not be ashamed, there are many, many stalkers in the United States, most of them proud democrats like yourself.
I always wanted a stalker but I was thinking more along the likes of Carrie Prejean, funny how these things work out, isn’t it?
Now you just remain calm, help is on the way.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
9:47 pm
Next you have to look at the range between the lowest tax rate and the highest.
When you have the lowest rate set at 15 percent and the highest at 30 percent, each addition of one dollar of income is taxed at a higher rate than when you have a range where the lowest rate is ten percent and the highest is 70 percent. In this case, the bracket creep is extended over a higher range of income and allows those at the lower ends to keep more of their money than those at the higher end, creating more consumers to drive an economy than in the alternative situtation which allows the wealthy to keep more of each dollar they earn then those at the lower and middle ends, therefore lowering the both the number of consumers and the amount of money they can spend.
Kamchak
May 14th, 2009
9:49 pm
Andy
You can lie, deflect, obfuscate all you want, but the fact remains, and can be verified, that you have broken at least two commandments on the Sabbath.
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
9:53 pm
The Republican focus on lower taxes for those in the upper income brackets turns the REAL economy on its head. Investment never drives and economy due to the natural limitations of markets where profits are high relative to average income. Its productivity and consumption that drives markets, not investments which merely drives profit, and impedes income earned by workers, which reduced consumption.
Which is why since Reagan became president real income has been relatively static, compared to worker productivity, which has increased by 69 percent since 1979, with no parellel increase of real income.
Prior to Reagan, income at all levels increased at the exact same rate as worker productivity. Tax cuts to the top have not trickled down to those at the working and consuming end of the economy
N.J.
May 14th, 2009
10:00 pm
Basically the Republican focus on tax cuts for the wealthy as well as focus on invesment as a method of making money as opposed to the capital formation that high marginal tax rates make necessary if the wealthy want to avoid being taxed when the remove money from a profitable business as personal income for personal use is what produces wealth for a nation,rather than profits for a few.
THe Republican ideal, taken to its natural conclusion creates nations with a very small number of extremely wealthy people and millions of people living at or near poverty, as occured in the free markets in America in the late 19th century. A few multi millionaires and millions living in squalor and disease ridden tenements
Thats the best Republican economics can offer
Frederick Douglass
May 14th, 2009
10:02 pm
In a nutshell N.J. @ 9:16, you essentially have people that earn $8.50 an hour calling themselves conservatives, and voting republican, and the
poor saps will never sit at the table with the high rollers. A rising
tide in this case only lifts the yachts, and waterlogs the row boats.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
10:06 pm
Jay, are you hoping that a 17 percenter will provide you with some insight into their mindset. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.
ND
May 14th, 2009
10:06 pm
The Confederacy… a traditionalist body that sought to create a country in its own image keyed by wanting the right to oppress minorities and people they disagreed with.
Sounds a lot like the Taliban to me.
Jay
May 14th, 2009
10:13 pm
NJ, two off-topic posts per thread. It was the rule before you got here, and it remains the rule.
Taxpayer
May 14th, 2009
10:33 pm
How can N.J.’s posts be considered ‘off-topic’ when he is trying to address some of the (false) claims, made by the secessionistas, that taxes and debts and deficits are what they are up in arms about.
the evil rich
May 14th, 2009
11:02 pm
You want to talk nutty, how about electing NObama? At least GA had enough brains to go the right way!
Tom
May 14th, 2009
11:09 pm
Ahh. As always, NASCAR is well represented here today. You go guys!
EJ Moosa
May 14th, 2009
11:12 pm
Bosch@7:07
Lincoln did not care if slavery was eliminated or stayed, as long as no one left the Union. So you can try to play a race card if you must, but it seems to just be a joker. America’s “greatest” President also stomped all over the Constitution, the very same document he swore to uphold and protect.
Davo
May 14th, 2009
11:24 pm
test
Davo
May 14th, 2009
11:40 pm
“Secession, nullification … Is Georgia this crazy?”
After a week of cut-and-paste hack journalism Bookman decides to actually forward an original article. I don’t much care for the very premise but also think back to McCain 08…Country First…he had it wrong. It’s liberty first. Patriotism is for suckers; use your own freewill.
I would think that reguardless of the readers political leanings, it becomes obvious that Bookman is ashamed of living in Georgia.
AmVet
May 14th, 2009
11:45 pm
The traitors in Georgia have been particularly emboldened since Sonny “Pray for Rain” Purdue helped get their flag back. Granted, it’s no Stars & Bars, but we all know what it means…
“It was unpatriotic in 2003 to be opposed to the Iraq war.”
“Oh please. Many folks like to make this silly claim, but it doesn’t have much basis in fact.”
Mike, you must have missed those back to back O’Reilly shows in the run up to shock and awe.
The ones where BOR said that any Americans who kept protesting after the bombs started falling were unAmerican.
The next night he came on and made a “correction”. He said they were bad Americans.
At that point I gave up on the man…
WTF?
May 15th, 2009
12:07 am
Whatever happened to all the “Country First” crap the republicant’s were spewing during the election? I hop ethe GOP keeps it up. They are such traitors.
N.J.
May 15th, 2009
12:35 am
Five states produce 40 percent of the nations GDP. None of them are Georgia. Another five states added to this and you get 55 percent of the national wealth produced in ten states. California, New York Illinois Texas and Florida are the five that produce that 40 percent, add in the New England States and you get the 55 percent.
