3047

Climate change will prevent most of that move. We’re stuck with the South as is (though I don’t consider Texas as the South).

3048

Which owes a lot of it to a different continent entirely. I am not really sure the South should get a ton of credit for what it stole and continued to steal and exploit until laws made it harder for them to do so.

3049

See my perspective on these laws is heavily informed by growing up in Chicagoland. See Illinois, and Chicago, do have more restrictive gun laws. Or did, I should say. But Indiana has famously lax gun laws.

Guess where a large number of all firearms used in crime come from? Something like 30% cane from Indiana last I checked. And an equal number from other nearby states, or gun shows. Gun restrictions meant largely fuck all when a 20 minute drive across the border could get you anything you wanted. And there were many gun shops within a few miles of the border, like fireworks shops. The density is higher there than anywhere else in the state.

So their weal laws directly and knowingly contributed to gun crime in Chicago, and higher rates of circumvention of restrictions.

And to further top it off, gun fetishists in other states managed to force, through the courts, Illinois to drop handgun restrictions and adopt concealed carry, against the wishes of the residents. Heller is a thing.

So the idea that Oklahoma can be cowboy crazy and it doesn’t impact elsewhere? It has no basis in reality.

Gun nuts elsewhere have a real impact in places I’ve lived. So Oklahoma can fuck right off with their bullshit.

3050

Ok, but what do you think would happen if Illinois actually seceded from Indiana? They would still be neighbors. Do you imagine control points along I-90 to check passengers for handguns?

Brexit is a catastrophe waiting to happen, but it would be a walk in the park compared to your vision of Illexit.

3051

Uh, you haven’t been paying attention, have you?

GOP/NRA want a Federal Law to force CA etc to honor Open Carry from other states - which means they can’t ban it.

Trump is attempting to revoke CA’s ability to regulate emissions.

What makes you think that if Conservatives overturn Roe v Wade, they won’t quickly follow with a National Abortion ban?

The GOP doesn’t care about Blue State rights.

3052

This happens every year around the 4th of july. anyone with illinois plates gets pulled over for fireworks. they are illegal in illinois.

3053

Which is why most smart people who buy them, do so in May or early June.

And my kick out the south comment is slightly facetious. Serious policy it is not.

However I am serious when I say that nefarious interests in those states are hugely harmful for those not living in them. See environmental controls in California seeking to be dismantled by oil interests in Texas and other red states.

3054

The GOP and NRA want a lot of things that they will never get.

There isn’t even a national law against murder. I don’t see a national abortion ban happening, ever.

Trump is trying to revoke CA’s exception under federal Clean Air rules. This is a procedural move, taking advantage of the fact that Clean Air is federal legislation. Even if they succeed (unlikely), CA has a million other ways combat emissions, for instance via punitive carbon taxes on automobiles. Like so many Trump ideas, all this does is waste the time of liberals.

Yes, that’s why there are no fireworks in Illinois.

3055

I mean @magnet let me be clear. I think the presence of certain states, notably the deep south, is deleterious to our nation. Not only are they the key drivers in the national hard right push, they are enormous subsidiary states whose economies and state budgets would collapse without the massive transfers they receive from a few key states, or from deficit spending. Specifically New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, and the half dozen states with net negative federal transfers. Illinois receives net -$1400 in federal spending per capita, while Missouri or Alabama receive > +$3000. Their policies for gun control, health care, and environmental issues prevent meaningful improvements nationally, and handicap other states.

I think you do not properly appreciate the impact the NRA generally, and Heller specifically, had on Chicago.

Oh and lets not forget the fact that Roy Moore nearly won his election. The fact it took literal pedophilia for his ass to lose is indictment enough of southern culture.

Basically I am sick of their shit, and the power they wield on national politics. And think that the non shitty parts of the US would be better off without them in the theoretical sense. As a practical matter, yeah its harder. But I see Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and a few other states as of limited to no value. You could not pay me enough to live in them.

3056

Based on my time in New Orleans (which a lot of people don’t consider “the south”), I’m not willing to write it off. There are many southern liberals who are engaged grassroot activists capable of working across race and partisan lines to tackle pollution, homelessness, etc. They’re worthy of our support. So are the African Americans and people of color who live there. (Edited to clarify: southern African American are both engaged grassroot activists and worthy of our support.)

And there are more than a few conservatives who know that things aren’t right the way they are, even if they can’t bring themselves to accept that liberals might have some answers. I don’t know how we reach them by 2020, but that doesn’t make them unreachable.

But I’m also some sort of Pollyanna liberal who thinks we need to keep our arms open to as many fellow Americans as possible.

3057

Setting aside the particulars, your arguments boil down to:

(1) “We” spend too much money on “them”, and/or don’t get enough money back from them
(2) Their people are dangerous, and we need better ways to keep them out
(3) Their culture is too different from ours, and if we are forced to stay together they will weaken what we value

These are literally the same arguments made in favor of Brexit. Simply substitute “Greece” for “Alabama”, “Muslims” for “Evangelicals”, “Out-of-control Brussels” for “Out-of-control SCOTUS”, and “Foreign terrorists” for “Southern gun-toters”. You even look forward to a health care dividend.

Just saying.

3058

I think all the cities need to quietly build rocket boosters under their foundations and then, at the same time, ascend into orbit to form a new utopia!

3059

Those of us in ruralish ares do not deserve the hellscape you’d be abandoning us to.

3060

I can see a future secessionist movement based, not around states, but around metro areas in different parts of the country who want to band together against anti-urban hinterlands. A Hanseatic League for the 21st century.

Or rocket cities. That’d be cool too.

3061

Why are you comparing the EU to those lunatics? The majority in the EU arent a bunch of fanatical religious fascists who are a few rolls of the dice from unleashing genocide on anyone who isn’t their gods chosen few.

3062

Isn’t that basically what they did in BioShock Infinite, except with balloons? We all know how that turned out…

3063

The flip side is that representatives from California historically have had a say in setting federal regulations on TX and LA refineries and shipping. For example, all U.S. waters are part of an emissions control area that caps sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions at 1/3rd the level set by international maritime regulations (similar control areas exist in Canadian waters and the North and Baltic Seas). If we left environmental regulations in the hands of Texas and Louisiana, we could look forward to acid-rain hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.

3064

According the Brexit vote, the majority in the UK are racists and/or fascists. So if that’s all it takes to justify separation, the EU should have kicked the UK to the curb last March. Yet they didn’t, and I think many of us thought that was the right decision. It takes a lot more to abandon an ally.

3065
3066