There's a new tradition starting to form in this country among a large portion of Blue State Americans. Its a new quad-annual happening. Like the Olympics or The World Cup or a birthday party for those unfortunate enough to be born on February 29th. What is this new and growing tradition?: threatening to leave the country if Whats-his-face is elected. You or someone you know has said as much. People, myself included, are feeling the urge even stronger about it this go-around. We use phrases like "but this time I really mean it," or "if my grandmother was born in England, I think I can live there," or "what's the fastest way to marry a foreigner." But before you offer yourself up to some reverse mail-order bride (or groom) service, I'd like to offer my opinions as to why I think people feel this way more strongly than ever, pondering the possibility of actually following through on this dalliance, and an alternate solution that almost came to be 150 years ago that I think we should reinvigorate.

The urge to get the F out of Dodge if McCain/Palin win this election is so strong for many of us for several reasons, but I'll stick to the most crucial reasons. Moreover, if I want my argument to be taken seriously, I will do my best to make my assertions with the least amount of bitterness or insults possible. Here goes: I don't want to live in a country full of complete ignorant, racist, stupid, wasteful, small-minded, gun-toting, religious zealots any more. It is just so incredibly, blindingly obvious that this country is on the wrong path and if McCain/Palin win, it simply confirms that the majority of the country is OK with this. Well, I'm not and neither are a lot of people. It's simply not the failed policies and laws or the ever increasing power of the executive branch that need to be fixed, but it is the attitude and manner in which we have been governed that I won't stand for any more. The intense secrecy even when it is totally unnecessary, a lack of candidness, and methods that are intended to divide, invoking non-issues that stir people emotionally, in order to stay in power. All evidence (you see how I am using evidence and not gut emotions to formulate an opinion? How elitist of me.) demonstrates that McCain/Palin will rule exactly as Bush/Cheney have. Lying over and over until people start to think it's true (The Bridge to Nowhere), unprecedented levels of secrecy (Palin's official emails on her Yahoo account), appealing to people's base emotions (anti-abortion, book banning, anti-gay, 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11!). The scariest thing is that instead of all of these tactics strongly turning people towards the Democrats/Progressives, like it has me, it has strengthened the Conservatives. The culture war is being won by the ignorant and I don't want to live in the same place as these idiots. Gary Kamiya said it best :

It's terrifying that so many Americans are so driven by resentment that they will vote against more qualified candidates simply because they seem "different" from them. For what this means is that anyone with expertise, unusual intelligence, mastery, special knowledge, is likely to be rejected by voters who are resentful of "elites." This constitutes a rejection of the very idea that it matters if someone is better at something than someone else.

Great, so we've established that those who value equality, rationality, civil rights, and merit can't live here anymore. Yet, after I've spent some significant time with this hot-headed, infuriating line of thinking and perhaps after watching a few episodes of "Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares" to calm me down, I always come around to asking myself, "is the United States of America worth saving?" Shouldn't I stay and try and fix my country rather than just relinquishing it to the throngs of anti-science, anti-gay, pro-lifers and the people (Republicans) who prey on them to stay in power? What do I owe the USA? I didn't chose to be born here. I consider myself a citizen of the globe and I should be free to live anywhere that will make me happy. What else can one expect out of life? Why don't I simply move to Denmark, the happiest country on Earth. All of their education and healthcare is paid for and they are 30 years ahead of the USA in alternative energy. Sure, they're a homogenous nation and that helps control conflict, but I'd fit right in, so that's not my problem. My esteemed colleague, Matt Toder, just got back from Buenos Aires where he met a couple who made good on their promise to leave the country after Bush got re-elected. He said he'd never met two happier people in his life. That all sounds great and I'm not about to hate on anyone who leaves this country if McCain/Palin wins, but I've got a better plan.

Instead of leaving, let's divvy the country up. How about it? The Secessionists of The South tried to do it 150 years ago, and judging by how things are turning out, we should have let them have it. However, this time things are going to be different. Instead of a movement built on the enslavement of other human beings, this movement will be built upon the very things for which the country was originally was founded. How about that for an elitist line of thinking? A new revolution built upon the exact same ideals as the first; freedom of speech, merit, knowledge, science, equality, privacy, etc. A nation built on Laws, not men or religion. The United States was NOT founded as a "Christian Nation," you twits. It was a nation founded by a handful of geniuses who happened to be Christians.

We don't have to divide this country by force using guns and bombs, we can divide it with our best weapons: lawyers. Let's just agree to disagree. Citing "irreconcilable differences" the liberals can file for divorce. Like any divorce proceedings it will get ugly and drag on for a long time, but in the end it will be for the best. It's time for the American Civil Divorce. We'll take a couple years drawing the lines and finance ways for people to relocate. The new country, America 2.0, would most likely occupy all the coasts except maybe the Gulf and leave much of the interior to the Old Country. The Old Country can keep most of the Gulf Coast and continue to suffer non-global warming induced hurricane after non-global warming induced hurricane. I'm cool with giving up most of the middle of the country as long as long as we can create a way to make America 2.0 contiguous. No East and West Pakistan going on here. We could easily divide the military too. I say America 2.0 should get the Marines and the Navy. The Old Country can keep the other 3 branches.  Once fully divided The Old Country is free to rename their nation The United States of Jesus as they have been always hoping they could.

Tim, you're an extremist! How can you say such things? I'm merely trying to illustrate a point. We're on a precipice here, folks, and I'm not ready to give up this country, at least not entirely, quite yet. I feel fortunate to come from this place because at one point it represented the best in Man. Though it has faltered often and is certainly guilty of atrocities and wrongdoing, yet at it's core there is no better nation. It was created to be a nation of Laws not Men and it was this ideal that allowed us to fight bravely for autonomy and prevail against a much greater power. That is what I love about it. What America can promise and it's potential. That if something is broken, we have the power to fix it because we are not ruled by a monarchy or clergy. We are ruled by laws. But that is all changing. Maybe it's simply because I'm alive right now, but I truly feel that this is precisely the most desperate point in this nation's history since 1776. 232 years later, on November 4th we will get to chose if this country will endure or if it will crumble. This election. This one RIGHT HERE! This is it. If we elect John McCain and his running mate, George W. Bush with a Vagina, then we are saying that we're OK with how things are going. If we vote the wrong way, we will be Rome. We will be Great Britain. We will be the French Revolution. We will be a great power that once again was founded on the greatest ideas and capacity of all that Humans have to offer only to falter again. That's how important this election is and if we fuck it up, it'll be time to break out the gavel.