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Thread: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

  1. #1
    Stegodon
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    Default 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    OK, not really. But....

    Primarily “Red States,” right? The article cites Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma and Montana, South Carolina, as harboring some dissidents willing to wield the legal shears that would carve their silhouette out of the map. We could probably count on Alaska and most if not all of the previously vanquished Confederacy.

    While this would certainly have an effect, how would this HURT the rest of The Union. Would the loss of those states work out to a net reduction in our GDP? Would coast-to-coast trucking face highway piracy fostered by the rogue governments of the destitute (but ‘free’) rebel states? Would The Union bother going to war this time or instead show them the door, “Mind the step, come back any time, oh, and give us back our currency.”

    Your thoughts?
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  2. #2
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    Nothing in the linked article is anywhere close to the ridiculous hyperbole in the OP. At most, you might see some action in the federal courts testing the limits of State Sovereignity under the 10th Amendment. Nobody's carving shit out of any maps.
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  3. #3
    Elephant
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    Quote Originally posted by Inigo Montoya
    We could probably count on Alaska and most if not all of the previously vanquished Confederacy.
    What makes you say that?

    :reads article:

    Oh, this is about states' rights.

    Some of these governors' concerns make sense to me. Our governor is concerned about comitting future resources in a shaky economy. I'm glad he's thinking ahead.
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  4. #4
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    Count up the federal tax dollars each of these states would immediately lose. Not just actual dollars but federal infrastructure and all that this entails. Then get back to me.

    IIRC correctly, when Quebec was actively looking at separation from the rest of Canada, there was talk the political, economic and physical blockade by Canada and the US would have rendered the movement moot in less than a week.

  5. #5
    Stegodon Papaw's avatar
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    Texas supposedly could legally secede ( cites needed ), and the effect on the US would be felt in many ways. Not so sure any other state leaving would be felt as much.
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  6. #6
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    Is Virginia even a red state these days? I mean, it has 2 Democratic senators, a Democratic governor, and went for Obama. It also apparently has some not-elected-statewide rep who's blowing smoke about the stimulus package.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    Quote Originally posted by Papaw
    Texas supposedly could legally secede ( cites needed ), and the effect on the US would be felt in many ways. Not so sure any other state leaving would be felt as much.
    This is a common myth, often repeated in Texas, usually by Texans. I, a child of the west, first learned of it when in college in Texas. A student suggested to the professor that the whole "unpleasantness" with those "Yankees" could have been avoided if Texas had simply availed herself of her right to secede (she also had some theory about how Texas could have broken into a dozen or more states and then taken over Congress or something so as to continue to permit slavery). It was, all in all, a breathtaking moment for me, who to that point didn't realize that there were still people in the US who regretted the Civil War for reasons other than Reconstruction.

    But as the professor pointed out, there's no legal support in the US constitution for the notion of Texas seceding, and the US constitution would trump in matters regarding a state's place in the union. And as we further discussed, even to the extent that such a right did exist prior to the Civil War, the end result of the war is an affirmance that a state may not simply "opt out" of the union. Thus, Texas's "right" to secession does not exist, if it ever did.

    I'll agree that if any state, including Texas, were to disappear from the union, we'd feel its absence. I doubt very strongly that Texas's absence would be felt more than, say, Illinois, New York, or any of the industrialized states. Or even California: 12% of the US lives in California, and California has agriculture, defense, entertainment, etc. Plus our Mexican food is better than Texas's. Without Texas, however, there would be no Shiner Bock, so Texas must stay in the union.

    But my favorite bumper sticker ever, seen only in Texas, is "US Out Of Texas."

    As for the article, I agree with the states that Congress ought to be kept within its constitutional limits, but so far no one has been able to explain to my satisfaction how the stimulus bill exceeds Congress's authority, particularly given our old friend the commerce clause. Beyond the hyperbolic talk of secession, and those disingenuous governors who claim they are "rejecting" stimulus funds when in fact they have only refused 0.00001% of the funds offered to them, I'd be very interested in an articulate, coherent explanation of how the stimulus package exceeds Congress's authority.

  8. #8
    Elephant Tuckerfan's avatar
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    Default Re: 20 states weighing the benefits of secession

    First problem, if the states secede, how likely are they to get international recognition? Places like Cuba would no doubt recognize the Confederacy 2.0, but globally, they don't count for shit. I can also imagine that if serious grumbling about pulling out of the US began, big corporations like GM, Nissan, Boeing, and others with operations scattered all over the country would start lobbying in the various state houses to kill such plans, because all the hassles involved with shipping things through different countries.

    Second problem, where are they going to get the military forces to back this up? I can't imagine that more than about 10% of current and former military personnel would defect, but even if they managed to get 50% to turn traitor, there are nuclear weapon sites in those states and all the US has to do is to put in a call to the Brits, French, Germans, etc., etc., etc., and not only will we be able to pull all our forces from our bases in those nations, but we'll have their troops here as well. You can bet your ass that once the nuclear sites are secure, passification operations will extend from them until the country has been retaken. I don't care how many guns you have, they don't mean dick when you're facing even a shitty Russian tank. (And the Russians will be happy to help, perhaps even a little too "enthusiastically" if you know what I mean.)

    Secession is a total non-starter in the US so long as the Federal government opposes it and there's at least one nuclear warhead in the US. The Soviet Union fell apart because the rest of the world had a greater interest in the country being in pieces than they did it being whole. The Soviet government couldn't try and hold the country together because they didn't want to appear to be like the old guard which had run the country into the ground. Obama's already proven he's not like the former Bush Administration, and is distinctly modelling his actions after those of Lincoln, so I think we all know how he'd react.
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