The entire set of premises given by the secessionists, are totally false. The State government gets back more than it sends to Washington DC in the income taxes of the citizens, but more than a third, and probably more like 40 percent of these states private sector income comes from various other federal money given to Georgia citizens and spent in private businesses. Social Security accounts for 15 percent of all dollars spent in Georgia businesses. Various other social transfer dollars amount to another ten percent. Medicare accounts for 35 percent of the income of hospitals and doctors offices. Tuitions in private colleges are paid for with Hope Scholarships and other federal dollars as are public universities. Universities and private companies receive billions of research dollars in almost every sector of the economy, from the biomedical industries to agriculture. Without these dollars, this state would quickly revert to Tobacco Road.
The ENTIRE State of Georgia GSP is less than 400 billion. The ENTIRE Southeast makes up 22.percent of the national GDP. California alone accounts for 12 percent with a state GSP of more than 1.8 trillion.
Texas has a GSP of 1.14 trillion just slightly more than New York’s 1.103 trillion Florida is next and the next five are Illinois, Pennsylvania,Ohio, New Jersey and North Carolina.
The net result of a Georgia secession whose economy is dominated by the blue area of Atlanta, would be to reduce the rest of the state to the status of a developing nation.
As far as the United States goes, the economic mobility in the UNited States is among the lowest in the developing world:
The American Dream Is Alive and Well … in Finland!
It’s harder to move up the economic ladder in the United States than in other wealthy countries. What happened to the American dream
…As bleak as the recent findings about our ability to move up are, the picture for American families would look much worse if not for the increasing number of women in the work force. Women, while still earning less than their male counterparts, have had far greater upward mobility over the past three decades, largely because they had farther to go to get to the same place. While men’s employment rates, hours worked and wages have been flat or declining during that period, all three measures have increased for women. Isaacs concluded: “Family incomes have grown slightly because the increase in women’s earnings has more than offset stagnant male earnings.”
The streets are paved with gold … in Denmark
Several studies released in recent years suggest that, contrary to popular opinion, Americans enjoy significantly less upward mobility than citizens of a number of other industrialized nations (some of the studies can be accessed here, here and here). German workers have 1.5 times the mobility of Americans, Canada is nearly 2.5 times more mobile and Denmark is 3 times more mobile. Norway, Finland, Sweden and France (France!) are all more mobile societies than the United States. Of the countries included in the studies, the United States ranked near the bottom; only the United Kingdom came in lower.
*********************************************************
THE CAUSES OF IT:
*********************************************************
Blame the “neos”
…Unlike inequality, which some classical economists and most conservative pundits dismiss as irrelevant, there’s broad agreement across the ideological spectrum about the importance of mobility. In the United States, where we take for granted levels of inequality and poverty that would be a front-page scandal in most advanced economies, the stakes are that much higher. It’s one thing living in a new gilded age when we all have a fair shot at ending up among the “haves,” but it’s something else altogether when a nation’s wealth is concentrated at the top of a rigidly stratified society. As Dalton Conley put it, the fact that parents’ wealth is the strongest predictor of where kids will end up “very manifestly displays the anti-meritocracy in America — the reproduction of social class without the inheritance of any innate ability.”…
…Three trends help explain why it’s so much harder to get ahead in America today than it was for previous generations of working people, and why it’s apparently easier to get ahead in more socially oriented countries: differences in education, the decline in union membership and loss of good manufacturing jobs and, more generally, a relatively weaker social safety net. Roughly speaking, the decrease in relative mobility from generation to generation correlates with the rise of “backlash” conservatism, the advent of Reaganomics and the series of massive changes in industrial relations and other policies that people loosely refer to as the “era of globalization.”…
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/70103/the_american_dream_is_alive_and_well_…_in_finland!/?page=entire
Those who shout the loudest about secession and taxation and the causes of the problems in America are basically full of hot air, and stale right wing propaganda.
Americans pay some of the lowest REAL income tax rates in the world. It has some of the lowest government involvement in daily economic life.
And this has caused a completely stagnant economic mobility as well as a society in which almost no opportunity to climb the economic ladder exists. It is, to put it mildly, “the land of little opportunity”
Every one of those so called “Socialist” nations of Europe and Canada provide more economic opportunity as well as more economic mobility
moonbat betty
May 15th, 2009
12:39 am
go N.J., go N.J.
N.J.
May 15th, 2009
1:10 am
And lets see how the State of Georgia replaces this:
It ranked 14th of 57 in military procurement contracts,
$1,766,000,000 in food and nutrition services,
$1,411,000,000 in education funding,
$1,800,000 in environmental protection funding and
$11,868,000 in military funding.
Total federal expenditures in 2005 were $59,846,000,000.
Now where are they going to get the money to secure their borders, pay export tariffs etc…
On the other hand, Georgias TOTAL tax burden, including all federal, state and local taxes is 14,570,573,000.
Or to put it simple, look at the total amount of federal expenditures in the state of Georgia (59 billion) and the total of ALL taxes paid in the state, federal, state and local (about 14.6 billion) and you see that Georgia would lose 3/4th of money that comes from government coffers. Or it would have to quadruple its state taxes in order to some how come up with the same money that goes into the economy.
This does not include the almost 7 billion that the state has been awarded in stimulus money. Georgia was the first state to put out its greedy little hands to get the money, while publically railing against it, and the first to set up government procurement offices for receiving and spending it
J.T.
May 15th, 2009
2:47 am
It seems that the recent support for secession in Vermont has received far less attention than the incidental references to states’ rights coming out of the more conservative regions of the country. I suppose that this is because Vermont is a decidedly liberal state and at least some of its citizens felt that the late administration was a danger to their civil liberties. Now that the government has changed hands, some dare to shout “treason” to those who are making the same argument as they did only a short time ago.
Both parties are hypocritical and both are responsible for the gross expansion of federal powers at the expense of the rights of the states and of the people. No one is calling for secession nowadays- that government should be based upon the “consent of the governed” is a view that has been almost universally rejected, at least in practice. It is considered treasonous to even suggest that the states and the people have rights, except of course when it is politically expedient to whichever party is out of power at the time.
