Well said ace...right on the money.

Solution: stop making friends with non-conservatives.

But they give it up sooooo sweetly...

Well, in college they did. I have no idea what they're up to now.

"...for example, I'm still catching up on this whole Abramoff business; I have little doubt a liberal news-junkie could school me in it at this point..."

For starters, it may interest you to know that Harry Reid has accepted over $60,000.00 from groups with ties to Abramoff. Mr. Reid, of course, insists he has done nothing wrong, but that's an awful lot of scratch for a guy who spends so much time griping about a perceived culture of corruption.

I find it more and more difficult to talk to my non-conservative friends about politics. Not because of anger -- we don't fight over such matters -- but simply because I find myself telling them facts that they've never read before, never seen on Brian Williams before, and simply do not believe to be true.

Exactly.

Either this is a running joke that I'm not familiar with or there's some confusion about Andrew McCarthy. Andrew C. McCarthy is a journalist that writes for NRO and participates as a senior fellow for a group called " The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies". Here's a link to that group's website with his biography.
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/biographies/biographies_show.htm?doc_id=239506

The person pictured in the post on this website is Andrew McCarthy (middle initial unknown). He is an actor who starred with Molly Ringwald in the movie "Pretty in Pink". Here's his biography from the IMDB website.
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/biographies/biographies_show.htm?doc_id=239506

I doubt that the actor Andrew McCarthy writes on current events.

Jill,

It's option #1: running joke.

It's worse on the liberal side. Conservative news-junkies have to know the basics of the MSM fact-pattern, because we spend all of our time critiquing it, contextualizing it, and sometimes disproving it entirely.

Yep. Arguing politics with my liberal friends has become more and more like arguing with a cab driver who doesn't speak your language--frustrating, but it accomplishes absolutely nothing. The loss of a common realm of discourse for liberals and conservatives doesn't bode well for electoral politics in this country.

Good, thought-provoking post. Now--why is it illustrated with a pic of K. D. Lang?

Either this is a running joke

Ya think? ;)

You hit the nail on the head, Ace.

It really is a frustrating problem, because there are otherwise reasonable people you simply can't have a dialogue with, because the MoveOn.org-MSM axis adheres to the idea that if the facts are against you, it's right and proper to make up new facts that support you. It's (distantly but noticeably) descended, I think, to leftist notions that things like "truth" and "facts" are simply outmoded bourgeois notions that can, should, indeed *must*, be supplanted with Greater Truths, even if a foundation of lies is necessary to do it.

Oh Jill, you're too funny. Next thing you'll be telling us is that the congressman, Jerry Lewis, isn't the same Jerry Lewis from the movies.

I've been saying this about the fact divide for about a year, but no one listens. Maybe I should've started a blog and cut in on some of that crazy blog money that Ace gets for his prescient analysis.

Oh, he doesn't make any money? Never mind.

Didn't Time magazine write this post fourteen months ago? "Blue Truth, Red Truth," issue of September 20, 2004?

The MSM: way ahead of the curve.

maybe. A lot of people have written about it. Hell, I think this is the third time I've written about it.

I don't know about Congressman Jerry Lewis, but I'm pretty sure that the late Congressman Sonny Bono was the little guy from Sonny and Cher.

I doubt that the actor Andrew McCarthy writes on current events.

No shit? - Thomas Jefferson

h/t Allah

I'd post the link here, but naturally Pixy Misa's comments filter is rejecting URLs from CNN (where the article is archived and viewable in its entirety).

Makes sense, I guess. CNN being a noted purveyor of spam and all.

I'd read one or two of his articles in the past but didn't realize until now it was that Andrew McCarthy...

Ok, haha :)

Me: "X" is a fact
Liberal: No, no, no, no, conspiracy!
Liberal: "Y" is a fact
Me: What's your source
Liberal: Conspiracy!, "Z" is a fact, don't question my patriotism.... (foaming at the mouth)

I can't have a meaningful discussion with a liberal, everthing I say is a lie. I'm lying. (smoke from robot's head)

I've been saying this about the fact divide for about a year

That's what I told Jason/Bodhi when he was recruiting for a conservative viewpoint to "balance" his rants. We would have had to start back at 1492 and work our way forward until we shared a bank of knowledge large enough to effectively communicate.

