The Two Americas: Greater New York and the 37 states

By Bernie Quigley

- for The Hill on 3/22/10

I’m just a simple Ray Wylie Hubbard liberal but I’ve lost track of how Nancy Pelosi got to run the country. Someone from such a rare, esoteric, even strange and narrow constituency and one generally at odds with the main run of the country. But there it is, that aging Mod Squad skipping to work; she with that mad amphetamine grin, hand in hand with Steny Hoyer and John Lewis, singing Kumbaya. We were screwed when the Democrats started calling for rock stars instead of responsible executives.

The vote is the first material step in the division of America from one nation to two. There are 37 states in the one group. They are bringing a states rights challenge to the bill, called for by Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, months ago and advanced by governors Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Buddy Otter of Idaho. The other nation is Greater New York and it has two parts, East and West.

This quote from Alexis De Tocqueville posted by Eric Parks of Red State Eclectic might be considered representative of the 37: “It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the ‘right’ to education, the ‘right’ to health care, the ‘right’ to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle.” – Alexis De Tocqueville

Four things:

- What is historic about this vote is that the economic contention since 1865, Hamilton vs. Marx, has shifted now to contention between Hamilton and Jefferson. This is the way it was before 1865. It portends the end of Hamilton’s vision of globalization. Historian David Smiley, late of Wake Forest University and a legend in his time, pointed out in his lectures that when the United States went to the Hamilton position, the world followed. We could return now to Jefferson’s federalism, all of us. Futurist Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute is saying we will.

- While the New Yorkers advanced their arc in 1865 with Lincoln and Grant, the 37 states began theirs in 1981 when the South universally shifted from Democrat to Republican to vote for Ronald Reagan. The 37 states will now find their center. It will be Texas. Remember the Alamo. It is a Creation Myth.

- Poets have noticed that political temperament changes. As Emerson said at the beginning, we see ourselves ascending a stairs. But then we descend and it reflects in the character and abilities of the politician. That which began in New York with Lincoln and Grant with the Roosevelts in the middle, ends at the bottom of the stairs with Joe Biden, Pelosi and Barney Frank. This is the way the world ends, said T.S. Eliot, not with a bang, but with a whimper. But the representative art is great at the end, like Nurse Jackie (but dark, like Nurse Jackie).

- One of the big problems here with the Two Americas is economy. As in Europe, the hard working end up getting dragged by the laggards. Here the 37 states are mostly prosperous, rich in commodities and with a uniform work ethic. They are largely agrarian. Greater New York is a basket case, is bankrupt, and its historic work ethic was mocked to death. Now, what Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds calls the worst Congress in his lifetime (he is 50), is demanding that the prosperous Conquered States of last centuries support the dead beat Conqueror States. You can see how this would create problems.