I do not believe that the resolution passed in Georgia was a mandate for secession. I sincerely doubt that any of the senators in that state or any other would ever seriously consider that option, given that most of the country threw their lot in with the federal government a long time ago. It would not even be a practical solution so I wish people would stop making a political issue of it. I will say, however, that the confiscation of weapons (were it in fact to ever take place) would most certainly be a violation of the Constitution and a grievance as serious as those levied against England in the Declaration of Independence. But if the preceding posts are any indication, most of you would not stand up for the Constitution because that would be “treason”. At least there are a few senators in Georgia who gave it some thought.
N.J.
May 15th, 2009
3:00 am
The food and nutrition services alone provide Georgia’s farmers with a good amount of their earnings. Without it the agricultural sector of Georgia’s economy would suffer, considerably.
Basically the entire premises that right wing Georgia residents make about taxation has little to back it up.
By the time the majority of Georgia residents file their income taxes (and because of the fact that the median income of the majority of Georgians is lower than the national median income, a larger percentage of Georgians fall into that place on those charts Republicans love to use that show how many Americans pay no income taxes at all) there are more Georgians who pay no federal income taxes at all than the national average.
In 2006, for example according to the Tax Foundation, 3,830,840 residents in Georgia filed income tax returns. 1,363,353 had zero or negative tax liabilities or 36 percent of tax filers (this excludes those with incomes so low they do not have to file at all) This put Georgia in the top ten states with regard to the percent of the population that does not pay federal income taxes in the ranking of non payers.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1410.html
And at the same time, the state national product was around 390 billion, with the government providing about 60 billion of that or about one sixth of the entire GSP.
For the secession of the state would lead to the loss of this federal spending, which would have rather negative effects on a number of sectors of the economy, and certainly the levels of unemployment, which are usually higher in Georgia than the national average, even during good national economies, would of course rise. Then Georgia would have to consider its own national defense, when the government removed its own military equipment and non resident military personnel. Georgia of course has several defense contractors, but relying on the state to replace the level of contracts that the federal government provides to them, rather than the federal government would likely not be very appealing to these businesses, and the U.S. Government would not be inclined to award defense contracts to a foreign power, particularly those of a foreign power, especially because the state could not guarantee or provide the same degree of security to design secrets as member states of the United States itself. Defense contractors in Georgia would more than likely move shop to the United States proper in order to be able to assure the government that its design secrets would be more secure. Several European economists have predicted that the United States will eventually collapse because of its current economic crisis, with the more economically viable regions separating off from the regions that draw more from the central government than they provide to it, in order for them to remain economically viable, leaving the regions that now pay more to the federal government which is transfered to other regions able to keep those revenues for their own economic support and survival. The Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, which pay more to the federal government than they get back, would become one of the more powerful economic regions, Along with the Pacific Coast States, that also do so, as well as the Northern States along the Canadian border. The Central states and the South would form poorer and less economically viable regions and Texas would form its own state, which, given the rising Hispanic population might run along a more hispanic cultural and economic line. This theory is gaining credence in Europe as well as Russia, and both are looking towards methods of cutting their ties with the U.S. economic system as well as to the American Currency, which would of course, no longer be a common currency in the western hemisphere. Two countries in the Eastern Hemisphere would then replace the United States in regulating world markets, a Eurasian market, with a common currency made up of Russia and China. China because of its vast economic reserves and Russia with its oil and regulatory structures would become the world economic superpower and regulator of the world economy.
This is not at all speculation. Russia, China, and the Central Asian Republics are now having economic discussions about creating a common market and common currency similar to the E.U. because of the failure of the United States economy and the regional differences in the United States. They take the talk of secession seriously, and in fact, rather encourage the idea as it would split up the United States at a time when they are working towards Creating a United States of Eurasia.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 15th, 2009
5:41 am
City officials fear in ever tightening credit markets even a one-step downgrade could make new bonds too expensive for Atlanta. They also worry that a system already burdened by more than $2.6 billion in debt might not be able to raise any more money to keep the sewer project going.-Urinal
So how are they ever gonna pay any of it back?
Looks like we had better secede before that bill hits home.
I Report :-) / You Whine :-(
May 15th, 2009
5:48 am
May 15, 2009 More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time
Also, fewer think abortion should be legal “under any circumstances” by Lydia Saad, Gallup
bwa
Dave R
May 15th, 2009
6:11 am
Man, my scroll wheel has just worn out trying to get past NJ’s nonsense.
Bosch, you keep making the mistake that I am a Republican, which I am most assuredly not. You aren’t ready to debate a Constitutionalist. The policies that have been practiced in the past that you and I both agree weren’t the best for this Government or this country were NOT true Republican policies. At least not according to their platform.
Now, get out of your two-party, two-sided mindset and open your mind to the possibility that fiscal conservative policies could work, if only practiced by a majority of our elected officials. One need only to look at local governments, which cannot run a deficit, to see that conservative fiscal policies work every day of the week.
That being said, I’m off for a few days of R&R, and the computer ain’t going with me.
Behave y’all. With any luck, Jay will ban NJ for being a total waste of time. Of course, he’d have to ban Taxpayer as well under those rules. Taxpayer just takes less time to show it.
Taxpayer
May 15th, 2009
6:44 am
Well,
I see that N.J. stayed busy into the wee hours of the morning trying to educate these GOPers (aka secessionists, constitutionalists, conservatives, confederates, right wing fringe, etc. — can’t you fellas at least settle on a common name for yourselves instead of hiding behind different names). It’s a hopeless cause for these 17 percenters though. They don’t want to learn. They just want to return to their great great great great gandpappy’s Utopia — the one that Newt and Rush and Dick keep telling them about. Wake up little ones, it’s a fantasy.