Either this is a running joke that I'm not familiar with or there's some confusion about Andrew McCarthy. Andrew C. McCarthy is a journalist that writes for NRO and participates as a senior fellow for a group called " The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies". ......The person pictured in the post on this website is Andrew McCarthy (middle initial unknown). He is an actor who starred with Molly Ringwald in the movie "Pretty in Pink".

Actually Jill these two guys are really one and the same. McCarthy was blacklisted from movies when it came out that he was in fact the grandson of Senator Joseph McCarthy. This blacklisting along with abuse of alcohol and drugs prevalent among the "Brat Packers" started a downward spiral for McCarthy, a spiral that culminated in his arrest for "stalking" Molly Ringwald.

After Ms. Ringwald relocated to France to escape his unwanted attentions (a self-imposed exile that lasted over 10 years), McCarthy quit the drugs and alcohol and began a period of relfection and study, resulting in a "conservative" rebirth.

Although he frequently writes pieces for NRO and other conservative publications, McCarthy spends most of his time isolated in a cell at a monastary in upstate New York where he is translating the old testement into the dialect of Athapaskan spoken by the West Greeland Inuit.

shhhh... Andy McCarthy doesn't want people knowing his personal shit, dude.

OK. At the risk of getting beat up ...

Is this REALLY the same Andrew McCarthy? This isn't the first time I've heard this, but I can never tell if its legit.

Please be gentle.

Is this REALLY the same Andrew McCarthy? This isn't the first time I've heard this, but I can never tell if its legit.

Please be gentle.

No, and no. - Thomas Jefferson

h/t Allah

Aw, thanks, Sue.

Do you think he'd sign my Mannequin poster anyways?

No... although I did play "If You Leave" from Pretty in Pink to intro & extro him when he was on the webcast show.

It's not the same guy. Scout's honor. It's just a joke.

Try talking to a reasonable "non-conservative." They do exist....e.g. me. Of course I am currently a 'wingnut' to my friends 'cause I support the Iraqi war and Bush's overall moves in the War. Hate his social & spending policies but hey, some things are more important than others.

But I understand where ACE (and others) are coming from. My discussions with my lefty friends about the use of WP as WMD story was enlightening. I would present some fact about WP (as I learned about it from the MilBlogs) and it would be dismissed or countered with yet another false 'fact.'

My only lefty friend (that was aware of the WP story) who did accept that WP is not a WMD is an old USSR army guy. Who was rather embarrassed when he discovered that the "chemical weapon" was really just plain old WP. He denied that it was WP that we were talking about for awhile though.....

Of course I got a sample of this same odd denial of facts and use of false facts from some conservatives when I was talking about the OU student bombing story a while back. Some will still deny the suicide note, the ongoing treatment for depression, etc.

So it cuts both ways...although as per ACE I agree that the Righties have to absorb more info to argue coherently than the Lefties.

It seems to me that the more political one is (more active, more partisan etc.) is correlated with how willing one is to consider facts that dispute one's position.

This&That

But it's not just lefties. Reasonable non-conservatives by and large know only what the NYT tells them.

And if I read only what the Times printed, I'd be pretty ill-informed myself.

You just can't talk with them, because they don't really know anything. Any interesting fact you bring up is totally new to them, and they refuse to believe it, because, well, why would the NYT suppress something so plainly relevant?

It's not just NYT readers. Anyone who reads one newspaper and watches the nightly network news can fall into this trap. They know one side of the story, and when you present the other side, it's all "right-wing stuff". As if that axiomatically makes it sketchy information. This is common among some older guys, who simply aren't internet savvy and don't find other venues of information or perspective.

The next step is some sort of secession in this country.

My liberal friends and I have little in common now other than stories from years past. They're against everything I'm for, they think I lie, I think they're sheltered and/or ignorant.

