Secession
 

So in the depressed fog I was in Wednesday morning, I got to thinking about the possibility of a west-coast secession from the Union.

I think it would be really interesting to see the discussion provoked if a measure got on the ballot of a state to secede - I don't think it would ever pass, not yet anyway, but it would certainly strike some sparks.

For one thing, if, say, California were to attempt to secede, the rest of the US couldn't allow it. A civil war would be less costly to the US than losing California.

However, what if Maine, or some other small border state decided to secede? People wouldn't support a civil war, but neither would the government let the state go. Is there some sort of legal action the federal government could take? Would they just demand repayment of all federal money invested in the state, refuse to recognize the new nation, threaten embargoes, and things like that?

Personally, I think these questions are going to become more important - as has been posted elsewhere, we're deeply divided as a country and it's only getting worse. The evil political tricks practiced this last election is a sign everyone just wants to fight for power, not actually encourage democracy - things like redistricting, possibly rigged voting machines, shredding registrations, and posting threatening flyers. I don't see this healing - I think we're headed towards a split of some kind.

Bingle

We already fought a war over this. Regardless of the total lack of poitical will that supports this, the outcome would already be decided.

Whatever split there is at the moment, it has been more pronounced in the past. America will survive, for better or for worse.

Why would they succeed? They'd want the support of the US. Besides, the people of ANY state as a majority wouldn't agree with succeeding from the US.

I don't like Bush much, but there's no way in hell, I'd go along with this idea. Sure, we're divided, but we're not THAT divided.

I saw a funny map where it showed western Washington, western Oregon, Californa, and New England as annexed by Canada... Of course now I can't find it, but I'm sure you all have the imagination to see it in your minds and imagine it!

http://idisk.mac.com/glwebb-public/new_map.jpg

you mean this?

Gimme a break....now you're all just being dramatic.

I can see a time coming very soon where we may not have a choice BUT to break up the union as we know it today. As the deficit gets higher and foreign governments buy up our national and personal debts at a break neck pace eventually, those governments, such as China, will want to collect. The only way to get out of it and not become a foreign controlled colony would then be to disband. Whether it would be into a peaceful confederacy of smaller sovereign states that have centralized governments that band together to form a military or a warring factions of states each wanting their own country recognized.

Just to make sure people understand I do not mean "states" as they appear today but groupings of current states into larger "states". Such as the region of the Northeast (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and so on perhaps even upstate New York, parts of Pennsylvania, forming one regional state.)

I do not think with our current fiscal problems and some truly philosophical differences that we can maintain a strong federal government unless some changes and partisan compromises are achieved.

This will take time but at our current rate I believe we will definately see it within the next generation. If not the breakup at least a severe restructuring of the current US. I donot believe our grandchildren will raise their children in a country recognizeable to us at this present time.

It makes economic sense for the Blue states to secede. As it happens, almost
to a state, the Red states are parasitic in economic terms.
Link to photos below: <a href="http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/Maps.htm">http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/Maps.htm</a>
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<img src="http://me.to/svr013.gif"></center>

Cool, i won't have to cross the border to get to California anymore :)

Another solution would be to move more of the retired people, federal employees, nuclear waste sites, weapons test sites, federal prisons, military bases, national parks etc..to the giver states so they could take more of the government's largess.

Y'all feel free to seceed. It's been tried before, and y'all will NOT like the results if you do.

Based on his repeated use of the term "y'all", daswig might have an inside track there. ;)

Didn't we settle this nonsense about 139 years ago. Secession = not so much a good idea.

you are very confused.

recheck your facts on where retired people, prisons, federal employees, national parks, and military bases are located.


oops, at the risk of seeing some weird post listing all the places just recognize that these are located all over the damn place. in fact, there isn't much room to stuff anything like you listed in california or it'd happen

I think it's a lot more reasonable today than it was then. Look at Quebec. Canada doesn't threaten war every time they try to declare independence, they just laugh as the majority of people shoot the idea down.

for secesion to work the seceding states would have to work together, that would never happen. we wouldn't have to fight an actual war to bring them back. we hold enough power that the US would ban imports from california and we would use our muscle to force our allies into doing the same. slowely we would starve them to death and we would come out victorious. don't get me wrong i would love to see secesion. i would be the first in line to try and make a country the way i would want it to be. without so many people with different views great things could happen in my eyes. the pure ecenomic powerhouse i would build would be unrivaled. i guess i am one of the people that everyone really needs to be affraid of. :thumbsup:

The illusory appeal of dictatorship.

