291
Cut the Failed Red States Loose: Why America Can't Keep Carrying the Dead Weight
(cmarmitage.substack.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
291 points (88.8% liked)
politics
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Yes.
They're hyperfocused on states rights. Fine. Here's the thing though - with rights come responsibilities. One can't claim the right to make one's own decisions, then dodge the responsibility for those decisions.
They.make their choices, they have to deal with the consequences themselves.
So they can grow the fuck up and join the modern world, or they can just wallow in their ignorance and incompetence. It's their problem - not ours.
with great states rights comes great states responsibilities
So instead of ignoring the fuckups of countries all over the world we are expected to ignore them here as well. Clearly ignoring the problem is not working.
Seems like we are playing right into their hands and sacrificing our own citizens in the name of politics.
The mistake isn't ignoring the problem - it's subsidizing it.
They're free to continue to be ignorant, short-sighted fuckups because we're there to bail their pathetic asses out.
If we're going to bail them out, then that means we're taking responsibility, and if we're taking responsibility then they're going to sit the fuck down and shut the fick up and do as they're told, because obviously they can't take care of themselves.
And if, on the other hand, they're going to do as they please, then it's not our responsibility - it's theirs. And if they can't bail themselves out of the trouble they've caused for themselves, that's their own fucking problem.
It has to be one or the other. Authority without responsibility just creates moral hazard. Either they have the aurhority, in which case they also have the responsibility, or we have the responsibility, in which case we also have the authority.
Fucking amen
I like this way of framing it because it doesn't abjectly give up responsibility.
It plays right into their Atlas Shrugged sensibilities.
I love it
Hmm, I like this approach. How about this though. When a state fucks up bad enough to need a federal bailout, and it has to be the states fault not something like a natural disaster unless the state itself either caused it or demonstrably failed to prepare for it (looking at you Texas power grid) then the federal government does the following.
First they decide how much they're budgeting to fix the problem. Then the State needs to decide if they're going to provide a plan to keep that problem from happening again. If the state provides a plan then the federal subsidy payments are done in installments and those installments are conditional on implementing that plan. If however the state either refuses to make a plan or doesn't make one that's acceptable instead that money is put into a fund that people can claim some amount of to cover expenses for moving out of that state and into another one. This could potentially go all the way up to the cost of buying a house in a different state, although they then actually have to move out of their current state including selling any property in that state or else the money gets clawed back.
This way the problem gets solved one way or another, either the state improves or else there are fewer people stuck in shitty states.
Seems reasonable.
Maybe, but on the plus side it's the ignorant, hateful citizens. Win-win.
That is just pure propaganda. They are not anymore hateful than you or I. They have been led astray.
I get it, othering is as appealing as it is toxic.
Are you fucking for real?
We are talking about literal white nationalists.
If they are still "astray" at this point, it's by choice. Fuck them.
So children raised in these environments, fed lies day in and day out are ultimately choosing to be a certain way?
Republicans don't care about children, why should I?
It seems that's not the only thing you have in common with Republicans...
Blame the people for being lied to just doesn't have that self-righteous energy you are looking for.
Yours is the unpopular but adult position that will ultimately get us past this crisis