Things simply can't go on like this, and I doubt that the MSM is suddenly going to realize that it is, in fact, obscenely biased against right-of-center people and ideas. Our cultural disconnect will continue to widen.

I don't know how many years out before Alaska, Texas, New York or California initiates the dissolution of this Union, but it'll happen.

The looming public pension and medicare crises in all the Blue states (coming to fruition within the next 5 years) will likely precipitate a population exodus that will exacerbate tensions as tax-paying Republicans leave and tax-consuming Democrats remain with shrinking tax bases and greater and greater public debt and obligations.

With little help in sight, the Blues will ask the Federal government for a bailout (as NY asked of Ford back in the 70s), and Red States will balk at the prospect.

Sh*t, meet Mr. Fan.

It can't help but happen.

I typically handle the "news gap" like this.

Me: but the phone number you call, or call from, is public info. There's no privacy violation.

Brother: Get out of your Fox Box

Me: "'ja see that floating dog yet? HIGH-larious."

It can't help but happen.
Posted by Sean at January 4, 2006 02:39 PM

I actually hope you're right. In my opinion, it's past time for Red state / Blue state Americans to seek a peaceable divorce due to irreconcilable differences. I'm sure some eggheads out there can work out the specific land / economic logistics before the rest of us have to start shooting each other.

Secession is a bit much. I do wonder if Republican primaries will become the "real" elections, like the Democratic primaries used to be in the south. Liberals will become scarce, they don't breed enough.

The next step is some sort of secession in this country.

There's actually a new video game out for Xbox and the PC about this very scenario.

If we could split the country in two and let people choose which they want to become a citizen you would see a lot of todays Democrat voters run like Carl Lewis to the Red State country. They talk the talk but would never fully want to walk their walk.

"Get out of your Fox Box"

That's sadly typical of the liberal *response* to anything. In my experience, they almost never even bother to engage with the specific facts you bring up. Usually, they shy away from saying outright (for example) - "That's a lie. WP is an outlawed weapon of mass destruction." The response is usually something sneeringly dismissive, followed by a rapid changing of the subject: "Get out of your Fox Box. And what about Abu Ghraib! Plastic Turkey!"

I'm actually somewhat hopeful this will change in the long term. Enough battering by reality, and I think delusional worldviews *have* to snap, eventually. And they'll use the old lefty "rewriting history" techniques like they did with the Cold War ("We were with you all the time!")

And even if they aren't shocked back into reality, I think the danger that they can actually persuade a majority of the voting population has long passed. It's annoying, and not good, that they can still affect 30-40%, but probably not a mortal danger to the Republic.

I don't know Sean.
While the divide is growing, the American identity is currently too strong. It ain't like the 1850s where people were Marylanders or Missourians first, Americans second.

Of course the former Confederacy is the spot where the American identity is weakest (speaking as a proud Texan who hasn't spent more than 6 months in the state :), however the fact that the South is finally starting to control the wheels of governance puts a brake on any neoConfederacy.

Ace,

Excellent post. But I would take it one step further, at least with the leftists I know.

I find them to be trapped in a self-created bubble which contains 3 things - (i) political correctness, (ii) dislike/disdain/hatred of the US, the military, Republicans, Christians, Israel etc. and (iii) misinformation they've recieved from the media. As a result they no longer know what reality is, but instead insist reality is what they want it to be. As the disconnect between their views and actual reality grows, they become more and more paranoid (see their fixation on Karl Rove), angry (see their irrational hatred of President Bush) and absolutist (see their intolerance of dissent and their willingness to call names).

The Left has become the new John Birch Society - they use different code words, but their way of 'thinking' and viewing the world only through the prism of their misconceptions leads to a very similiar result - a bunch of hate-filled destructive cranks, who in the case of the left, unfortunately have the msm in the box with them.

The liberals say the same thing about the conservative media though.

Is there any useful historical parallel that can be used to predict how this might play out? What happened to the people who were in organizations like the John Birch Society (or, for that matter, the pre-WWII isolationists like America First?)