Just a couple observations on some of the posts I read.

Host, I don't trust a map that marks DC, but can't put it anywhere near where it really is :p

Pan, that was basically how this nation started. Under the Articles of Confederation each state was essentially it's own nation, allied with the others for common defense and foreign affairs. That failed, so the leaders created the Constitution.

Now, those were different times, so with the way the economies work now that may be a somewhat viable outcome, but I can't see it working.

Bingle, it's very simple. If a state were to seceed, it would be invaded and brought back into the US unless it could fight off the US military. A state like Maine wouldn't be particularly hard to bring back, unless it joined with Canada or something like in Halx's map.

I think there's a map on hannity.com that shows it's mostly the inner cities that vote liberal. I wouldn't mind seeing cities seceed, that would lead to some interesting stuff.

found it

http://hannity.com/img/usa_election_map.jpg

I remember when I used to be a liberal, ah nostalgia...life was good when you could blame all your problems on someone else.

Amazing that Democrats can only really win the far Northeast, NYC, Philly, Baltimore/DC, Miami, Chicago, LA, SF Bay area, Seattle, and parts of the northern and southern Mississippi Valley, and have the power they do.

it's what you get when people scramble to the inner cities to gamble for a chance of a dream job, only to find a majority of them will have minimum wage or unemployment. This results in a flux of people seeking government help more and more, which the democrats are more likely to endorse.

I like helping people, but a majority of those programs breed dependency and thus leading to more and more social programs, which ultimately cripple the future of or society and people. I believe that's what leads to the majority democratic vote.

Because of recent events (not just the election, but the cultural divide that resulted in the election's results), what might have been an almost inconcievable notion twenty, ten, or even five years ago suddenly seems worthy of some consideration. The Civil War forced two vastly disparate groups of states together into what once was the most powerful nation in the world. However, almost 140 years later, we hold a tremendous national debt, have a military stretched perilously thinly across the globe, will have insufficient funding for social services such as Social Security or Welfare in the near future, and are regarded as a nation of religious fanatics by large portions of the globe. I doubt that this is the great nation that the well-intentioned President Lincoln desired. In retrospect, perhaps we would have been better advised not to have sent millions of citizens to their deaths in order to retain a group of states who did not want to be.
With regard to the situation today, it is my impression that the vast majority of people who debate secession are doing so because they do not wish to share a country with people who have values and beliefs that are almost unrecognizable to them. Further, the "blue" state people also seem to generally believe that the "red" state people would be just as happy with out them as well. If I were in charge of dividing the United States into groups of secceding nations, I would likely divide the country into four (not two) segments, something like: "the west" including the pacific coast states, Nevada, and possible Arizona and New Mexico, "the northeast" including New England, New York, Pennsylvania Ohio (for contiguity) Mighigan, Minnesota, etc. (Illinois may have to be left in the cold, unless you could convert Indiana). You could then divide the "red south" into two portions (to prevent unweildyness), say east and west of the Mississippi, or something. I haven't really thought this out too much, but I do feel that if things get too bad, then I may consider it as a plausible option.

yeah, and we can form an alliance with the East Coasters:

NALE -- North American Liberal Elites

that'd be dope

yeah, can't forget NJ, DE, MD and DC!

Strange, the people in the cities that are most likely to get hit by a terrorist attack voted for Kerry. They know who makes their homes safer.

ya because the only reason any one voted for Kerry was because he was gonna make us safer :hmm: it couldn't have anything to do with their money situation

The blue areas aren't simply the big cities.
They are the indrustrial centers
The polling results said 60% of the people who voted Kerry
voted againt Bush, not because they liked Kerry
Mostly because of job loss and war
To bad they didn't just vote Badnarik
leaving the union wouldn't be good
a revolution is better at the ballot box(just slower)

On the contrary - I think it would be impossible, politically, for the US to invade Maine - all the more so because it would be such a one-sided battle.

The government can barely get a majority of support to invade Iraq - there's no way they would get popular support for the invasion of part of our own country. They would definitely use all sorts of political pressure to avoid the secession, but I don't think invasion would be a viable option in the case of Maine.

Also, even though it's true that it's mostly urban areas that vote democratic (and it looks mighty impressive to compare square footage of red and blue areas - if acreage could vote, you'd have a winner) if you look at the results of the popular vote for the last election, it's not that overwhelming of a landslide.

Note that I'm not necessarily pushing for secession - as I said, unless something major changes, I don't think people really want that. I just think it's interesting to consider in the context of modern times - I think it would be almost impossible to have a civil war now, unless it started as an armed insurrection. However, it would be equally impossible for the US to let a state leave...

