“Fuck The South” revisted

In the days following the 2004 presidential election, I remember the sophomoric rant “Fuck The South” getting wide circulation. There was nothing notable in it from a same-old same-old class war perspective, with one slight twist:

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you’re the ones who built on a fucking swamp. “Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shithole,” we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, “It’s your money, not the government’s money” is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least… can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they’re red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

The analysis of the flow of federal dollars looks sound to me (see here — I didn’t know I was from the state ranked dead last in federal taxes received vs. collected!). And it’s humorous that the author would take the Republican party’s rhetoric of fiscal responsibility more seriously than the Republicans did themselves. But it’s the notion that “we pay more, so we deserve to rule you!” that strikes such an odd note. I mean, here we are, four years later, and which states are going to DC cap in hand? If Michigan and California (and New York and New Jersey and…) are bailed out, would this rant’s author read that as evidence of northern inferiority? Perhaps the northern industrial states would have done better to support policy where all states’ citizens kept a little more local control of their own destiny. Or is it more emotionally edifying (even if existentially worse) to have someone else to blame?