Andy the Traitor
May 15th, 2009
6:44 am
Oh yeah,
JawJaw as a nation would really SOAR like an eagle.
Hmmm, I wonder what the state of CA thinks about the fact that they can nullify any federal law they want? I don’t think they realized this last year when Bushco was raiding legal establishments because (AT THAT TIME) federal law superceded state law. Funny how wingbutternuts can turn the tables so quickly, and keep a straight face…
One good thing come from it, our 48th in the nation educational ranking would immediately go to number one.
I think all the treasonous snakes talking this stuff should be treated like the traitors they are. Lined up and shot. But who would post here if that happened?
Andy the Traitor
May 15th, 2009
6:45 am
ewwwwwwwww
catlady
May 15th, 2009
6:46 am
Dear God! I guess these “patriots” are really onto something. Family values, indeed!
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
7:00 am
More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time
What Andy’s hopeful little copy/paste actually means.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
7:03 am
JawJaw as a nation would really SOAR like an eagle.
Like she’s never SOARRRRRED before… Only God, no other KINNNNNNNNNNNNNGs…”
catlady
May 15th, 2009
7:06 am
I guess this means that the conservatives want to undertake all the paying taxes for services within the state of Georgia, and all the military service within the state of Georgia, because they posit that they are the only ones doing it. Great! We won’t be getting the money taxed (from the other conservatives) all over the nation. They will likely support our secession, since it might lower their taxes.
And we, those of us not conservatives, can just live off the conservative teat here in Georgia, while their taxes and obligations balloon. Sounds good to me. I will live in my paid for house and drive (if I need to) my paid for car (4 wheel drive so I can go all over our soon to be unpaved roads) while I collect my 5,000 per month retirement (before SS) and grow my organic garden with water from my well. I will only owe my soul to Georgia Power, and I am working on getting rid of them, too! Don’t think of coming over–I will get out my purchased decades ago guns to “protect” my lifestyle.
Can we still call it Georgia since that Russian group calls theirs Georgia? Maybe we can be Georgia Junior?
I Report :-)/ You Whine :-(
May 15th, 2009
7:08 am
One good thing come from it, our 48th in the nation educational ranking would immediately go to number one.
Andy the Jay Bookman Taunter- I know one thing for sure, if we got rid of your SAT score, Georgia would immediately move up to 47th.
You’re a drag, eewwwwww.
Michelle
May 15th, 2009
7:24 am
Georgia Republicans are looking like trickle down confederate flag gun huggin nuts to sane society. They have all drunk the kool aid and fliped out.
Taxpayer
May 15th, 2009
7:25 am
Hi DB. I checked out the link regarding abortion polling. It looks like the truth differs, as usual, from what the right wing fringe claim. The trend definitely shows that pro-choice folks are increasing while the pro-lifers have flat-lined.
I Report :-)/ You Whine :-(
May 15th, 2009
7:32 am
Gallup polling, right wing fringe group, I’ll have to remember that.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
7:35 am
The trend definitely shows that pro-choice folks are increasing while the pro-lifers have flat-lined.
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. My take-away is that a pretty overwhelming number of Americans, when push comes to shove, wouldn’t make first-trimester abortions illegal, period. Which is to say, what Roe established in ‘73 remains mainstream American opinion. Which renders the radical anti-abortion argument kind of futile–after 36 years of literally screaming bloody murder they’ve not budged public opinion on the issue.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
7:36 am
Gallup polling, right wing fringe group, I’ll have to remember that.
Are you claiming the opposite? That Gallup is a left-leaning organization?
RetLTC
May 15th, 2009
7:38 am
Let these treasonous, unpatriotic scumbags secede. Let them form their governments and when these morons find out that they can’t sustain themselves, take them back with the stipulation that the “president” of this band of idiots agrees to the same fate as Jefferson Davis and the rest of this “government” is tried for treason and sent to Leavenworth for the rest of their lives.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
7:39 am
Also, Andy, even a third-grader could probably understand that TP was never regarding Gallup as “right wing fringe.” that moniker refers to those who are inflating the findings of a particular data set.
metoo
May 15th, 2009
7:45 am
secession = cut and run
J Moore
May 15th, 2009
7:52 am
The federal government is definitely in violation of the Constitution; therefore, the original contract should be null and void. We have reached the point that the founding fathers tried desperately to avoid which is federal tyranny. The Constitution clearly and expressly says that all rights not expressly given to the federal government belong to the states! How can anyone deny what is happening. FDR, LBJ, and Obama have trashed those words. I am for getting out.
kitty
May 15th, 2009
7:53 am
What’s next? A resolution putting anyone with a drop of black blood back into slavery. This freakin’ state is NUTS. The GOP is fated to be a regional party of the absolutely insane with Oxendine leading the legion of the straight-jacketed.
Duh
May 15th, 2009
7:55 am
The only difference between Al Qaida and Georgia conservative mentality is the country where they live.
Taxpayer
May 15th, 2009
7:57 am
‘Pro-Life’…’Flat-Line’. Anyway! How about this little tidbit:
Just hours after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin voiced her support for embattled Miss California Carrie Prejean, Biblical scholars noted that the alliance between the former and present beauty queens is prophesied in the Holy Scriptures.
While many observers have called the Palin-Prejean link-up predictable, few suspected that it was in fact predicted in The Book of Revelations.
