Citizens from 20 U.S. States File Petitions to Secede

[Clydefrosch]

lol. let them go, let them try.
then invade them just like old times.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

All this talk about Texas being bigoted...they're not even the most bigoted state in the US.

Where America's Racist Tweets Come From

Please don't be Georgia, please don't be Georgia, please don't be Georgia.....fuck.
We're not the worst, but still; fuck.

 

[BORTZ]

I think America needs to step back and see that we really arent THAT divided. While the morons over at imgur compile a map of the counties that "won"

But that map is very misleading too. Republicans won all the low populated places which makes the map overwhelming red. But everyone knows that the democrats won the house. How close were we reallly?

look. There are no "red" states. there are no "blue" states. They are mauve. purple. We are pretty even here. Our country needs to stick together. And one of my favorite quotes of all time. "If we dont all hang together, we will surely hang separately." For all of you wanting to secede from the US of A, i think its time we realized we are all in this together. I might not agree with the people in office right now, but damn it we live in a free land and still the best country on earth. Division isnt gonna do any good for anyone.

 

[Minox]

Seriously?
Dividing the nation again won't solve it's problem, in fact it might actually make them worse.
I think people need to grow up instead of ragequitting on America the moment something doesn't go according to their plan.

It probably wouldn't solve any of your issues, but it could possibly mean that the US would be too occupied to bother the rest of the world. That's not to say I wish for that to happen, but the US not trying to enforce their laws in other countries wouldn't be too bad.

That being said, it seems like a rather stupid reason for wanting to secede though.

 

[McHaggis]

You guys should go back to being ruled by the British.



















...I'll get my coat.

 

[Fear Zoa]

You guys should go back to being ruled by the British.

We're not that much different in all honesty.

 

[philip11]

That's what I say to this.

 

[Taleweaver]

Seceding really isn't that easy. And I'm from Belgium. Our Nortern half is completely different from the Southern part in just every way: we vote different politicians, have different governments, even have a different language. Oh, and no patriotic bullshit that holds it together. And if we would pull up a map with preferences, it would be FAR less mauve than what Bortzanator points out a couple posts ago.

But the main reason we stick together is that there's just no way to make it economically feasible to split. We're tied to the other half in a whole lot of things, and nobody really wants to open up the fuss of having to deal with the hundreds, if not thousands, of small things that need to be solved in order to make it happen. (okay, that and Brussels, which is a major city directly in the center).


In your situation...I wish I could say that seceding is a joke, but I don't know the US or their regions enough to know for sure. How self-reliant are they? Can they make it on their own? Can they handle all the federal facilities?
And worst of all: how much supporters do they REALLY have? Having a crapton of supporters on an online petition is relatively easy. How many of those are willing to hold demonstrations or nationwide strikes over it? And most of all: how many NON-supporters are there? If there's an equally large, equally fanatic portion of US-supporters out there, things could get messy. Even before the other states intervene.

Sorry if this sounds apocalyptic. Like I said: I don't know the US or their regions. All I'm hoping is that this thing doesn't escalate. Because "peacefully seceding" isn't easy. It's possible (see: Czechoslovakia)...but not easy.

 

[Gahars]

In your situation...I wish I could say that seceding is a joke, but I don't know the US or their regions enough to know for sure. How self-reliant are they? Can they make it on their own? Can they handle all the federal facilities?

And worst of all: how much supporters do they REALLY have? Having a crapton of supporters on an online petition is relatively easy. How many of those are willing to hold demonstrations or nationwide strikes over it? And most of all: how many NON-supporters are there? If there's an equally large, equally fanatic portion of US-supporters out there, things could get messy. Even before the other states intervene.

Sorry if this sounds apocalyptic. Like I said: I don't know the US or their regions. All I'm hoping is that this thing doesn't escalate. Because "peacefully seceding" isn't easy. It's possible (see: Czechoslovakia)...but not easy.

Let me go through your questions...

1) A few of the "serious" states here might be able to make it. I believe that if Texas was its own country, it would have the world's 16th or so largest economy. States like Alabama, Mississippi, etc. (many deeply red states that might be the "most" serious) receive a ton of Federal Aid. It's doubtful that they could survive as independent entities, or even conjoined with other seceding states.