Howard:

I think there is obviously a strong American identity, but I think conservatives and liberals both think each side has betrayed the other's view of that identity.

Furthermore, while we may not have the same state-allegiance we used to have, there is also absent the overriding desire to maintain the union at all costs. At the time of the civil war, there was tremendous pressure to maintain the Union, only 80 years old. Nobody

What tied the Union together back in the 1860s? One side desperately wanted the Union to continue: Lincoln didn't want the guy to forever be known as "the president who lost the union", and threw out the constitution to maintian it. Republicans (back then) wanted slavery abolished, and needed a central government to enforce abolition.

Today, with both sides culturally disconnected from and disgusted with each other, it seems like an amicable breakup would be received well by both sides. There was already a (largely impotent) drive for secession by liberals after W was re-elected. They genuinely believe that they would make out much, much better in a secession. I'm not one to disabuse them of such a notion, and it's generally agreed that they would never listen to me anyway.

As conservative-minded Americans tune out of the liberal-minded mainstream media, they naturally tune into more conservative-oriented media, where an appeal for secession is far more likely to be heard, and framed supportively. Similarly on the left.

It dissolution likely? At this point, it's just speculation with a very low likelihood. But that likelihood increases with every passing year, in my opinion, as we become more and more culturally divided. I would never have thought this, even during the heated 2000 election. But now, it makes sense.

Secession's not practical unless political ideologies are largely geographically coherent. Otherwise, you run into the problem illustrated when David Cross tried to create independent countries for each ethnic group in the "Mr. Show" episode "Operation: Hell on Earth": you can't figure out where to put "Homorabia" and still give "New Africa" a nice beach.

Right now, despite all the talk of blue and red states, the Right and Left are actually less clearly divided geographically than at almost any time in the nation's history. Thus, while the separation of media may have many ill effects, dissolution of the Union is not a plausible consequence.

I'm all for you idiots leaving, the sooner the better.

I first learned of blogs like AOSHQ and LGF during Rathergate. I REFUSED to believe the bad stuff about our country's efforts in Iraq, and I didn't believe the President had slacked his TANG service. The MSM lost me forever when I realized how unreliable it was.

Bottom line: conservatives don't believe the bad stuff out without substantial proof. Liberal believe the bad stuff because they take in on faith, what little they have.

I'm all for you idiots leaving, the sooner the better.

Yet another example of what passes for reasoned discourse from Liberals.

Pompous

Even the Democrats in Texas or Tennessee would lynch you if you tried to levy state income taxes on them.

In New York and California, public sector unions are some of the best compensated workers around, and Republican districts constantly raise their own local taxes to pay for those bills without much more than a token whimper of protest.

Southern Democrats are generally religious and oppose abortion. Pro-abortion, big government Northeast Republicans wouldn't get elected in southern Democratic towns if they ran for dog-catcher.

There is more ideological cohesion in the different parts of the country than people realize. Something will eventually come along and make people realize it.

As I said, it's not likely now, but give it a few years. Something that was unthinkable 5 or 6 years ago is on people's lips today, and is not seen as TOTALLY undesirable by either side.

"Yet another example of what passes for reasoned discourse from Liberals."

A number of people have been whining that we can no longer even talk to each other.

I agree.

Let's move on.

I'm all for you idiots leaving, the sooner the better.

Bluemerica, land of the 70% tax rate, $20.00 minimum wage(but no businesses to pay it), no guns (except for the illegal ones), healthcare for all (when available), government paid abortions on demand (always available), reparations, racial preferences, 25 different PBS channels, nuclear plants(maybe), limited oil drilling (definitely), Christmas and Easter (not on your life).

The Blue States pay more into the coffers than the Red and then we have to put up with Redneck Hillbillies running the country.

Good luck, get lost.

re: The NSA listening program.

I heard an interesting fact on Tony Snow's radio show the other day. Most foreign governments don't require warrents for phone taps by law enforcement. At least not for international calls. So when you call abroad or recieve a call from abroad you have no expectation of privacy, thus "privacy rights" can't have been violated. This from an FBI agent with 26 years experience.