“The unholy alliance between Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean is explicitly stated in the Book of Revelations as a harbinger of the End of Days,” said the reverend Dr. Davis Logsdon, Dean of the University of Minnesota’s School of Divinity. “They’re right in there, after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
But Dr. Logsdon was quick to point out that the first person to notice the Palin-Prejean reference in the Bible’s book of prophecy was actually the sixteenth-century seer Nostradamus, legendary for his predictive powers.
According to Dr. Logsdon, in 1555 Nostradamus predicted the alliance between the two right-wing beauties when he wrote, “The slayer of beasts shall meet the barer of breasts.”
When asked whether the alliance between Gov. Palin and Miss California means that the world is about to end, Dr. Logsdon was unequivocal: “That would be the best-case scenario.” – Borowitz
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
7:59 am
the stipulation that the “president” of this band of idiots agrees to the same fate as Jefferson Davis and the rest of this “government” is tried for treason
Actually he wasn’t tried for treason–short version is, he’d been held on various charges for some time, and stories got out about harsh treatment that had some abolitionists calling for his release. I guess the US Government felt that the former Confederacy didn’t need a martyr, that he was less of a PitA to them free than in jail.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
8:01 am
I am for getting out.
You and one third of self-IDing Republicans, apparently. Good luck with that.
jj
May 15th, 2009
8:05 am
The party of guns, no taxes and phony Jesophiles want their own country? Who’s going to fund it for them? I’ll give them their own country – Guantanamo. Hear it’s real nice there…
oldmac
May 15th, 2009
8:09 am
Hmmm, I don’t recall reading anything negative about the much more wacky idea that several “lefty” cities have come up with to let illegals live without fear of being deported. Hmmm.
Just a little pushback against the socialists.
LJ
Andy the Traitor
May 15th, 2009
8:20 am
“We have reached the point that the founding fathers tried desperately to avoid which is federal tyranny.”
In 100 days… that’s a hoot… did you take your lithium today?
Again, it would be downright humorous to watch GA try and survive on it’s own. With people like Andy and Sonny P tryin to run the place it would be more like watchin the keystone cops, just not as funny…
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Corey
May 15th, 2009
8:23 am
A country where the people read at a 6th grade level, a region where the reading level is lower. A country where 69% of the people believe a man stuffed two of every type of animal on the planet onto a big, big boat a region where 99% believe it. Need I say more.
Andy the Traitor
May 15th, 2009
8:25 am
“I don’t recall reading anything negative about the much more wacky idea that several “lefty” cities have come up with to let illegals live without fear of being deported. Hmmm.”
That was George W Bush and John McCain…
ewwww
HoyaLawya
May 15th, 2009
8:25 am
I usually just skip over the posts by Whiner, but here:
Fulton Co. has highest per capita income in Georgia (2006)
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/04/21/daily73.html
HoyaLawya
May 15th, 2009
8:27 am
Followed by Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett, I might add. Georgia overall ranked 36th among the states.
RetLTC
May 15th, 2009
8:33 am
DB Gwinnettian, Jefferson Davis was summarily hung when apprehended. That was actually what I meant regarding the “president”. The rest of a seceding states “sovereign” government should be tried for treason and incarcerated upon that states return to the Union. But really this is just a bunch of blowhards posturing for the most ignorant among their flock. In actuality none of them would have the guts to put it all on the line like that anyway. They’re like the neighborhood brat that wants to take his ball home when the game doesn’t go his way. Whiners all. My country right or wrong. That’s what this crowd was saying for the last 8 years wasn’t it?
jj
May 15th, 2009
8:36 am
They are speaking to their sheep here. Imagine, these Superpatriots, defenders of all that’s good and true – want to secede, and watch America fail. Such wisdom – their mantra used to be ‘America, love it or leave it’. Bye Bye!
Tony
May 15th, 2009
8:52 am
Seriously, we’ve settled this question. Settled it in blood. Talk of seccession is treason.
You wait here. I’m getting the rope.
DK
May 15th, 2009
8:57 am
When Sherman advocated his march to the sea, he stated that he wanted to make war so unpalatable to the South “that generations would pass away before the South would again appeal to it.” I’d say he was successful as it’s taken about five generations.
SR 632 is enumerates legal opinions that have been settled years ago, and many of these opinions fall on the losing side of the argument. Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution clearly empowers congress to pass laws that provide for the general welfare of the United States. Congress has much more jurisdiction than SR 632 suggests. As for nullification and secession, that was settled years ago too. I think Andrew Jackson (a slave-owning Southerner) said it best when South Carolina threatened secession. He said “secession by armed force is treason.” My history book tells me that Georgia and 10 other states agreed to this at the end of the Civil War. Of course those generations have passed away and the new crop of idiots that run the show (the same idiots that can’t appreciate the butt-whipping that acting on such a silly idea will bring) are again appealing to it.
So those that are vying to be the next idiot in charge and think the ideas expressed in SB 632 are valid, when you get your prize, muster the state militia and take all of these fools writing on this blog who are agreeing with you and go down to Ft. Benning and kick those feds out of here.
EW
May 15th, 2009
8:58 am
State sovereignty is the very foundation of why this REPUBLIC was created. The Feds should not lord over the states and is stated as such in the Constitution. Do I want secession? No, however I do wish that the trampling of the Constitution would stop. I’ve had quite enough of it.
Jay, I understand you are to get readers and such, however is there no such thing as journalistic integrity any more? It seems lately your mandate is to spread half truths and faulty “polls” in order to cause this type of jab session. To have this type of “journalism” in a “news”paper is more of an embarassment to this state than any Constitutionally accurate resolutions or actions the state Legislature comes up with.
history repeats
May 15th, 2009
9:03 am
All you republicans can move to Texas– seceed and NEVER be heard from again– now that would be progress… can this party of Neocons, Neo-racists, Gun Nuts and general other assorted stupidities get anymore irrelevant?
