Disband the Union!

In the middle of reading a book review in the Times on the Civil War ("America's Great Debate") concerning the debate on slavery in Congress a decade before civil war was declared, I had an epiphany.  Lincoln was wrong in trying to maintain the Union.  Southerners (there are, of course, many exceptions) are severely lacking in basic human kindness towards those who are different,  so why would any of us in the north want to be connected to them.  To take it a step further they are not much better than those we love to despise in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea. The south still condones slavery 150 years after the Civil War.  What's particularly ironic is that the south is home to the core of so-called born-again Christians, few if any of whom have a Christian thought in their heads.  I quote from the book referring to the loss of territory by Mexico to the United States in the Mexican War (1846-48):

Mexico, the loser, whose land the United States had ingested, had abolished slavery but Texas, a slave state, claimed a vast hinterland as far west as Santa Fe.  Southerners wanted new territory open to slavery, whether it belonged to Texas not.

We actually had to have a war to stop slavery, the greatest evil in human history, and an evil which all other civilized countries, including Mexico, had banned long before Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation and without waging war. And still we have southern states who insist on flying the confederate flag, the essential icon of support for slavery. (I should note that those who constantly talk about states' rights, actually mean the right of states to support slavery--that's where the rallying cry, "States' Rights" originated.) What good did it do to preserve the Union, when we in the north are subjected repeatedly to the dictates of the Christian right in denying essential human rights to our citizens.

To support my view, today in the Times there's a list of southern states who are refusing to adopt the new Affordable Health Care rules (let's throw New Hampshire in there and out of the Union as well) so that their poorest citizens (most in the south are African Americans) will continue to be without health care, and this with the federal government picking up the tab for most of the new benefits. 

Texas governor Rick Perry threatened at one point in his sad, ignominious career to withdraw from the Union.  How delightful that would be! Imagine never again listening to a Texan brag about his state, even better imagine the end of the Bush family in our government.  If I never see a pair of cowboy boots on a grown man again, or one of those ridiculous hats, I can die happy.  Really!