Posted on 06/23/2005 1:56:07 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
It is becoming painfully clear that after decades of fighting and carping, the city of Madison and the rest of the state of Wisconsin simply do not get along.
Of late this point has been hammered home by the fierce city-state debates over the minimum wage, smoking bans and all manner of crunch-time hassles over the city's treatment in the state budget. But it is not a recent phenomenon.
It probably goes back further, but from at least the 1960s, Madison and Wisconsin have not understood one another. In the '60s, many out-state parents were loath to send their graduating high school seniors to college in Madison, where they would be forced to smoke dope and get pregnant and forbidden to get a haircut.
Madison became known around the rest of Wisconsin as the "People's Republic of Madison" and so many square miles "surrounded by reality."
Bob Williams, the savvy Republican politico from Stevens Point, summed up the 1986 governor's race between Tony Earl and Tommy Thompson this way: "Tony is Madison. Tommy is Wisconsin."
I have decided there is only one true solution to this problem. Madison must secede from Wisconsin.
The idea first came to me after reading something recently about the author Norman Mailer's 1969 run for mayor of New York City. Columnist Jimmy Breslin ran for city council president, and their campaign slogan was: "Throw the rascals in."
Mailer, operating under the misassumption that he could actually win, offered a number of position papers, including one calling for New York City to secede from the state of New York. Mailer called for New York City to become the 51st state.
My plan is a bit different, and I have modeled it not after Mailer's New York City idea, but rather a strategy pursued recently by Winhall, a town of 700 residents in Vermont.
Earlier this year, the Selectboard of Winhall asked citizens to vote on whether the city should secede from Vermont.
Winhall's leaders, however, were not interested in forming a 51st state. Having two U.S. senators from a town of 700 was not likely to happen, since Congress would need to approve any such secession.
Winhall's idea was to secede from Vermont - and join New Hampshire. It turns out that when Winhall was chartered, in 1761, it actually was in New Hampshire. It's currently about 45 miles from the New Hampshire border.
No one will be surprised to learn that New Hampshire's tax rates are generally lower than Vermont's. Still, when it actually came to a vote in March, Winhall residents elected not to try to secede to New Hampshire.
But the point is, if Winhall could consider leaving Vermont and joining a state 45 miles away, why can't Madison secede from Wisconsin, and pick a state to join?
It probably makes the most sense for us to secede to a neighboring state, but frankly, I have to say where our neighbors are concerned, familiarity breeds contempt.
I just can't get excited about the prospects of Madison, Iowa. I think it was the late columnist Jim Murray who noted Iowa is no place to be after 9 o'clock - in the morning.
Illinois? Michigan? Minnesota? It's Iowa all over again, but the sweet corn isn't as good.
The other thing is, if Madison were to secede and join another Midwestern state, eventually the same problems would emerge that are now making relations between Madison and the rest of Wisconsin so contentious.
After giving the matter deep thought - OK, five minutes thought - it is clear to me that the perfect fit for Madison is - drum roll - California.
True, California is almost 2,000 miles from here. But Winhall was 45 miles from New Hampshire. And California just feels right.
You want smoking bans? California led the way. The words I once suggested for Madison's official slogan, "We know what's good for you," have been embraced in California.
If we were part of California, our City Council would seem normal. Berkeley is Madison on steroids. And who can forget Sister Boom Boom, the transvestite who dressed like a nun in high heels and easily won election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors? Around that same time, a San Francisco cop, Bob Geary, got thousands of signatures to force a ballot initiative that would allow him to keep a puppet named Brendan O'Smarty with him while he walked his beat.
Geary's campaign resulted in this memorable lead from the Los Angeles Times in 1993: "Enhancing their storied reputation for quirkiness, voters in San Francisco narrowly approved a veteran police officer's request to walk his beat with a bug-eyed ventriloquist's dummy, unofficial election returns showed Wednesday."
For Madison to leave Wisconsin and join California would require approval from the legislatures in each state, as well as the U.S. Congress. I say that's no hill for a climber.
Storied reputation for quirkiness? California, here we come.
See? I told y'all that the REST of Wisconsin is NORMAL. It truly IS just Madison that's nuts. ;)
Diana!
Surely you haven't forgot about Milwaukee, have you?
Phew! For a moment there, I thought he was going to suggest Illinois, but we already have enough problems and anyway, there's already a Madison, IL and I don't think the folks there would want to change the name, and two Madisons in one state would be confusing. California is an excellent idea! But instead of going through all the hassle of secession, why don't they just do a population transfer? That way, Wisconsin could recover and make good use of the land.
Oops! Sorry Steve. I'll suggest that Milwaukee secede to the Twin Cities, LOL!
Madison could join Milwaukee; Racine; Kenosha; eastern Lake County in IL; Chicago; Gary and Michigan City in Indiana; Democrat-leaning Western Wisconsin; the Lake Superior counties in Wisconsin and Minnesota; Minneapolis-St. Paul; SE Minnesota; Eastern Iowa; and the Quad Cities part of Western Illionois to form a new, heavily Democrat, State of Minnillinouisconsindiowa (just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it). That would leave each of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana as heavily conservative Republican states.
Hey, hey, hey!
C'mon!
We got enough problems without adding Milwaukee!
LOL!
My first thought - take a good chunk of Milwaukee with you and you have a deal.
'Minnillinouisconsindiowa'. What a concept.
I like it. I keep imagining what the state bird of Minnillinouisconsindiowa would be, or the state song, or the flag that would fly high over the state capitol, Minnillinouisconsindiowa City, a great engineering marvel in its own right: a giant floating barge roving the expanse of the Great Lakes from one part of the new state to another.
No, really. I gave up drugs years ago.
Secede? No, expel them.
The truth is most Dems are not far-left libs, but whining, envious complainers who usually have one big issue they disagree with Republicans about...abortion, unions, jealousy of the successful. They have their share of hard workers, but they also have a larger amount of lazy, constantly complaining ignorati. The ignorati would easily sink the efforts of the few Dems who know that hard work creates wealth, not government programs. And when the far-left libs who would run the country go too far, as they inevitably do, the Dem segment of the population would either revolt and lynch all the lefties or just come back to sanity...the red country that is.
I got some extra room back of the barn - mebbe they should consider Idaho. Would they mind milking the bulls now and then?
Save some room for us down in Arizona; we're gonna need some place to go after it all gets annexed back to Mexico.
It's called Canada.
Keep it simple ..everything south of 21 goes to Illinois
The real WI gets the UP
No one who does not live N of Hwy21 can own property N of Hwy21
Anyone S of Hwy 21 must have been born above Hwy21 or have a blood relative born above Hwy21 to visit and must apply for a Visa
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Just funnin' ya. But how DO you post so much????
I graduated from UW-Madison. If this happens, I could tell people I went to college in California. Cool. ;)
Hey...somebody has to post stuff from the Dairy State! :-)
Madison, Ontario. :^D
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