I am a patient man, and I've bided my time letting bigger blogs than mine do the heavy lifting, but the time has come for me to sit back and speak my peace.

An article in Salon entitled "The Economic Civil War" by Michael Lind (I'm not providing a link; I see no reason to benefit this clown by sending him traffic) takes exception to resistance to the great socialist bailout of the Detroit automakers and the labor union that has so effectively ruined them, most vocally by Republican legislators from the South.  You can read about it here, and here (big tip o' the hat to both Misha at the Rottweiler and Dave at Ace of Spades - thanks, brothers!).

Now, for all I know, the Salon article may have been intended as satire; I sure didn't read it that way, then then, I'm just a dumb redneck and may not have the sophistication for Lind's Rust-Belt-loving nuanced way with words, bless his heart.  But the whole premise of this article is that this is not a matter of Detroit's Big Three building cars that no one wants (my Mustang notwithstanding) and the United Auto Workers pricing the cars out of the market, and some common-sense Senators saying there's something wrong with taking money from taxpayers (and their grandchildren) by force and transfering it against their will to these failing businesses; no, this clever and enlightened author recognized that in actuality, this is the endgame of a concerted economic war on the North being waged by the rogue South.  How could we not have seen it?

Never mind the fact that it's the North that's driving around in Camrys and Corollas, while the South keeps buying all those F-150s, Silverados and Rams.  City boy, we've been carrying Detroit.  His allegation that we're conspiring with Toyota's Japan and BMW's Germany really muddies his metaphor - he makes this all sound like World War Two, rather than the War of Northern Aggression.

He then goes on to propose that the only solution is to torch the South like Sherman by imposing on the South - by force of government - those same policies that have ruined the industrial North: unionization, artificially increased minimum wage levels, greater involvement of the Federal government through taxation and revenue sharing.  He repeatedly labels his imagined opposition as using "race-to-the-bottom" tactics - never mind that it's Detroit and the UAW that is in trouble; they're the ones facing bankruptcy and demanding a bailout, not Dixie, thank you very much.  The Northern auto industry destroyed itself, thank you very much, without any help from Johnny Reb.

I think I have the right to speak from a truly unique point of view; after all, I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to a pair of rock-ribbed New England parents, and quickly shuttled south to spend my formative years in Jacksonville, North Carolina; I like to tell people that I was nearly eight years old before I learned that "damn Yankees" was two words.  I stand in a place with roots equally on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.  Presently living in Alhambra, California, barely a howitzer-shell distant from downtown Los Angeles, I consider myself as being uniquely qualified to see all sides of the playing field, and I think I recognized the Lind article for what it is: the last desperate act of the losing side before surrender becomes the sole remaining option.

Think about it!  He's demanding that we impose the policies on the South that are already destroying the North.  The North is facing economic collapse, and the only strategy he sees left (since he plainly won't consider the option of the North changing its self-destructive ways) is taking the South down with it.  We know from history that when one party to a conflict is considering this kind of strategy, it's clear that they already see their own imminent collapse and loss.  Do you see it?  The North is preparing to surrender!

I say that if this is the way they want it, then fine; I'm willing to offer the Yankees these terms of their surrender, and give them, gratis, an opportunity for a do-over on that whole secession-from-the-union thing:

The South shall freely secede from the Union.  For a period of twelve months, any persons residing in the South who wish to remain citizens of the North, or any persons residing in the North who wish to become citizens of the South, shall be given free passage to pull up roots and relocate to the state of their choice.  After that, any person legally residing in the South shall be deemed to have surrendered his citizenship to Washington DC and be granted citizenship in the South.  Dual citizenship shall not be recognized, as no man can serve two masters.

Y'all can keep your political correctness; we will get by on good, old-fashioned right and wrong.

Y'all can keep your Brady Bill and your gun control laws, and surrender your right to self-defense to the government; we'll keep our guns and our right to keep and bear arms, and for those few whose parents are unable to pass firearm skills on to their children, we'll teach it - probably in the second or third grade.

Y'all can keep your civil unions and bathhouses; we will continue to hold marriage as solely as a sacred uniting of one man and one woman.

Y'all can keep your Happy Holidays, and we'll keep our Merry Christmas.

Y'all can keep your open borders and your illegal aliens, your Bilingual Education and your amnesty; we'll keep our borders secure.

Y'all can keep your business-destroying labor unions; we'll recognize a citizen's right to work and to compete for jobs based on his own merit.

Y'all can keep your "separation of church and state" fanaticism and your abject fear of any public display of honest religion; we'll continue to hold a high regard for religious faith, start each session of the legislature and every graduation ceremony with prayer, and probably every day of school, too; and while we will respect any person's right to practice any religion he pleases, or none at all if he's so inclined, we'll also tell him that he doesn't have the right to silence the majority to cater to him just because he's different, and if he doesn't like it, he can sit quietly and respectfully for a few minutes while we pray, or politely step out of the room, or shut the hell up and move to New York - his choice.

Y'all can keep your big central government, pre-empting what used to be a sovereign union of many sovereign states, dictating to you how you can live you lives and use your property, and taxing you into poverty while they rule over you as your federal masters.  We'll recognize States' Rights and individual liberty, and our elected and appointed officials will be public servants, not our bosses.

In short, we'll have ourselves a government pretty much like what America started out being just a few short centuries ago; the North can continue on down the road to serfdom, collectivism, and subservience to the central government, for as long as they want, or at least, for as long as they can.

Obviously, there are going to need to be some details hammered out.  For example, we'll need to pick a name.  "The Confederate States of America" has already been tried.  We might vote for "The United Southern States," "Dixie," or something else.  We'll also need to pick a new capital, whether it's Richmond, Mobile, Memphis, or Montgomery.  The important thing, of course, is some agreement on which states will become members of the seceding South.

I told y'all that the South would rise again.  You heard it here first...