So far, seven states have collected 25,000 signatures on petitions to secede from the United States. They’re all the usual suspects: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
So, I have a message for the secessionists in those states. You may make up a minority now, but you managed to persuade everyone else last time, so I want to nip this thing in the bud.
As an Illinoisan, a resident of the Land of Lincoln, the state that did more than any other to keep you in the union during your last petulant outburst from 1861 to 1865, I’ve got a message for y’all: go away. That’s right, go away. We’re not going to stop you this time.
First of all, Illinois is tired of you trying to leave the Union every time we send a really cool president to Washington.
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You were wrong about Abe Lincoln. Wrong! Since his assassination, 18,000 books have been written about Lincoln. That is more than anyone except Jesus Christ. Imagine what will happen after you give give Lincoln another 2,000 years. Steven Spielberg made a movie about Lincoln. It’s going to win an Oscar. You’ve played with Lincoln logs, or listened to Linkin Park? That’s our guy, too.
Do you know how many movies have been made about Jefferson Davis? One, and it was a TV documentary narrated by Gerald McRaney, the guy from Simon & Simon, who has two fewer Oscars than Daniel Day-Lewis. No respectable actor wants to star in a movie about the guy who finished second in the Civil War.
And now that our guy Barack Obama has been re-elected, y’all want to leave again, because y'all can’t stand living in a country dominated by multi-cultural voters and progressive ideas.
Last time we only fought so that we wouldn’t look weak in front of England and France. Now we’re a superpower, so we don’t care. And we’re tired of y’all embarrassing us in front of the rest of the world. You’ve been doing it for 150 years, ever since we took you back – Todd Akin and Allen West, we’re looking at you as recent examples.
Also, y’all are way too expensive to maintain. Those presidents you sent us from Texas started our last three wars. Vietnam, the Gulf War and the Iraq War cost about a zillion dollars combined. And y’all take a lot more out of the Treasury than you put in: Louisiana gets about $1.45 in federal largess for every $1 it pays in taxes; Alabama takes $1.71 for every $1 it puts in; South Carolina takes $1.38 for its dollar. Meanwhile, Illinois gets back 75 cents for every dollar it pays in taxes.
So we can finally buy something nice for ourselves once we no longer have to pay for your roads, dams and food stamps. Like a giant 800-foot tall statue of Barack Obama, in Metropolis, Ill., with his hands on his hips like Superman, looming over the Ohio River so the neo-Confederates can see it all the way from Tennessee.
When y’all are finally all seceded, you can turn your new country into the Second World Republic you’ve been itchin’ to become since for nearly a century.
You can ban abortion, Islam and contraception, and you can not only ban gay marriage, you can ban gays altogether. Y’all can execute all the criminals you want, even sixteen-year-olds who knocked off a liquor store. You can have one every week, on Execution Fridays. Heck, you can impose Prohibition and rescind women’s suffrage. It’ll be your country. You can do whatever you want.
Just remember, y’all’ll need a passport to see a Broadway show, attend an Ivy League university, or see “American Gothic” at the Art Institute. And this time, the breakup is final!