Bingle

While I don't think succession is a particularly good idea, I think it is silly to assume it would be settled in military terms. Presuming succession were really popular enough in the states in question, a campaign of non-violent resistence would be pretty tough for the remaining states to squelch. All California has to do is refuse to pay tax revenues to have a big effect on the U.S. Any really widespread civil disobediance that was actually supported by the corresponding state governments would be impossible for the U.S. military to control -- we don't have enough troops for that. And killing people for tax evasion isn't going to happen unless the rest of the U.S. has really embraced fascism.

So looking at the county vote, it doesn't look like we (Canada) get California, Oregon and Washington after all. Just everything west of the I-5. Cool. Leave the guns at home. Bring the wine! Halx, you'd love Yaletown. It's our up and coming internet/video game/e-commerce neighbourhood.

Its the same country on Nov 2 as it is today.

You get your shot again in 2 years to turn the tables.

Until then the people have spoken. The same people that voted for Carter and Clinton.

I can't seem to find the best maps that I've seen over the past few days, but here is one pretty good one.

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/...004b_small.gif

Now don't take this the wrong way, big guy, But Gary Bauer and Ralph Reed were not turning out their legions of deluded Jesus Freaks (TM) for Clinton or Carter.

<i>A digression</I>
A note to the Christians on the board: by Jesus Freak, I mean a person who 1) calls himself Christian, and 2) finds Leviticus more relevant than the gospels, preventing one's neighbor from sinning more important than loving him, and/or actively works to bring about Revelations. These people are dangerous madmen. (And their women are equally dangerous.)

I do not believe there are any here who answer that description.
<i>We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread already in progress.</i>

yeah, occasionally one of them figures out how to cross the damn thing and clutters up our beaches. But we just show them the polluted signs and they wander back to their cow fields, mumbling some shit or other about city foke.

If you think this election was all about 'jesus freaks' who won it for Bush then you are ignoring most of the people who voted for him.

The moral issue concept is more of an excuse than a reality, even slate.com admits as much and there editorials are on par with democraticunderground.com.

Terrorism is why Kerry lost this election.

Tell you what... as much as I'd hate to see it go, the US can have Alberta and we'll take California,Washington, Oregon and the Northeast...

There's a lot of oil in Alberta... more than what the Saudi's have...


(then again, we already sold it all to the US when Mulroney signed the FTA...)

LOL...california can leave the union...it would be a blessing. The only think we'd miss would be silicon valley...the rest can fall in the ocean for all I care.

Well... maybe. I would say that Bush's support came from people who think that he will be good for business, and, as you say, people who he has scared the bejesus out of who think against all evidence that he is competetant as a fighter of terrorism. That is the bulk of his vote. Turning out the nutjobs, so they will maintain, is what put him over the top, though. This may or may not be true, but, much like Revelations, the Jesus Freaks will insist it is, and it's the thought that counts. That's the problem, he is beholden to them (not that he wasn't already, buty now he gets to frame it in terms of payback.)

And what the heck is it with a Mandate? 51% is a pretty feeble mandate. More of a Boydate. Sure he got more votes than any other president. John Kerry lost with the most votes ever. That a lot of people turned out is irrelevant to the calculation that only slightly more (and at the numbers we're discussing, 3 million is not that big) support that the other fellow, and once again, half the country is screwed to the point where we have a semi serious thread about secession (a nice idea, but a silly one.)

...clinton didnt eventop 50% guys

Historically a 5 point difference is a definite win in the Presidential Election. What's with the 51% rhetoric...No president has gotten above that in 20 years.

Yeah, all the Dems can win are almost 50% of the populace. Amazing they have the power they do.

Here's the thing; all those red areas are so amazingly underpopulated. I mean, damn near desolate. So while all that red may look real good or bad, depending on your outlook, the fact is that this country is still split almost 50/50.

I mean, if you just want to talk geographic size, Alaska is half the size of the continental United States, and red, but has less people than on tiny part of my home town, Chicago.

And secession nowadays is a silly idea. What SHOULD have happened is Lincoln could have told the South that they could seceed as long as they let blacks and Native Americans leave first. Then the U.S. could have developed without the money drain of the South...yeah, thats the ticket. I am being mildly facetious, of course. Mildly.

Lol I know you are being facitious but I'll comment on this.

