Editorial
Conservative mass migration?
Are conservatives making a mass migration to conservative States? Will that change the government, or replace one problem with another?
The mass migration argument
Michael Medved, writing in Town Hall, suggested that conservatives really are making a mass migration. He based that on the 2010 United States Census report. That report seems to show that liberal States are losing people, while conservative States are gaining. The best evidence for that is the assignment of Representatives in the House:
- For the first time in several decades of the Census, California will not gain Representatives.
- New York and Ohio will lose two House districts each; New Jersey will lose one. Texas will gain four House seats.
What does this mean?
Medved says that the mass migration will present a practical problem for Barack H. Obama and his allies. He supposes that Republicans will gain more seats in the House, because conservatives, by moving to conservative States, will have the chance to vote for more conservative Representatives. This might not be correct. New Jersey, for example, might go from a 7-6 Democrat advantage to a 7-5 advantage. The Redistricting Commission might simply divide the few remaining conservatives among a group districts with already lopsided liberal majorities. The same might hold in New York—though Anthony Weiner’s old district might “flip” on account of his scandal. But that is a special case.
More likely, the Electoral College will lean Republican, more so than it does today. (That’s all the more reason to oppose plans to form a multi-State compact to tie the Electoral College to the nationwide popular vote.) The Senate will not change. Liberal States will stay liberal, and conservative States will stay conservative. The only change will be to change “leaning” to “solid” in each State’s case.
So what you will have is a conservative House, a liberal-leaning or toss-up Senate, and a conservative President likely to win re-election.
What conservatives really need
Conservatives really need to change the hearts and minds of their neighbors. When they move out, those they leave behind will cling stubbornly to their liberal beliefs. Their States will likely get into worse financial trouble as a result—but what then? When the House refuses to “bail out” those States, they’ll likely sue to force the other States to bail them out. Presidents appoint judges, of course—but a liberal Senate will refuse to confirm any judges or Justices that would be likely to throw out such lawsuits. (States may not sue each other in federal court, but they may still sue the federal government.)
Which is why grassroots education is so important. A peaceful conservative revolution can never succeed until several solidly liberal States “flip.” Mass migration will not make that happen.
Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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What will happen is that a bunch of conservatives states will get tired of being bossed around and dragged down by liberal states. Eventually things will come to a boil and a revolution will start. If conservatives start moving to conservative states, then liberals will probably start moving to liberal states. It will be another civil war. Liberals will undoubtebly run their states into the ground with their economic and social policies. Conservatives, on the other hand, will build theirs up. Liberals will lose any voice they have when their states inevitably devolve into chaos and the federal government will lose its force. At that point power can either be seized or the liberal states can simply be discarded.
What you probably are describing, is a variation on the Atlas Shrugged scenario. Instead of a single, hidden colony, you foresee several societies, in open alliance. A fascinating concept.
What ever the outcome, it’s already happening and will continue. Liberal states tax high and make new business ventures difficult. Conservative states are more business friendly (with less taxation and fewer “entitlements”), much less invasive on the private sector, and certainly, much less strident and hysterical about liberal stupidities that suck the financial blood of the residents. Michigan is “belly up” and population growth has been only by 2 million in the last 30 years…..people have been moving out as soon as they see and read the writing on the wall. California’s population growth has been based on the influx of illegals….everyone else that can leave has been leaving to escape the tax burden, high crime and crazy libtard attitude. Liberal areas will become increasingly burdensome to the federal government as their tax base erodes to other states. Take Detroit as an example. In it’s heyday, Detroit was a vibrant major city of 1.9 million…..now, the population has sunk to a very “needy” and “entitled” population of 700,000. A perfect example of what the socialist policy and anti-white racism in that city has done for itself. oopsie! The people who used to pay the bills left….and now the city has to beg the state and the fed for handouts to fulfill the “entitlements” that the dems/liberal/socialists have promised. Watch for a big-assed riot in Detroit in the Spring when the money runs out and the “entitled” take to the street for “deys money”. Once they get done burning down what’s left of DEtroit, they’ll head for the ‘burbs. Eventually, certain states where liberal policies have stiffled busness growth and lost their tax bases will go the way of Detroit, and who knows where that will lead for some formerly prosperous states that will sink to the “Detroit level”.
California is an interesting case by itself. I wonder whether California will soon hold a plebiscite as to whether to add Alta to its name and join Mexico. Then again, I wonder who in Mexico, besides La Raza (“The Race”) and the Aztlan Chicano Student Movement (MEChA), would want their “Alta California” today.
“Conservatives really need to change the hearts and minds of their neighbors.” This is why you’ve made all comments go through a moderation process?
These other comments are flights of fancy. “Red” states and “Blue” states are both in debt across the board, so claiming that one political party or the other is to blame is silly. The claim that liberal states are somehow anti-business doesn’t make much sense either. The northeast (liberal) generates a much larger percentage of the GDP than does the south (conservative), and in fact, the south is largely reliant on the rest of the country for the disproportionately large amount of federal tax dollars those states receive.
What puzzles me, is that immediately after a beautifully intelligent sentiment that people across the political spectrum should put aside their differences and begin a productive dialog, there’s all of this talk that the nation should be split apart so that the conservative states can watch liberal states fail (which is problematic for reasons listed above). I’m confused by this, do you want a dialog between neighbors leading to reconciliation, understanding and the beginning of the reconstruction of the neighborhood, or would you rather watch your liberal neighbor’s house burn down?
I moderate all comments because I need to catch certain things that don’t contribute to the dialog. Things like vile language, slanders, and enough spam to feed an army. (Especially messages containing nothing but random assortments of letters and numbers. Now that’s spam.)
You left out one thing: a debate cannot take place unless both sides agree on fundamentals. And those fundamentals include respect for individual life, liberty and property. I don’t think that liberals have any respect for anyone’s property except their own.
To take up your last analogy: by the time the liberal’s house has caught fire, he has driven the conservative out of his own house and indeed out of the neighborhood. So the conservative isn’t around to watch anymore. And how often is anyone supposed to put out a fire in his neighbor’s house, if that same neighbor turns out to be playing with flammables and firebrands?
Nice, and to the point!
What may also be happening is that ‘red’ states get nodes of ‘purple’ infections, as blue state residents leave their failed socialist paradised (Starnesvilles) for the only remaining and available economic opportunities.
Unfortunately, they forget to leave their voting patterns behind, so you get weird pockets of NPR alternate reality towns in the middle of ‘normal’ America. Examples: Austin TX, Boulder CO, & Raleigh NC.
Emmigrants arrive and begin transplanting leftist ideas: ‘What do you mean this town has no recylcing and no public transportation? And kids are walking around with BB guns in broad daylight! The Horrors. We need to ‘educate’ these barbarians!’
And that is where the battle lines lie: You’re coming onto *our* turf; you need to learn to live with *us* and get used to *our* ways. We speak English. We crumple beer cans and throw them in the trash. We teach our kids to shoot, for sport and other activities. Roads are for motor vehicles, commuting and freight, and the occasional emergency vehicle. Bikes are for kids, on the side walk. We can smoke in public if we want.
Agreed!