Unapologetic Liberal: I admire your unwillingness to placate. I'm sure you'll find a similar unwillingness here directed at you.

Just think of Redmerica, and it's offer of 0% Corporate taxes, where the big tax debate would be whether we should have a flat income tax or a consumption tax.

Imagine the gigantic sucking sound as any and all industry still in Blumerica rushes out of New York and California. Blumerica would be forced to reduce taxes and bureaucracy in order to compete at all.

It would be tough love, but the liberals would learn the value of lower taxes.

Sean, this too shall pass. It reminds my of Huntly/Brinkley wondering why there were so few Republicans. Their guess? Republican married couples sleep in separate beds! I was born in the 50s, and grew up in an atmosphere of distain for American. I never dreamed I would ever see widespread patriotism in my lifetime. The outpouring of patriotism after 9/11 shocked me. Liberal voices are loud and shrill, but lack real power. And, like I said, they don't make enough babies.

Why don't the liberals who want to leave just move to Canada? It's got everything they want, right?

There is more ideological cohesion in the different parts of the country than people realize. Something will eventually come along and make people realize it.
Posted by Sean at January 4, 2006 04:23 PM

Bingo. For many politically minded people the only thing keeping us one country is that no one has thought of splitting it up. If seccession was spoken of seriously, in a large enough setting, I think a slim majority of Americans might be all for it.

Basically, a gay, twenty-something, atheist web designer in Seattle does not belong to the same America that a fifty-something, Texas, protestant Christian, propane salesman does. The only thing holding us together is momentum.

The Blue States pay more into the coffers than the Red and then we have to put up with Redneck Hillbillies running the country.
Posted by Unapologetic Liberal at January 4, 2006 04:34 PM

You morons are the one's who make richer people in richer states pay, it's your own fault.

Fuck off to Canada - they've got no military, no soul, legal drugs, and a serious disdain for anything American. You'll fit right in.

"Fuck off to Canada - they've got no military, no soul, legal drugs, and a serious disdain for anything American. You'll fit right in."

Why would I want to do that? Besides you are the morons whining about having your own country. Why argue about something we both agree on? Get out now.

UL - the liberals have been PROMISING us since 2000 that they would leave if they lost their elections. We just want you to pony up. At least send off a few tokens to Canada... Babs, for example.

I posted a few days on the political divide in this country. Take a look.

Seriously UL, consider Canada. There you can be as dirty or as clean as you want to be. The ratio in Canada is three jerkoffs to one civil servant. Toronto is an expensive city, full of daddy's little girls. I liked it when they called me Daddy. And they did, too, because they were all hungry.

Dave I don't frequent the strip joints like you and have no desire to move out of my home. Let's just divide up the nation and move on. We'll take both coasts and you can have the stuff in the middle. Just let us know where to send the Iraq bills once you are set up.

Why would I want to do that? Besides you are the morons whining about having your own country. Why argue about something we both agree on? Get out now.
Posted by Unapologetic Liberal at January 4, 2006 05:01 PM

We weren't talking about leaving, we were talking about splitting up the country. You can have California, your beaches are one big ashtray anyway. And New England is full of crooked tooth, pasty, ex-British who were too frightened to move west*.

Don't you liberals have anything better to do than surf conservative sites? Shouldn't you be under a thrusting horse right now, getting your colon ruptured?

*my comments are in no way attacks on conservative posters who may live in blue states. I'm simply enjoying myself at your expense.

No way, we stole the election fair and square and you lost. You leave.

We can still end this on good terms UL.

UL

Dave, may have frequented strip clubs in the past, but in 2006 he wants to expand his horizons. So he's resolving to "read more novels. Spend more time in books."

But he has not, does not and will not placate.

UL, how come you don't frequent the strip clubs like me? Do the girls beat you up or something? Weren't they hungry?

Here's my bullshit political fantasy: The SF Bay area in California can secede.

They're already a communist enclave, let them put their grand experiment to the test of reality.

In this BS dream of mine, they be building a wall topped with razor wire ala East Germany to keep their gay, tie-dyed, pot smoking dissidents from fleeing into the surrounding counties.

