Currently, 30 States have put forth petitions to secede from the United States.

Started by Wolfy, November 13, 2012, 11:02:35 AM

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Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Lux12 on November 17, 2012, 08:34:51 PM
The GOP aren't everyone and some of are more moderate.

6 seats on the house of reps floor.. could overturn their majority.. or stymie it.. sooooo.. I'm betting they WON'T back statehood till they are sure they get the bennies of the new seats.

Cyrano Johnson

A couple of thoughts:

First, Americans shouldn't be disheartened or frightened by the secession petitions. Partly I say this is because I'm Canadian and have lived through what a real secession bid looks like; also it's just really obvious that the secession petitioners are a bunch of sad wasters, a relatively tiny group who filed petitions online on behalf of a bunch of states that few them live in, the functional equivalent of clueless second-graders threatening to run away from home because Daddy wouldn't let them eat all the chocolate cake they wanted. (The Canadian example is heartening in other ways. Quebecois secessionism was much, much more sophisticated and dedicated than this -- it only died irrevocably when the PQ was co-opted into participating in Confederation and the Parliament -- but it ultimately failed because its chosen scenario was based on fantasies like "sovereignty association" [wherein Quebec would conveniently not have to assume all its own fiscal responsibilities on acquiring independence] and on getting France to somehow mysteriously compel the US into diplomatically recognizing a sovereign Quebec. The moral being that fantasy can carry a "movement" for a long while, but the more reality starts smacking the marks in the face, the harder it becomes to sustain.)

Second, the United States is divided today in a way it hasn't been since the Civil War... but there's a crucial difference. The Civil War sprang from real, irreconciliable economic difference between two major regions: the North, which couldn't afford to allow slavery to expand, and the South, which believed its economic power was nothing without slavery as a vital and expanding force. (Both of them were right in their way, at least to an extent, as the South's subsequent relative poverty once it lost the war it recklessly started proved.) Granted that reality should have told the South of the Civil War era that it could win far more by politics than it could by open war, there was still a far more concrete reason for the open war, however foolish it proved to be.

There are no such irreconciliable regional differences today. There is no compelling reason for the white rural South and western so-called "Empty Quarter" regions to fear today's urban, modern America other than that they have been told that they should do so; in real terms they're actually far more reliant on collaboration than confrontation, in a way that wasn't nearly as true of the antebellum South. Today's division endures only so long as a more-or-less open fraud of a "conservative movement" can keep it alive. The derangements of that movement are just the fantasies sold to them by the party's moneyed base so that it can keep bilking its marks. That's a division that can quite plausibly be broken down -- however vehement it now seems -- without the trauma of war.

Whether it will remains to be seen, but there's plenty of cause to be hopeful IMO.
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loki

Quote from: KennethNoisewater on November 16, 2012, 08:23:13 PM
These are very dangerous assumptions that you are making.

My apologies for my rant to anyone who made it through the whole thing.  But begging for unity when throwing around names like Hitler to compare or insinuate our current political climate is just downright foolish and represents a complete lack of historical knowledge, hypocritical of what was requested from others.

First off, I wasn't making assumptions that our president is like Hitler. I was however, pointing out the fact that if things in history are not taught properly to our youth, then they can and will repeat themselves. It is human nature to make mistakes, especially, if we were not taught from others about previous mistakes and their outcomes.

Also when I was growing up, there was a huge, solid, one piece of a  country call the Soviet Union or USSR, Which... if I remember my life history correctly, is now torn apart and separated into individual countries. A feat that no one would of ever believed would happen, but did. And yet, we have people here today that say that it can't happen here.... history can and will repeat itself if we don't learn from it. Everything has a starting point.

Now, am I one of the ones that wants the secession, no. Do I hate Obama, no. I might not agree with what and how he has done his job so far, but that's my opinion and that's what makes this country great. The right to disagree with something against another. But there is trouble brewing with our great nation and people need to be aware of it instead of burying their heads in the sand. How to fix this, well that's anyone's guess. But to smugly act like nothing is wrong and would never go wrong, is dangerous.
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TheWildcat

First of all *starts singing* Blame Canada! But seriously, even if ome did manage to secede, there would be people that say what I saw a few pages back: "I secede from your secession!" Back when Alabama seceded just before the Civil War, a day later there was a meeting in a tavern just outside Double Springs. The result? Winston county effectively became the Free State of Winston, basically saying, "We're staying out of it, let us know when you're finished." Furthermore, Puerto Rico has been waiting for a long time to become a state, and I've heard rumors of it happening soon since before Clinton was unsuccessfully impeached. I would love to see how they would vote, and I'm also interested in seeing what other territories like the Virgin Islands would say given the choice for statehood. Oh, and, what besides Castro's brother is stopping us from making Cuba a territory?
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Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Oniya on November 20, 2012, 10:10:02 AM
Not wanting it?
+1..


though.. I think we're handling Cuba wrong.. we got TONS of successful Cubans here in florida who talk about family 'back home' even though they have grown up here. Economically it would make us their biggest trading partner overnight.

Lux12

Quote from: TheWildcat on November 20, 2012, 08:03:27 AM
Oh, and, what besides Castro's brother is stopping us from making Cuba a territory?

Well as others have said, no one really wants it. Second it's a sovereign nation and taking it over would come with a great deal of difficulty and controversy.Third, I'm not certain anyone sees a major economic or political advantage to be gained by taking it.I believe that Cuba certainly does have some economic strengths, but other people need to see it that way. They need to feel that they have something huge to gain from seizing it. Lastly, we have other problems right now and taking over Cuba is pretty low on the list of things everyone is thinking about.