Go. Secede already.

If you needed any further proof that southern conservatives have been waiting 140 years to refight the Civil War, the sudden resurgence of secession talk ever since a black man was elected president ought to seal the deal.

First there was Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who threw some red meat to the teabaggers (sorry) yesterday by saying that Texas may very well secede. Today it's the Georgia State Senate that's gone completely off the deep end:

In fact, Senate Resolution 632 did a lot more than merely threaten to end this country. It stated that under the Constitution, the only crimes the federal government could prosecute were treason, piracy and slavery.

“Therefore, all acts of Congress which assume to create, define or punish [other] crimes … are altogether void, and of no force,” the Georgia Senate declared.

In other words, in the infinite, almost unanimous wisdom of the Georgia Senate, Michael Vick is being imprisoned illegally, Bernie Madoff should serve no time for stealing $60 billion and the Unabomber must go free. In fact, the federal penitentiary in Atlanta should be emptied of its inmates.

But wait, there’s more.

The resolution goes on to endorse the theory that states have the right to abridge constitutional freedoms of religion, press and speech. According to the resolution, it is up to the states to decide “how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged.”

The resolution even endorses “nullification,” the legal concept that states have the power to “nullify” or ignore federal laws that they believe exceed the powers granted under the Constitution. That concept has a particularly nasty legacy. It helped precipitate the Civil War, and in the 1950s and early ’60s it was cited by Southern states claiming the right to ignore Supreme Court rulings ordering the end of segregation.

Finally, the resolution states that if Congress, the president or federal courts take any action that exceeds their constitutional powers, the Constitution is rendered null and void and the United States of America is officially disbanded. As an example, the resolution specifically states that if the federal government enacts “prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition,” the country is disbanded.

In other words, if Congress votes to restore the ban on sale of assault rifles, the United States is deemed to no longer exist.

This, your Georgia state Senate voted 43-1 to endorse.

Funny how the secession talk seems limited to the old Confederacy, isn't it? Even Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has made it very clear that hell will freeze over before he'll certify that state's Senatorial election, hasn't gone this far.

But at this point, aside from the fact that we would have a separate country full of religious nutcases right at our borders, and the fact that I have family in North Carolina and Florida that I would have to convert to the Assemblies of God and renounce liberalism forever to visit, would it really be so bad if the gun nuts and Jesus freaks had their own country, provided they agreed to leave the rest of us alone? The problem is that they are going to arm themselves to the teeth against us godless liberals, with our Farm Aid concerts and our Prius cars and our organic red chard, the better to protect themselves against the marauding bands of gay men and lesbians that they are certain are out to destroy their marriages. But aside from that, isn't it just possible that these people have gone crazy enough that we're better off free of them? Would it really be so bad to let them have their guns and their bigotry and their willful ignorance and their creationism? Let's throw in fast food and American Idol and Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly while we're at it. It would be paradise, or at least we would be if they didn't fancy themselves to be God's Own Christian Soldiers, divinely ordered to slaughter the rest of us.

Oh, wait....it IS spreading.

(h/t)