A
reverse open letter could easily be written to the Blue States from the Red
States and it, too, would be elitist tripe. Get over it. The
Democrats will get their chance to run the country poorly when it's their turn
again.
Steve
- flaming moderate
-----Original Message-----
From: Rosie Bennett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 7:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Miss Desire' Valentine Gary; Kelley Berry; Kimberly D. Miller; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Caron Valentine; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Jasmine Gary; Kevin Varner; Hana Greenberg; Lauren Levin; Philip Allred; John Grigni; Dennis Hands; Dustin Pitts; A Richelson; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Matthew McNees; andrew fleming; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Susanne Kennedy; Joel Bennett
Subject: [QUAD-L] Fwd: An open letter to the Red States from the Blue States
An open letter to the Red States from the Blue States:
We need to talk. About us.
God, this is so hard to
say, but ... we
want a divorce.
I know, it's hard to turn our backs on such a long marriage.
We had a good run! Remember way back when, when we cooked up
a crazy little thing called a "republic"? Nobody said we'd last.
And remember when we saved the world from Fascism? Went to the moon?
Good times!
But let's face it: for the past forty years or so,
we've really just been going through the motions. The love that got
us through so much is gone. Sure, sometimes when times get tough we
stick together, but as soon as the pressure's off, we just start
fighting again. For decades, we've been papering over our differences
with compromises that leave both of us feeling cheated. Like, we ban
*some* abortions but not all of them. Or, we put *three* countries in
the Axis of Evil, but we only invade one. Or we lower income taxes on the
rich, but keep the capital gains taxes in place. Is that honestly
making you happy?
Because we're pretty miserable about it.
Now, one of the trickiest things in any divorce is
the division of property, but we think that we can be mature about it.
We don't need to divvy everything up along state lines, but it
seems pretty obvious what we can swap: we get Cleveland and St. Louis and
Las Vegas; you get Western Maryland, Eastern Washington, Southern
Illinois, and New Hampshire. There's details to be worked out of
course, but I think the lawyers can come up with a good compromise.
What's that? You don't want New Hampshire either?
I guess they'll just have to "live free or die" then! Oh, it's good
that we can still laugh.>
Now, the hardest part is the kids. The good part is
that most of them have already grown up and become independent
countries. We think that we ought to keep Puerto Rico though. You know they
don't speak English down there, right? I know you've never been
comfortable with that. On that note, maybe we'd better hold on to the counties
along the border in Texas and Arizona. That way, you have a buffer
between you and those Mexicans you have such problems with! Isn't
that nice?
I know this is making it sound like we're going to
get everything, but that's really not true. For instance, you can keep
the nuclear weapons. We have a feeling that you're going need
them a lot more than we are! And you can keep the flag, too, since you
seem to like it so much. We can design a new one of our own. No,
really, it's no trouble. We're going to be keeping most of the
entertainment industry, of course, but of course you can still watch our TV
shows and movies.
After all, you can't watch stuff staring Mel Gibson, Ron Silver, and
Bruce Willis all the time!
Divorce is always socially awkward, too. I'm not going to tell you
that you can't hang out with our friends, but honestly, lately you
don't seem to like them much, especially the Europeans. We know you
still have your best buds, the Saudis and the Russians, to hang around
with, though. You guys have so much in common!
Like a lot of marriages, this one was really hurt by
arguments over money. Now, I know you don't believe us when we say
we've been providing 80 percent of the tax revenues for years;
I guess we'll find out! Still, you're always talking so much about
self-reliance that we're sure you're not going sue for alimony. It'll
be interesting to see how you pay for your agricultural subsidies and
enormous military.
But let's not fight! This is how we really want you
to think about it:
you're not losing things, you're gaining freedom.
Freedom to do all the things you've wanted to do for years that we
wouldn't let you.
Just think: without us, you'll be able to bomb
whoever you want, and not even have to deal with protesters! You can ban
abortions, birth control for teenagers, birth control for unmarried
adults, birth control for married adults, and divorce! You can
put the Ten Commandments up in front of any and all public
buildings! Drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and cut
down all the trees in Yellowstone Park! Make school prayer legal!
Make school prayer mandatory! Make church attendence mandatory! Run
up as big a deficit as you can! Put pictures of Reagan, Dubya, and
Jesus on the money!
It'll be your country! Do what you want!
All we ask is that you don't pull any Berlin Wall stuff: you need to
let people leave to come over to our side if they want. And really, we
don't think you'd want to keep anyone who wants to
go: after all, you were the ones who came up with the phrase "love it
or leave it." We hope you don't get too lonely over there, but hey,
it's your choice.
So, to sum up: please don't be angry. Though we're
saying this first, you've let us know, in so many words, that you don't
have much use for us anymore, either. We don't hate you; we just
don't want to live in the same country as you any more. Hopefully we can
still be friends, or at least civil neighbors and trading partners.
But really: it's not you, it's us.
OK, maybe it's a little bit you.
Rosie
www.cafepress.com/anandarose
www.homepage.mac.com/rosiebennett