For people who think that the Metroplii is where all the money is, please be aware that yes a larger concentration of wealth is from there, but the raw resources used to accumulate that wealth, the actual tangibles are from the scarcely populated area. The business owners, and the workers share a mutual relationship when it comes to that. Most jobs inside the city are "Decadence jobs" those that aren't required if lets say, a nuclear strike occurred. So respect your farmers, and rural folks, they are the foundation to our society.

Out here on the west coast, we have the best of both worlds: high tech, a fair amount of industry, _and_ lots of agriculture. A West Coast Republic, with probably Nevada coming along for the ride, would be quite viable.

Now, would/should secession happen, especially of wealthier area like the West Coast. I think only under extreme conditions:

1) Conditions in general throughout the US would have to be very, very bad -- economically, socially, etc.

2) There'd have to be the strong perception in the area seceding that they were being exploited or persecuted by the rest of the country, or were doing poorly along with the rest of the country for reasons or decisions that they never agreed to. They'd have to feel that they'd been wronged, were being exploited, and would be better off on their own.

Frankly, the U.S. would have to be near collapse for the positives to outweigh the negatives on a decision like this, so short of that situation I don't think it'd actually happen.

However, there is an intermediate position: the state does not secede, but cooperation with the federal government is diminished. The feds come in to, say, raid pot farms or rogue communities of revolutionaries or people operating abortion clinics (under a new anti-abortion Supreme Court), and the state and local government refuse to back them up. In that case, the state might still be part of the US, but with diminished allegiance to the federal government.

It's happened in my area. Last year the feds came in to raid a medical marijuana plantation (basically tolerated by state and local government) in my very liberal county. They were met with a barricade manned by sick people in wheelchairs. They called the sherrif for backup. When the sherrif came out and saw what was going on, he had some choice words for the federal agents.

About two months ago, federal marshals raided an illegal radio station here in town. They came to the house to carry off the equipment; most of the people involved are just college-town anarchists. Anyway, the marshalls called for backup, and the cops didn't come this time. They said they were busy. The feds got their stuff, but tires were slashed on five of their cars. They had to be towed away.

This kind of diminished cooperation with the feds could be the rule of the day in a state that decides to stop cooperating with the feds. The feds come by and say, we think there are a bunch of revolutionaries meeting up in the mountains evading their taxes and committing abortions, back us up, and the locals say, you're on your own boys, we're busy with the policemen's ball. The power of the feds would be weakened greatly.

No, actually, they're not. Most of the GDP doesn't come from agriculture any more (the link claims a mere 2%).

but do most of our products begin on a basis of farm items are raw resources? Which tend to be located in rural areas.

Many buildings, large structures built in cities, I can go to podunk places in Alambama that turn steel, concrete and stone and they would be the places that build the foundation of that building.

Seccession of cities would be fun because yes lots of money would be there, but there would be a stunning lack of resources. It would be almost like Japan.

Yup, and Clinton governed from the center. Best Republican president since Lincoln. Bush just scored a skootch over half the folks who voted, and sure talks like he won in a landslide. He needs to be disabused of that notion.

Not sure this is true. Through history, most cities have been built with resources from nearby: local stone, local cement, local brick and so on. In today's economy of mass distribution, the Alabama concrete might be cheaper at some city than the local product. But if the Albama 'crete wasn't available, they could produce it locally. I live in a urban/rural county just south of the SF Bay, and we produced and still produce vast amounts of cement, gravel, limestone, and so on for the metro area. The old Italian city-states of yore controlled quite large territories around the city proper, for food and resources. These areas were as dependent on the city, for trade and commerce, as the city was for their resources.

As for steel: from scrap, in the short run. And a constellation of city-states could trade among themselves. In my hypothetical West Coast Republic, on the other hand, there are enough active and mothballed-but-intact mills to get by.

In spite of your caveat that you're being facetious, I'm motivated to post a couple of things.

First of all, the cause of the war wasn't slavery. The cause was the increasing economic clout of the South.

The North was perfectly happy to sell slaves to the South. Northerners, after all, were the owners of the slave boats. However, a point was reached at which the south didn't need to buy any more slaves, because their slaves were having children.

Furthermore, a growing Southern economy resulted in Europe beginning to divert its shipping to Southern ports. It was this increasing economic hit that caused the North to instigate war.

For those who will try to say that the North undertook the war for humanitarian reasons, I offer the following:

Non-resident blacks were forbidden to attend public schools in Connecticut because "... it would tend to the great increase of the colored people of the state."

William Lloyd Garrison, as cited in Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Succession

New Jersey prohibited free blacks from settling in the state.