And the surrounding counties do not disapprove.

The strip clubs are a cornerstone of our Republic. Without which we would not have the full pursuit of happiness. - Thomas Jefferson

If leftists only read their history.

I feel bad about talking to UL that way. I try to treat all liberals with respect, whether they're insane or not, I want to be nice and be like, “Wow, thanks for the attention. But get out of my face.”

"We can still end this on good terms UL."

Sure, by me and other Liberals agreeing with you. Sorry, that is not in the cards. I think you leaving is the best idea I've heard in quite some time. On that we can agree.

I think you leaving is the best idea I've heard in quite some time.

Who said we were the ones who'd leave? I like this place, I'm staying. You want me to leave, you can come move me. Or you can try. I'd like that.

We'll take both coasts and you can have the stuff in the middle. Just let us know where to send the Iraq bills once you are set up.

Since we will have basically the entire military and the nuclear weapons if the geographic and demographic split is as you wish, you can stick any of your demands right up your ass.

No way. I've got fantasy football to play.

What UL doesn't understand is that, through the wink of an eye and his cute little smile, Dave in Texas has now placed him in a predator-prey relationship.

---Thomas Jefferson

"I'm all for you idiots leaving, the sooner the better.

Posted by Unapologetic Liberal at January 4, 2006 04:08 PM"

When I posted that I thought that the left had morphed into something like the John Birch Society, I really didn't expect to have evidence of this phenomenon less than 1 hour after I wrote my post. However, here it is, quoted in full above.

At first the morons write this:

"I actually hope you're right. In my opinion, it's past time for Red state / Blue state Americans to seek a peaceable divorce due to irreconcilable differences."

Then they scream like stuck pigs when a Liberal says yes let's move on that idea, whereupon they tell him he should get out. Which is it, the secession, or just another reason to bitch and complainabout Libruls? My guess is the latter, they just want another excuse to moan and groan and cry about how unfair it is that not everyone believes the same stupid things they do.

Its true, guys.

After an electoral winning streak like this, and the mainstreaming of conservatism over the last couple decades, we really have no reason to bitch.

I for one am tired of the pessimism and finger-pointing.

I have not finished gloating.

It would be wrong to waste a good gloat.

Actually, LW you and UL arent that far apart in your views.

Except he believes that "it would be wrong to waste a good goat."

But make no mistake about it. It's his dating life, and he's unapologetic about it.

WEEEE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS

AND WEEELL KEEP ON FIGHTING

TO THE END!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

NO TIME FOR LOSERS
CAUSE WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

OF THE WOOOOORLD

heh.

UL, I understand... when a liberal isn't feeling good about himself and you combine that with his period, eventually he'll ask you if you like his body. I have to say no.

Then they scream like stuck pigs when a Liberal says yes let's move on that idea, whereupon they tell him he should get out.
Posted by Unapologetic Liberal at January 4, 2006 06:45 PM

You stupid prick, we were talking about dividing the country, when you wrote your first post telling us to get out:

I'm all for you idiots leaving, the sooner the better.
Posted by Unapologetic Liberal at January 4, 2006 04:08 PM

If you can't keep up with a simple conversation, why should you be allowed to vote?

"You stupid prick, we were talking about dividing the country, when you wrote your first post telling us to get out:

You horn rimmed meathead, if we split up you are going to have to leave our Liberal Paradise, and we are going to leave your Republican Casino. That means someone will have to get out. Since I am in a Blue State that means you, i.e. redneck hillbilly, will have to get out.

"redneck hillbilly"

Come on, you can do better than that.

I don't think he can Lee. Don't placate. Tell him straight up.

You gotta admit, though; "horn rimmed meathead" isn't half bad. Dunno what it means exactly, but it sounds cool. Actually "Unapologetic Horn Rimmed Meathead" would be a pretty groovy s/n.

When we divide up we're not going to do it state by state, we're going to do it county by county. That will give the 'blue staters' New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and the south side of Chicago, plus a few pockets of welfare drones in Arkansas and several clusters of useless academics.