Copyleft
May 15th, 2009
9:07 am
And you folks really don’t see why conservatives are being condemned for their America-hating, traitorous ways?
It’s because you’re talking about secession. When Bush took office, plenty of liberals wanted to flee the country–but we didn’t suggest destroying the Union the way you losers are!
The conclusion is clear: the far right really DOES hate America and everything it stands for. They’d rather see it destroyed if they can’t run it themselves. They’re sick, pathetic losers who deserve all their current AND future irrelevance to the future of our society.
You’re traitors, folks. Don’t get whiny because you don’t like the accurate label you’ve slapped on yourselves.
Copyleft
May 15th, 2009
9:08 am
EW: Actually, supremacy of the federal level OVER the states is written into our Constitution–specifically, the post-Civil War amendments, and validated by numerous Supreme Court rulings since then.
So, basically… you’re wrong. Sorry.
William
May 15th, 2009
9:19 am
The federal government has been violating the 10th amendment with regards to states’ rights for a long time. Do you not see the feds regulating things they have no constitutional authority to regulate? Let’s not forget how the feds use highway tax money as a bribe to get states to pass laws that the feds want when they haven’t gotten tacit approval to overstep their bounds and pass these laws. I for one am tired of OUR federal government (ran by BOTH parties) mangling OUR constitution and meddling in matters of the state. I’m not surprised at talk of secession, and while I think the motives can be good, I don’t picture anything good coming out of it. I predict a federal gov’t takeover of the seceding state and a federal gov’t growing even more powerful and oppressive would be the end result, unless of course there was a large group of states that joined together. Then the outcome becomes unclear. Would the feds recognize this new alliance, or would the feds try to crush them militarily and control them? Who knows, but I am a proponenet of people endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This requires a small government to stay out of OUR way!!!
DB, Gwinnettian
May 15th, 2009
9:32 am
gotta run, but I saw this…
Jefferson Davis was summarily hung when apprehended.
RetLTC, you must have Jeff Davis confused with someone else. He was released after two years in prison, and lived a free man until his death in 1889.
My understanding is that his imprisonment was a good career move. Southerners at first made him the fall guy for their loss and probably hated him more than Northerners. But after (exaggerated?) stories of his supposed ill treatment at the hands of the Feds circulated, he became their hero, and lived very well afterwards.
This subsequent lionization reverberated–it seems to have contributed to Woodrow Wilson’s racist policies, for example.
On May 14, 1865, an 8-year-old Wilson watched as captured Confederate president Jefferson Davis was led through town in chains.
…
When Wilson allowed his cabinet members to segregate government offices, [Monroe] Trotter led the delegation from the National Independent Political League to meet with the president and protest this discriminatory policy. Wilson’s explanation, that “segregation was caused by friction between the colored and white clerks, and not done to injure or humiliate the colored clerks, but to avoid friction,” infuriated Trotter. After the shouting match that followed, Trotter was ordered out of the White House. Trotter then did what Wilson considered unforgivable. Standing on the White House grounds, he held a press conference and detailed what had just happened. A Wilson supporter in 1912, Du Bois now sided with Trotter. In Du Bois’ view, Wilson “was by birth . . . unfitted for largesse of view or depth of feeling about racial injustice.”
RetLTC
May 15th, 2009
9:38 am
Thanks DB. Anyway, secession and talk of secession is treasonous.
Whiner is a Traitor
May 15th, 2009
10:52 am
Loyal Americans don’t take their ball and go home just because they don’t get their way.
N.J,
May 15th, 2009
11:24 am
Hardly nonsense. What it states is that Georgia is one of the top ten states when it comes to income tax filers who either pay zero taxes, or get back more on their income tax returns than they paid because of the child tax credits for lower income families.
On top of that for every one dollar that Georgian pay out in all tax obligations, federal, state and local, the federal government spends about 4 dollars in this state on various projects related to defense, roads, food stamps, nutrition, health care by federal funds that go to not for profit hospitals, etc.
The first thing Georgia would have to do to keep its roads in shape, its private not for profit hospitals opened, etc, would be to quadruple or even more, its state and local taxes.
Is that simple enough for your reading level? Or do you expect the United States government to defend your borders after secession.
A list of the U.S. military bases in Georgia:
Air Force Bases
Moody Air Force Base – northeast of Valdosta
Robins Air Force Base – Warner Robins
Army Posts
Fort Benning – Columbus
Fort Gillem – Atlanta
Fort Gordon – Augusta
Fort McPherson – Atlanta
Fort Stewart – Hinesville
Hunter Army Airfield – Savannah
Lawson Army Airfield – Columbus
Coast Guard Bases
None
Marine Bases
Albany Marine Corps Logistics Base
Navy Bases
Atlanta Naval Air Station – Marietta
King’s Bay Naval Submarine Base – north of St. Marys
The majority of troops stationed at these bases of course, are not local Georgia enlistees, etc. The military rarely decides to station enlistees close to home. The U.S. government shuts them down, removes equipment and troops, and leaves Georgia with the land.
N.J,
May 15th, 2009
12:11 pm
Exactly. Copyleft. The Georgia conservatives idea of government is more akin to dictatorship than Democracy, or more akin to the Taliban idea of government than Democracy. They would not have small government, they would immediately create a goverment that would write hundreds of laws which would discriminate against blacks, gays, hispanics, etc, and then they would need a vast police state to enforce them.