Massachusetts passed a law that allowed the flogging of blacks who came into the state and remained for longer than two months.

Indiana's constitution stated that "...no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state..."

Illinois in 1853 enacted a law "...to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state."

Oregon's 1857 constitution provided that "...No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of adoption [of the constitution of the state of Oregon] ... shall come,reside, or be within this state..."

Beverly B. Munford, Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Succession

"But why should emancipation South send free people North? ... And in any event cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?"

Abraham Lincoln, in a message to Congress, December, 1862

State /Year Blacks Barred from Voting
New Jersey 1807
Connecticut 1814
Rhode Island 1822
Pennsylvania 1838

Edgar J. McManus, Black Bondage in the North
========================================================
It should be difficult to convince anyone that with laws like these on the books, Union soldiers were willing to fight and die for the freedom of blacks who were not allowed to reside in Northern states. However, there's a ton of revisionist history out there.

Even the Emancipation Proclamation only freed Southern slaves, NOT Northern ones. It even exempted from freedom those slaves in the areas of the South that were under Northern control. Read it if you don't believe me.

Looks like not much has changed--we still argue about the true reasons for going to war.

So you wouldn't have a problem if Bush waged war by stealing food from women and children, and then burned their houses? Oh, he instructed his general to burn the fields too, so they'd starve.

Nice guy, that Lincoln.

Now that's funny!

On a more serious note, I'm still amazed that there is not more indignation about Waco. Military weapons were used against US civilians, the Feds were proved to have lied, and around 90 people, including children, were killed.

Nobody even seems to care about any of that. All you ever hear about these days is the Patriot Act, a minor nuisance by comparison.

I guess since Clinton was so much more charismatic than Bush, he'll just get a free ride on that one.

I really don't think that that would happen today.

Money trumps boarders every time.

Business is one thing, politics is another.

Hell, there were lots of American companies who continued to do business with nazi Germany into 1943.

Secession isn't going to happen. Revolution isn't going to happen. Civil war isn't giong to happen. It won't bother me much at all if any of them do, though.

Living in a blue state that is mostly red (Illinois) the only part they get is Chicago, East St. Louis, and the Quad cities.

Heh the whole concept is stupid whining but its fun to see.

Hey Ustwo, I heard in my criminal justice class after election day that just about every county south of Cook county(Chicago) voted for Bush but since Chicago makes up over 55% percent of our state's population and is primarily democratic, Kerry won Illinois. Sad, isn't it?

Well there is East St. Louis, which is at its very best, a shit hole.

And there was one blue area south of cook, it might have been Campaign.

That was it though.

By state:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi...temaplarge.png

By state, population weighted:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi...ecartlarge.png

By county:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi...tymaplarge.png

By country, population weighted:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi...ountylarge.png

By county, percentage:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi...olorslarge.png

By county, percentage, population weighted:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi...olorslarge.png


Details here: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/election/

Also of note -

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtm...T_GRAPHIC.html

OK, Ustwo and Bodyhammer86, Chicago is freakin awesome! Yeah. I mean, what else you got downstate? That nasty-ass sandwich with the fries and cholesterol in Springfield? Peoria? Please.

The only sad thing about Illinois is that, outside of Chicago, its suburbs, and a few select cities, its mostly boring, awful, corn-ridden fields of nothingness. Thank God for Chicago.

And nobody here is arguing that the sole cause of the Civil War was slavery, nor that the north wasn't racist, nor that Lincoln didn't express racist and pro-slavery views during his life (he did). But please, don't give me this war of northern aggression bullshit. The Civil War was fought over INCREASING southern economic ability? Bwahahahahaha. Yeah, OK, and there were WMDs in Iraq.

And I suppose reconstruction was ruined by those darn black legislators, too, huh?

Secession is an impossible, ridiculous notion....but damn, that map of the USC sure looks attractive.......

What about farm subsidy? Or corporate welfare? Let's cut those first. You must have missed the giver-taker map above. Ever wonder why a gallon of milk costs twice as much as a gallon of gasoline?

Whoa Manx! those maps are trippy! Can anyone explain to me the band of Kerry voters along the southern Mississippi? Is that Clinton country or something?

Personally, after the election, my first thought was to secede. (I live in LA). We are just going to take Arnold with us and to hell with the rest of the country. It's not going to happen. Its a ridiculous notion. but i wouldnt mind seeing it.

There's a quote about bushie-

THE INCOMPETENT TELLING THE UNWILLING TO DO THE UNNECESSARY.