...or is St. Patrick's Day a Republican plot to remind America of the evils of unchecked immigration?

Is there anything going on in the world besides the GOP primaries?

Why yes:

A recent survey (No, I don't know what survey. Look it up!) found that more than half of Republican voters in Mississippi think Barack Obama is a Muslim. In Alabama it's just under half. Two questions spring to mind 1) Did the survey poll voters in Vermont or Minnesota? 2) What the f**k is wrong with these people?

The first question goes to fairness. You get the idea that snotty pollsters from New York fill their slow days by surveying Southerners with questions like "Are you hayseeds really as dumb and ill-informed as Northerners think you are? Do you think that comes from a poor education or from marrying your first cousins?" The perception of ignorance regarding citizens of Georgia and Louisiana is a stereotype that should have died years ago. The South is the birthplace of Faulkner and Tennessee Williams; of Lincoln and Lee; of John Grisham and Johnny Depp. Except that Southerners, bless their bigoted hearts, never miss an opportunity to reinforce all the unkind things we already think about them. Observe:

Laurens County, South Carolina is requiring candidates for public office to sign a pledge that they have not or will not have sex before marriage, that they are not gay and (I love this) that they will not watch pornography. So, if you're not gay, is watching gay porn OK? This charming bit of silliness has reduced the pool of potential candidates to straight (or closeted) eunuchs with no internet service. One or two nuns might qualify but I'm betting again' it.

Florida passed a law allowing public school students to recite "inspirational messages" during mandatory school events provided the faculty is not involved. For those of you who missed your caffeine jolt this morning, this is a feeble, lame attempt to circumvent fifty years of anti school prayer rulings by the Supreme Court. Southerners just can't let this go. (BTW the Florida legislature also rejected a law that made it a crime for Florida legislators to profit from the laws they pass. "Welcome to Florida where graft is actually legal".)

The Texas anti-abortion law, recently sign by Governor Rick "my MENSA application must be lost in the mail" Perry is so draconian, Garry Trudeau felt compelled to use his Doonesbury comic strip to lampoon it. Naturally, several southern newspapers have refused to print the strips.

For the record, the official policy position of isitjustme is that while all Southerners are not dumb a large percentage act dumb. Telling a pollster that you think the President is Muslim or a Kenyan is dumb. However, I am prepared to accept that telling someone that you don't like Barack Obama because he's black is worse. Perhaps the people of the Southern States have learned something about image. It's better to appear ill-informed than racist. Maybe I don't have my facts straight but they are facts...sort of. It appears we have hit on the first possible inspirational message for Florida school kids:

"Thank God we live in a country where information is never an impediment to an opinion. The men and women of our armed forces have given their lives to defend my right to talk out of my ass. Facts are for losers. If God wanted me to use my brain he wouldn't have given me a gut. It this a great country or what? God bless the United States of America...and Go Gators."

...or is secession an idea worth revisiting?

Well here we are at the 150th anniversary of all that fun stuff that happened in 1861: the secession of the Southern States, the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln and the aggressive attitude of the citizens of Charleston, SC at the idea of having a Union fort in their harbor. Wow! If you thought politics was polarized and partisan this year, clearly you haven't been paying attention to Ken Burns. Note of irony: if the morons in the GOP who want to eliminate funding for Public Broadcasting had their way 20 or so years ago, classic programs like The Civil War might never have been made. Northern America would have continued to believe that the Southern cause was peopled by just a bunch of shit-kicking, slave owning dummies. Perish the thought! Such, my children is the role of television in education.

Still, the anniversary of the Civil War gives us the opportunity to ponder the mistakes of the past, to re-evaluate the decisions that shaped America after the needless deaths of 620,000 citizens. What could we as a Country have done differently? Is it too late to undo the unfortunate choices made when the U.S. was beginning to heal? As you can see, I have given this matter serious thought. Naturally, there are some easy answers to the questions. For example, no state in the South should ever be permitted to own a hockey team. Also, Northern States should not be required to pay for Southern border security. It can hardly be the responsibility of Ohio to pay for the security of Texas. It's bad enough we gave citizenship to Jerry Jones.

However, first on my list of things we can repair is continuing to tolerate South Carolina in our Union. Face it, they're a pain. Don't take my word for it. Look at the history:

In 1856 Congressman Preston Brooks walked into the Senate and beat Senator Charles Sumner with a metal-tipped cane. South Carolina was the first state out of the Union in 1860. They didn't even wait for Mr. Lincoln to be sworn. They fired the first shots of the war in April 1861 although shortly thereafter their planters high-tailed it inland to protect their black "assets".

They weren't back in the Union five minutes before they started complaining about black equality. They were the last state to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing equality to African Americans. It took until 2000 for the government of S. Carolina to remove the Confederate flag from the top of the state house. South Carolina was the last state to declare Martin Luther King Day a legal holiday for state workers. (Prior to 2000, employees had an option to take MLK Day or one of three "Confederate" Holidays.)

Currently South Carolina has given us:

Joe "you lie" Wilson. At least Preston Brooks had the courage to be identified. Wilson (R, 2nd District) shouted at President Obama from the relative anonymity of the House chamber. There is actually a reason we think Southerners are stupid. Wilson was spotted by the ten thousand cameras in the room and forced to apologize.

We also have Jim DeMint, junior Senator and senior asshat. DeMint treats ignorance as though it were a virtue. He opposes homosexuality and gay marriage because (are you ready) of the additional health care cost arising from AIDS related illness. He thinks it would be just fine if the US government defaulted on its financial obligations. (Economists are being overly dramatic in predicting catastrophe.) Naturally he thinks climate change is a liberal myth and he is leading the charge to allow Americans to continue to use old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs. (Actually I'm with him here. Those new bulbs suck.)

So, what do you say we float the idea of South Carolina leaving the Union for a second and, hopefully final, time? They can take everything they brought in...which was nothing. We will keep the border open for now and, they can visit the rest of us whenever they like. Just don't stay too long. We don't much like immigrants. If they like, they can use the Confederate Stars and Bars. God knows, we don't need it. If they want to shrink government, they can shrink theirs. Lower taxes, no taxes, whatever. Interested in reintroducing slavery? Well, 30% of the state is Black so, good luck with that.

I firmly believe that South Carolina would be happier as a separate country. They don't seem to like the rest of us anyway. Oh, by the way, we will insist they keep Steve Spurrier. After what we went through to get rid of him, it's the least they can do.