The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 47 percent of adults in the City of Detroit are functionally illiterate, with staggering rates recorded in some of the suburbs as well: Southfield at 24 percent, Warren at 17 percent and both Inkster and Pontiac at 34 percent illiterate.

(HT: Detroit Regional Workforce Fund)

I was just kidding with the provocative subtitle. The South should not rise again. It’s hot down here in August and getting up would require me to expend effort while putting down my ice-cold mint julep. I blog these things because I’m Conservative, mean, and…a Southerner. This is completely and totally different from the kind, noble and enlightened reasons that inspire people such as Thomas Geoghegan to write in the Wall Street Journal that Boeing’s decision to move work to a plant in Charleston, SC was a threat to American enterprise.

The noble and learned Toothless Tuesday Canon recently grew still larger in both volume and perspicacity. Better Off Without ‘Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession is Chuck Thompson’s kindly and avuncular attempt to explain to all us folks down Huntsville Way that ain’t done none of that-thar book-larnin’ why we should just take our hookworm-ridden feet and hit the highway. His love song to the land of magnolia trees and kudzu begins as follows. He poses the following quandary which I can only assume is rhetorical.

On the first page, the author wonders why the American electoral system must be “held hostage by a coalition of bought-and-paid-for political swamp scum from the most uneducated, morbidly obese, racist, morally indigent, xenophobic, socially stunted, and generally ass-backwards part of the country.”

Well shuuux, that’s a tough one, Chuckles. I’d consult Congressman Conyers from Detroit. Once he’s done talking you through that famous “Good and Welfare Clause” you can find right there in the US Constitution, I’m certain it will be as clear to you as a typical sample of Vice President Joe Biden’s verbal diarrhea.

Perhaps we don’t measure up to the ethical standards of Robert Torricelli or Jon Corzine. Maybe it’s our failure to show the fiscal wisdom of the State of Rhode Island. Or for that matter, our charitable giving doesn’t even compare to the New England Region as a whole as you can see on the chart below.

But we can’t secede. These Northerners in The Mist such as Thomas Geoghegan and Chuck Thompson are just too much fun to feed an occasional grub. So we’ll be nice and recognize that all 57 states are in this together. It would be unpatriotic to abandon our proud American brethren up in Oiho.

Thus, just because we care, we’ll continue working hard to make sure The South isn’t indicative of a decline in American Enterprise. As J.E Dyer patiently explains, the State of South Carolina will continue production in all of the following industries plus several more.

South Carolina also has a BMW plant, a Honda plant, a Bosch plant, a Caterpillar plant, an American LaFrance plant (fire engines and ambulances), and a Daimler plant, all employing highly-skilled labor to manufacture big, intricate stuff that has to work. That’s in addition to the Milliken, BASF, GE, Core, Bose, BP, DAK, DuPont, Eastman, Mitsubishi, Albemarle, MeadWestvaco, PhilChem, Roche, Mount Vernon Mills, Invista, Metromont, Johns Manville, Alcoa, Kimberly-Clark, Shaw, Jarrett, Mohawk, Anderson, AccuTrex, Sonoco, and Cox Industries plants..

The South will rise again. But it won’t happen through violence (such as what we see daily in Chicago) or stupidity Chuck Thompson, bless his heart, needs to be more charitable. The nut-job in Texas needs to stand down and perhaps finish off my julep for me so he can relax.

We are one people in the United States. We are one people whether we particularly like one another or not. When the South rises again, it will be a rising tide that lifts all boats. God bless America. God bless each and every part of America. Unity. That is all.