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[personal profile] defrog
Currently making the rounds on the blogosphere:

Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas want to secede from the Union because they’re mad Obama won the election and they want to get out before he forces them to be Gay Muslim Spanish-Speaking Socialists.



Or, more accurately – very small groups of paranoid dingbats in each of the above 20 states have started petitions for their states to secede from the Union. The actual govts of each state have no plans whatsoever to secede.

So there’s no story there, is what I’m saying.

In fact, I’m only really posting this because a lot of media stories have been writing catchy headlines implying the actual states (rather than a hundred thousand people or so across 20 states) are planning to drop out. Which is, as I say, not even close to being the case.

Not even Texas, which is getting the most press because (1) that secession petition not only has the most signatures, but also has enough to trigger a response from the White House (based on the rules of its petition website), and (2) it’s Texas. People there threaten secession all the time

But it is worth blogging about if only to pass along one crucial piece of helpful information:

You don’t secede from the Union by petitioning the White House on a web site.

You don’t petition the White House at all, actually. There’s no actual legal procedure to follow for secession. There’s nothing in the Constitution allowing for it. Wanna secede? Just do it.

Is that legal? Hell no. Which means the US Govt is under no obligation to recognize yr new country as legitimate. Which means yr pretty much gonna have to fight for it.

And that tends not to work out so well.

So no, I don’t take these nincompoops seriously. I don’t think they’ve given this any thought beyond “We hate Obama and we want to be our own United States Of Real America so Mitt Romney can be our president.”

They’re in the same bush league as the Ayn Rand kooks threatening to go Galt – sore losers throwing a temper tantrum who think that they can get their way if they threaten to take their toys and go home. Except of course that it’s much easier to go Galt. Better yet, it only affects the people who do it, because as John Scalzi has pointed out, going Galt only works in Ayn Rand novels, not real life.

The South will rise again,

This is dF


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