2) It's illegal to secede from the Union. Not only did we have a Civil War over the issue, there's a Supreme Court case that makes this explicit.

3) The petitions needed (combined) have about 660,000 signatures. That may sound like a lot, but remember that the United States has a population of roughly 310,000,000 people. That means only 0.2% of the US is "calling" for secession.

4) I keep using quotation marks because, really, these petitions aren't serious. These are being signed by people upset over the results of the election, and they're using President Obama's petition system as a way of publicly expressing that disappointment. That's about it, really.

Are there people serious about seceding? Probably, but that would be an incredibly small minority of an already incredibly small minority.

TL;DR: You're giving these petitions too much credit.

 

[Taleweaver]

Thanks for the reply. That indeed gets things more into perspective.

My only remark is with nr. 3. It's not really 0.2% of the population because not everyone is seceding. The percentage of the involved states would be a much better indication of how seriously to take it.
But with Texas's populace of 25 500 000, Alabama as 4 800 000 and Mississippi as 3 000 000, the petition is reaching out to roughly 2% of the inhabitants (actually less, as I'm not counting all those states).

But while that number is in the area of 10 times as big, it's still FAR from any alarming phase.

 

[Gahars]

Thanks for the reply. That indeed gets things more into perspective.

My only remark is with nr. 3. It's not really 0.2% of the population because not everyone is seceding. The percentage of the involved states would be a much better indication of how seriously to take it.
But with Texas's populace of 25 500 000, Alabama as 4 800 000 and Mississippi as 3 000 000, the petition is reaching out to roughly 2% of the inhabitants (actually less, as I'm not counting all those states).

But while that number is in the area of 10 times as big, it's still FAR from any alarming phase.

All 50 states have petitions to secede from the Union, so while some petitions are far more popular than others, that's why I decided to group them all together.

 

[DSGamer64]

...why?

Y'know what happened last time when America was divided into two vastly different fronts with completely different ideals? A civil war.

They should organize a public vote - if the states want to leave, let them leave - they have a right to do so. The U.S is a federal state, the states have a right to self-govern themselves to an extent.

Evidently there are many people in America who still share those same ideals over 200 years later, they are called Republicans. Let them stew, let them think that separating from America will do anything, no individual state has anything to offer the world aside from states like Texas which produce oil, there would be no economic structure in many independent little nations. It would be a giant clusterfuck of people similar to what Peter Griffin did in that one episode of Family Guy where he creates his own country inside America.

 

[retKHAAAN]

Keep in mind a few things when imagining Texas as an independent state:

1. They are a border state, meaning, they'd be solely responsible for policing said border.
2. There would be no more federal taxation, which may sound like a good thing, but which means that all of the federal money funnelled into the state for infrastructure, government subsidies (see crop-sharing, school lunch programs, etc...) would disappear. The state would likely be prompted to raise taxes in order to keep up.
3. The state government would have to be re-built from the ground up. Responsibilities will change dramatically with no government oversight.

 

[Taleweaver]

That's not much to reimagine, actually:
1. no matter which state secedes means there will be a border. And if Texas is really that rich, it'll probably mean they're going to treat US-civilians in the same way as Mexicans.
2. of course local taxation will go up to compensate for the things the US federal government brought to Texas. The thing is that it won't go up AS MUCH. Federal money is spent wherever it is needed, and those are more often the poorer states. If you start perceiving your own state as the one who has to support everyone else, that can lead to problems ("why do WE have to pay for the damages Sandy caused?").
3. Rebuilt? Yes. From the ground up? No. There already is a local government. Those guys will get a crapton of extra work and there will be quite chaos for a while. But it's not THAT hard. And America has a fine tradition of telling other countries how to run things, so it should be a piece of cake!



...okay, that last remark was a bit cruel (sorry). But I couldn't resist it.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Just what we need. Split the US into two, like North/South Korea, and then engage in our own little war of Democrats vs Republicans......sounds like an mobile game.

 

[Fishaman P]

Equivalent title: 20 U.S. citizens file petitions for passports.