# What would you do if your state seceded? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2011, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636 "2011-09-26T06:27:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636/81 "2011-09-28T02:47:00Z")
Nevada would have absolutely no chance to succeed on its own. I’d get out of here fast as my little Ford could drive me. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636/82 "2011-09-28T06:01:41Z")
> [@Cyberhwk](#): > > If Washington left unilaterally, I’d move. If the [Cascadia Movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29) was coming to fruition, I’d highly consider staying depending on how the politics worked out. If Cascadia or Ecotopia formed, I’d be very interested in becoming a citizen. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636/83 "2011-09-28T06:57:27Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Nevada would have absolutely no chance to succeed on its own. I’d get out of here fast as my little Ford could drive me. Joe Haldeman had Nevada seceding and becoming a radical libertarian country in his Worlds trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636/84 "2011-09-28T07:41:10Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I have thought long and hard what I will do when Quebec decides to separate. The main “if” is not whether they will. Given the ups and downs of life, they will decide one day (came withing 50,000 stolen votes 16 years ago). You mean like how the federal government fast-tracked some people’s citizenship so they could vote no in the referendum? Anyway, I wasn’t intending to post in this thread because it was specified as being for Americans (and I assume the same is true for **MichaelEmouse** ), but since someone broke the ice: if Quebec ever separates from Canada (which I don’t believe will ever happen), I’m staying here. I could see myself moving elsewhere for job reasons, at least temporarily, but not for political reasons. Quebec is my home, and nowhere else in the world could I truly be at home. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636/85 "2011-09-28T10:50:23Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > I’d stay here in California. My home and few surviving relatives are here, and I have no great fondness for the US. And California seems like it would make a perfectly viable separate county; large, fairly diverse economy, access to the coast. > > I find this amusing since you’re the one who’s compared the CSA to Nazi Germany. Say what? I condemn the Confederacy because they were created and existed to defend slavery. Their defense of and practice of slavery is what makes them as bad or worse than the Nazis. So unless California was seceding so it could do something like turn brown people into Soylent Green there’s no comparison. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > It can survive as a country, but whether it is good is another question-for one it will severely weaken American power especially in the Pacific and thus proportionally benefit the enemies of freedom especially China. America is just as much an “enemy of freedom” as China. Both countries are out for their self interest above all; outside their respective borders America isn’t pro-freedom, and China isn’t pro-authoritarian. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636/86 "2011-09-28T14:33:16Z")
It would depend on the _reason_ for secession, wouldn’t it? If my state seceded (again) on behalf of slavery (I guess they’d be re-instating it in this case) I’d leave. If the reason for secession was some higher moral purpose, it would depend. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I condemn the Confederacy because they were created and existed to defend slavery. Their defense of and practice of slavery is what makes them as bad or worse than the Nazis. Slavery was an unambiguous evil that forever taints the memory of the Confederacy. That said, and allowing for the absurdity of ranking unambiguous evils, I’d say the Nazis were worse on two material counts: [ul] [li]Nazism was established _for the purpose of_ killing weaker neighbors and taking their stuff (see “lebensraum” in _Mein Kampf_)[/li] [li]The Confederacy’s avowed policy was to stand on the defensive and not initiate invasions. That changed, due to the exigency of war, but that was the initial plan (if we ignore the fairly hypocritical seizure of arsenals, arms, port facilities, forts, and other Federal property.)[/li][/ul] and [ul] [li]The Nazis enslaved entire ethnicities (or tried to) with the specific intent of working them to death or working them to uselessness and then killing them.[/li] [li]The Confederacy enslaved an entire ethnicity and, while certainly not above killing individual slaves, did not set about exterminating their kind.[/li][/ul] I admit it’s only a degree of difference, but it’s real. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-your-state-seceded/597636.md?page=4)