I’m reminded of a debate scene in an episode of The West Wing:

Gov. Ritchie of Florida: My view of this is simple: we don’t need a Federal Department of Education telling us our children have to learn Esperanto, they have to learn Eskimo poetry. Let the states decide, let the communities decide on health care, on education, on lower taxes, not higher taxes. … What [Bartlet] doesn’t like is the federal government losing power. But I call it the ingenuity of the American people.
Moderator: President Bartlet, you have 60 seconds for a question and an answer.
Bartlet: … There are times when we’re fifty states and there are times when we’re one country, and have national needs. And the way I know this is that Florida didn’t fight Germany in World War II or establish civil rights. You think states should do the governing wall-to-wall. That’s a perfectly valid opinion. But your state of Florida got $12.6 billion in federal money last year – from Nebraskans, and Virginians, and New Yorkers, and Alaskans, with their Eskimo poetry. 12.6 out of a state budget of $50 billion. Now, I’m supposed to be using this time for a question, so here it is: Can we have it back, please?

Now, at least in FY2005, Texas got only 94 cents back for each $1 paid in taxes, so it may be good from their view to leave the union. But in general, red states have gotten more money than blues.

In almost every sense, no, not really. The rhetoric has changed from ‘these United States’ to ‘the United States.’ States no longer coin their own money. People think of themselves as Americans first, whereas in the 18th and part of the 19th centuries they identified with their state first. For better or worse, they’ve been dying a slow death as political entities since the Civil War.

Do states even exist in the same sense that they did when the Constitution was first ratified?

With 19 seconds remaining, he says “it’s about time somebody says that again.” It’s a plain as day, Jay; he doesn’t even try to hide it.

Buh Bye!

You forgot one.

9 No more border patrols. Tear down the border fences, that was a federal program.

2) for the last 6 years, I wanted my state to succeed.

Buh Bye!

Gee, I sure hope you don’t take Malkin and Reynolds and Hannity with you to a modern-day Galt’s Gulch. How will the rest of us get along without your genius? Please, please don’t go! And for sure, don’t take Lou Dobbs along, too!

Maybe a better question is why, exactly, Beck DOESN’T call directly for secession.

He seems to believe that it’s an option. Indeed, he seems to think it’s a viable option. A heroic, Davy Corckett-esque option. An option that would have been acceptable to the Founders.

So Jay, why, exactly, doesn’t Beck call for secession from the United States? Why is he not advocating that states take up this legitimate, indeed, courageous option and leave the union?

1. No more Homeland Security or ICE to round up their illegals

2. No air traffic controllers so they can’t fly

3. No more NASA

4. No more defense contracts

5. No more federal assistance for natural disasters

6. Nobody born in Texas can be President so Perry can suck it.

7. No more Medicare, or Social Security for their elderly

8 No more Federal Marshalls, Federal Penitentiaries nor Federal Judges.

Good luck with that.

Where EXACTLY does Beck “call for secession”? It should be simple. It’s 1:48 long. Just tell me at what point he does so.