They will then have to learn how to defend themselves. Bwaah Bwaah - I can't stop laughing. This post will have to be continued later.

We will insist on keeping half the nukes, just in case you guys ever want back in. If we can find any Republican soldiers, you can have them.

"We will insist on keeping half the nukes, just in case you guys ever want back in."

The 'Give Peace a Chance' crowd is not grown up enough to have any nukes or other grown men's toys whatsoever. However you will have Helen Thomas, the entire NYT editorial board, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Jonathan Alter, David Letterman and every member of Code Pink and PETA. With that on your side, you'll be safe because no one, not even the French, will 'want back in'.

"If we can find any Republican soldiers, you can have them"

Don't worry; they'll all have left before the 1st day of separation is over. And with all the soldiers gone, it won't matter that much if you hide some grown-ups' toys from us - because there'll be no one who knows how to use them.

UL, by now we've both came to realize that this has run its course. We had an absolute ball, but we grew up. There's no reason to fight this.

*Starts clapping, slowly at first, then building into a crescendo with the rest of the AOSHQ crowd*

Umm, Dave, I'm not sure things have run their course with UV just yet....

We've got UV boxed into about 1% of the country's geographic area, unilaterally disarmed and seeing Helen Thomas every time he looks out the window. And it's all by his own choosing.

But wait until he realizes that the internet filters installed by his Senatrix-President-of-Blue-Enclaves-for-Life Hillary won't let him access the Ace o' Spades lifestyle any longer. Then perhaps he'll see the error of his ways.

'Cause I've seen blue skies
Through the tears in my eyes
And I realize I'm going home

UL

We will insist on keeping half the nukes, just in case you guys ever want back in.

Already fantasizing about nuking us when we haven't even left yet? Tsk. And you call yourself liberal. And what happened to "no nukes" and your unilateral disarmament policy? Unilateral disarmament is only in effect when we're around, but when we leave you'll load up on H-bombs? I mean, WTF? It's almost as if you hate us more than you hate terrorists. No hang on a sec. I have an idea. It's exactly as if you hate us more than you hate terrorists.

"Secession's not practical" for the simple reason that considerations of foreign affairs govern considerations of domestic affairs. A great power doesn't maintain its power by cutting itself in half and producing a competitive neighbor. In 1860, the Union could have considered itself well rid of the Confederate states, but for the overriding considerations that allowing secession would have decreased the total power of the Union and would have produced a competitor on its border. That competitor could then have increased its security by allying with an enemy of the Union.

There have been sharp regional differences within the U.S. before, and there will be sharp regional differences within the U.S. again. No state is going to be permitted to secede unless (1) it's strategically and economically worthless to anyone or (2) the federal government is physically unable to stop it.

I don't think many of the discussants here need this explanation. Anyone who feels resentment at my seeming to teach you the ABCs should please understand that the explanation wasn't meant for you.

A wikipedia article on NRO listed the columnist as "Andrew McCarthy" which linked up to their article on the actor. I'm proud to say that I personally added a middle "C." to NRO Andrew's name, thus breaking the link, and ending one source of Andrew McCarthy confusion.

Please, please, no applause...

But seriously, though ... Is it REALLY the same Andrew McCarthy?

You'd make a better arguement there focusing on the first point raised about this being an issue of data patterns rather than invasion of personal privacy.

The NSA has always spied on US citizens but only in the sense that a computer has parsed your electronic communications in the same way that Google scans web pages. Nobody anywhere is silly enough to say "Oh I don't want those Google execs reading my webpage" because everybody is smart enough to figure out this isn't humanly possible.

If technology limited every phonecall to 10seconds (lets call it MotherPhone) based on the volume of communications ECHELON deals with it would take 1000 man years to manually review a single day.

Hence nobody has ever listened to your phone calls because it's just not humanly possible. Unless of course you're doing something dodgy. This is the one security tool where you can confidently state that you should not fear it unless you are a criminal of international interest.

It also happens to be hands down the most valuable intelligence ability ever possessed.