Maybe any state that seceded and still makes official use of the Battle Flag of the Confederacy should be expelled from the United States.

Symbols of the Confederacy remain on the license plates of nine states: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. That should be enough of an offense for them to be kicked out. Throw Arkansas and Texas in for good measure. The Arkansas flag bears a resemblance to the Confederate flag -- and everyone knows Texans want to go back to having their own country. Let 'em.

All right, maybe expulsion of the entire populace of those states wouldn't be in order. How about a 50% increase in the federal tax rate for anyone who's a descendant of a slaveholder? And a 50% tax on their net worth. All proceeds could be distributed to descendants of slaves. That could be a pretty good start, eh? Especially on the 1% -- I have some other ideas on that.

What I want to do each and every day for the rest of the year is kick the South and Southerners in the teeth. After all, white conservatives from the South are sub-human for all practical purposes. Especially old white men. The faster we're rid of all of them the better off we are. ...

Wait a minute, I'm an old white man myself. Better rethink that. Someone might assume I'm a conservative because of my age and color and want to withhold medical care from me. I'd die within a month without my prescription meds. Ah, well, I've been in the donut hole for a while now -- have no idea how I'm going to come up with money to pay for my prescriptions for the rest of the year.

Damned near killed myself last year when a doctor told me to quit taking any medications that she hadn't put on my list of meds when she discharged me from the hospital. That was after a bout with acute kidney failure. Took only a week without my high blood pressure medication for my blood pressure to skyrocket up to 213|86. I was lucky to get to the emergency room before it got any higher and I had a stroke and died.

Lesson learned: Don't be a fool and follow the instructions of a hospitalist when you're discharged from the hospital. See your own doctor as soon as possible and let her tell you what medications to take. How I unlearned what I had learned from my wife's literally dozens of hospitalizations is beyond me. I knew how many mistakes hospitalists make, yet I forgot when it came to my own medications. The record for discharge medication mistakes with my wife was six. Her cardiologist almost went through the roof when I called him and told him the hospitalist had taken her off a medication he prescribed. Another hospitalist tried to take her off drugs one of the best cancer institutes in the country had put her on.

In case you're unaware of it, doctors' egos can kill you.