The cost of their new government would of course, exceed the cost of the old one, and in order to administer all those laws would require larger, not smaller government. Their ideas about individual responsibility in a state where 36 out of 100 people either do not pay federal income taxes or in fact get more back from the federal government than they pay out in various child credits, would also cause a huge drop in the revenues of local businesses, etc. When more than one out of three Georgians who file tax returns with the federal government get everything back or have a negative tax obligation to the government, Georgia loses a large chunk of change when it gives up the money give to those tax filers. Then the loss of all the members of the U.S. Military who are stationed in Georgia would also result in a huge amount of money being spent on off base housing, money spent by troops as well as their families in local grocery stores, department stores, small businesses, etc.
Every community in Georgia or Florida had a major fit over the very idea of base closings a few years ago, because of the catastrophic effect those closings would have in the cities and town adjacent to the bases. The senators of those states fought like furies in order to keep those bases opened, and played every political card they had to do so.
Of course, after secession, Georgia would have no representatives in the U.S. Senate to do that. They would no longer have the right to representation. Other secessionist states like South Carolina would have even more to lose, as in spite of Jim DeMint’s railing against earmarks, he quietly slips out the Senate, particularly when decisions about bills that have military appropriations in them, because his state is number one in earmarks for military appropriations. South Carolina’s economy would collapse without the federal spending that is done there.
And then of course, Georgia would have to deal create the machinery in the new nation to do what Wall Street does for the United States. It would also have to create the ability to borrow from other nations in order to deal with its current rather high deficits. Georgia would also have to take over its own portion of the U.S. trade imbalance with other countries like China. The United States negative trade balance with China and other nations, is of course, not generated by the United States GOVERNMENT, but by each individual state, based on the dollar amount of goods imported into that state, and the dollar amount sent out. Which would mean the new nation of Georgia would have to negotiate treaties for the few goods it produces and the more which it imports, OR it would have to accept a lower standard of living and still be expected to pay the debt it incurred in its own name with other nations. Or it could default on that debt. Or claim third world status and go to the World Bank or International monetary fund for loans. And the GSP of Georgia is such that it does not rank with the worlds most industrialized nations, but with rather lower developed ones.
Then of course, Georgia would lose the income earned from the nearly 100,000 federal government employees, and of course It has 40,000 State Employees in its University systems alone. Either you shut down your colleges or pay your university professors or they leave for greener pastures. And then Georgia loses any technological competitiveness with other nations. Of course college would be rather unaffordable without the various federal tuition subsidies on both the student and university ends of the tuition equation.
If Georgia, for example were to lower its taxes, and become more like Florida it would have to do what Florida is now doing. It is closing down 21 programs, and now has to look for colleges in other states that have the same programs for 7,000 students and convince those schools to accept all of the students credits towards a degree at their institutions. The states with the lowest tax bases are having the worse problems with its schools and institutions. Of course with Georgia’s ideas on health care the base of medical professionals who have move here, will likely move out again, because the base of their operations is funded by Medicare, which provides the single largest source of hospital and medical office income. And it also requires the least administrative overhead for the doctors offices. Only one form, and a single set of guidelines to follow. In most doctors offices in Georgia, when you go up to their front desk, you will more often see signs with lists of private health care insurance they no longer accept more often than you will see one that says they no longer accept Medicare.
When you add up the money spent in this state by the federal government, by retirees on Social Security, by State employees, by the military, by troops, by the federal government on various projects, a huge portion of this states economy relies on the federal government.
Like the Soviet Union, Georgia would collapse under the weight of a government that represses a large part of its minority populations, like fundamentalist Muslim states, their economies would falter (no one is more “free market” than the fundamentalist Muslims… they hate socialism, always have)
N.J,
May 15th, 2009
12:38 pm
Of of course food stamps alone in Georgia have generated 52.6 billion dollars of economic activity in the state (2005 figures) as well as is responsible for creating 173,000 farm jobs in that year in the state.
But that is because only 65 percent of the people who are eligible for the program participate. Increasing that to 70 percent would and additional 72.5 million dollars worth of economic activity in the state, supporting local farmers and food retailers.
10 percent of Georgias population, 921,000 Georgia residents use food stamps every month, pumping 1.047 billion dollars into the state economy to support farmers, grocers, and other food related small businesses in the state. Small businesses would suffer most from the loss of these programs in a secessionist Georgia.
Another part of the “Georgia getting back more than it pays to the federal government”
south side
May 15th, 2009
12:43 pm
This just shows how out of touch Georgia leaders are.GEORGIA THE EMBARRASS ME STATE
N.J,
May 15th, 2009
12:43 pm
Secession does not dissolve debt, any more than walking out of a your mortgage does. Georgia owes a ton of money, both to the federal government and the private sector. Theres a ton of private debt as well, and Georgia has a very high rate of default on morgages. Nation the result would be either Georgia would have to pay its obligations OR some sort of diplomatic or military method of recovery would be the most obvious solution. Georgia does not have a large enough internal market to sustain its current standard of living, and does not have the mean to deal with an international embargo.
Trevor Irvin
May 15th, 2009
12:58 pm
He painted the room “Confederate Gay”???? Intereesting choice.
N.J,
May 15th, 2009
1:03 pm
One in eight Georgia homeowners are in default, business bankruptcies are up between 50 and 70 percent this year, depending on region of the state.
Of course if Georgia residents have to rely on another system of getting mortgages, where no mortgage is guaranteed by its government, private homeownership will plummet. Will the state of Georgia even have enough money to allow interest payments to be deducted from whatever form of taxation it allows. Fair tax of course, would increase the rate at which 98 percent of Georgia residents are taxes, especially that 36 percent that pays zero federal income taxes or a net negative income tax. All that these people currently pay is the state income tax and the state sales tax. Which amounts to between 13 and 15 percent of income. Fair tax claims 23 percent in the text, but in the appendix states why the real rate ends up being 30 percent. Of course Georgia will not have the financial resources to uphold the part of fair tax that supposedly sends back a few thousand dollars a month to lower income payers of the tax, so this part will more than likely be scrapped, raising the overall total taxation of its citizens to even higher levels than currently exist.
Establishing a military and purchasing helicopters, aircraft, etc is a huge expense for a new nation. The money to do so will have to either be raised by taxation, as was necessary when the United States was founded OR borrowed.
Of course the State of Georgia has a lot of bonds out. Of course 9 out of ten holders of these bonds are Georgia residents. Of course, Georgia will somehow have to get the money to pay these bonds off.
south side
May 15th, 2009
1:03 pm
Well I guess thats way these leaders cant get anything meaningful done.What kind of plan do they have for the economy.O I guess we have the fisin hole courtsey of Perdue . Iguess for what it cost itfeed alot of hungry people if we find were its located
south side
May 15th, 2009
1:06 pm
Enter your comments here
south side
May 15th, 2009
1:10 pm
Well I guess this party is truly out of ideas. This what the repubs have been reduced too
N.J.
May 15th, 2009
9:01 pm
As far as I can tell since I moved here, the current governor and legislatures only economic plan is to pray on the steps of the governmental centers.
I cannot imagine how this state ran up such a huge deficit since 2003. Well I can imagine, because the president of the U.S. did the same thing, except Georgia didnt have an unnecessary way to blame it on.
When one examines the Republican party platform, it has been reduced to two single pillars. One is forcing a social conserativism on everyone, and the other is that tax cuts are the solution to all economic types of economic situtations, something even the most conservative supply side economists do not assert or accept.
luangtom
May 17th, 2009
9:50 am
Few, if any, of the posters here recognized the fact that 35 other states have already passed laws like those being discussed here. State sovereign rights exist and are correct, right after individual rights. Federal rights are not meant to usurp the first two.
Oxswvulq
June 22nd, 2009
3:11 pm
5AUaPG comment1 ,
Deborah
June 23rd, 2009
11:15 am
Let’s talk about treason. Treason is trying to overthrow the government. What exactly do you think Obama and the majority Dem’s in the House and Senate are trying to do?
Here’s an agenda for you- print money with no gold backing; make irrational demands for excessive taxation on the citizens so that money can be given to special interests groups that put you in office;bow to dictators in other countries while making apologies for being alive as a free nation and trying to help others do the same; and last but not least, force the States and private companies to take your money or else. What a way to overthrow the government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” without ever firing a shot. Nevertheless, these are still traitorous acts of “wealth redistribution” that our Founding Fathers were familiar with from Great Britain and always wanted to safeguard us from.
Tony
August 22nd, 2009
9:48 am
Repeat after me, “The Federal Government Is All.”
Jay, you’re an idiot. You bash a state for asserting their constitutional rights? Wow.
Norris
September 6th, 2009
4:01 pm
I am totally in support of the nullification of Obama Deathcare by Georgia and the State’s Rights Bills. You have no idea what you are talking about. You can let Obama and his leftist, liberal, American hating, communist and terrorist loving, criminal cronies tell you what to do if you want to. While you’re at it… let them tell you what to eat, where to live and more importantly what to say and think. If you want to live in a country where you have no freedom and the “Gov’t.” runs everything try China or maybe Obama’s favorite Cuba. Hey, I bet Chavez wouldn’t mind having you either. Anyone who says that standing up for the Consitituion and keeping the Federal Government in check is wrong has either been brainwashed, is not informed, is stupid or maybe all three. It is the right of the PEOPLE to stand up againt a Government that oversteps its boundaries. A good start is with States Rights. I am sick and tired of all the Civil War bull****! Anytime someone in the South doesn’t agree with the liberal agenda you all revert back to your childish retoric and name calling. You were obviously educated in one of those liberal school systems that makes up and changes the real history in the history books. The Civil War was not started over the issue of Slavery. It was fought over the Federal Government overstepping it’s bounds and trying to control the South. Maybe we should teach AMERICAN HISTORY in schools now instead of World History or African History or Euopean History. That way more people will know about the United States of America and will hopefully make better choices in elections and not elect a communist loving, dictator want to be President like Obama.
Fritz
March 10th, 2010
5:38 pm
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Carmelo
March 10th, 2010
9:24 pm
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Adriana
March 10th, 2010
10:12 pm
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Wilma
March 11th, 2010
10:52 am
How do you do it, blogs.ajc.com?
http://allenreformulate.blogspot.com/2010/03/videos-capped-iverson-plods.html
Michael Melton
March 27th, 2010
5:44 pm
Its funny all this bad mouthing of a State that wants Secession, and the 10th Amendment of the Constitution says it can do whatever it wishes. The Federal Government has no authority over each sovereign State. The USA was founded on Secession, what makes it bad now? It just shows that people are good little sheeple for the Federal Government and can’t think for themselves. I give koodles to Georgia, they are on the right path, what are people going to do when America hits Iran and the promised Retaliation from Russia, China and the SCO hits America? I bet money you wish you had Seceded..
Thomas Martin Sobottke
March 30th, 2010
3:29 pm
Secession and nullification are simply treason against the government of the United States of America. I do not support traitors. I am not a native Georgian and thank God for it. I defend the United States of America, my country. I defend our flag. I support those who have gone before me, many of them native Georgians who in two World Wars and since the American Civil War have supported the national government. Just remember that key word for this entire debate: TREASON. And that those who engage in it are TRAITORS. It needed to be said and said clearly.
Thomas Martin Sobottke 329 Evergreen Lane Pewaukee, WI 53072 262-691-2887 ekttobos@sbcglobal.net I do not hide behind little funny idenitfiers but stand up manfully and rightly for what I believe. I also support the end of slavery in America and the Civil Rights legislation to make the United States truly a land of the free for all our citizens.