I’m sure the movement for California to secede is just people expressing their rage and frustration, but if a state or group of states did decide they wanted to leave our federation, would anyone really support going to war to stop it? I realize that the Civil War set a precedent that states cannot actually leave the Union, but we have a ton more to lose now. What happened to Atlanta would happen in 100 US cities.
So the subject for debate is, is the Civil War precedent a legal theory or it is really backed by the threat of force in 2016? and would American families really be willing to send their sons and daughters to conquer California and force it to stay in the union?
I’m not gonna lie, I fear this a little more than I fear the Texit from a few years back; Putin once had some “scholar” go on RT and show what the continental US would look like in decades to come: broken up into several independent nations. How do we know that Trump won’t “make a deal” to give Russia back Alaska? I mean I know its far fetched, but that was one of the reasons I voted Hillary.
I would go to war to protect our nation against a literal national suicide. W/O California, this country’s economy goes to shit anyway and we can’t eat.
I don’t think it’s national suicide at all, just changing the terms of how we live together. We don’t live in a unitary nation now, we live in a federation where sovereignty is shared by a federal government and the states. Changing that to say, a common market instead, with total self-government by the individual states, would not destroy America. It would just make us a better functioning EU.
A lesson from the Civil War which we should take to heart is that if we do go to war to preserve the union again, that we will not live to see the day when things are good again. The resentments and scars would last the rest of our lifetimes and probably also our childrens’ and our grandchildrens’ lifetimes. Our lives and the lives of our kids would be over as we know them. We’d be doing this for the people of 2100, all we’d get out of it is death, poverty, and hate.
As usual, most cities voted for Hillary: Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio & El Paso. There are also huge swathes of Blue along the border; a better map would show population density–those counties are pretty sparsely populated.
Secession won’t work because the Electoral College map only works for Electoral votes. Even groovy California isn’t totally Blue. (Besides, where would the state get its water? )
Well, there are some issues. First off, while I think most people assume California is a complete liberal blue state, that’s really only true along the coast (and IIRC Northern California is pretty mixed up red/blue). So, would it only be the coastal areas of California that succeeded, or the entire state? This is really the issue with any state seceding due to politics…every state is purple. So, what happens to all the millions of citizens who don’t want to go with the politically motivated rebels and want to stay in the US? They supposed to either suck it up and take it or move?
Even if we assume a majority of people in a given state WANT to secede (and from what I’ve seen it’s generally a very small but vocal and stupid minority that want this), it seems to me that there would be major issues actually trying to implement a secession of a state from the Union, even leaving aside the fact this was all pretty much settled in 1865.
Indeed, this happened in seceding border states in the Civil War. That’s why West Virginia exists, and why there almost ended up being an East Tennessee. Intrastate conflict was appallingly vicious in many cases.
Anyway, there are 38 million people in California and if you could get one tenth of them to vote for secession I’d be truly impressed.
But there’s secession and there’s secession. If the departing entities negotiate their share of the US debt, and how they’re going to pay for federally held lands and such that they’ll be taking with them, and they allow people who don’t want to go with them to leave, and so forth, let them go. In general, I am in favor of self-determination. Now, if the plan is “fuck you guys we’re leaving tomorrow and expropriating all outsiders’ holdings within our borders,” things would be a bit different.
If a state is allowed to secede like that, then Washington is telling you that US citizenship has no meaning and offers no protection of your rights, that if your neighbors manage to scrounge up a 51% majority against you you’re just screwed. Think about the other common example, Texas splitting off to form a conservative government. Do you really think it’s reasonable for the US to say to black and hispanic citizens ‘well, you guys were citizens, but 51% of people in the state voted to secede, sucks to be you, enjoy losing your vote now!’.
The problem with ‘if they want to leave, let them’ is that ‘they’ is just a vocal minority (in actuality) or a slim majority (in theory), it’s not all of the citizens of your country in that area.
Exactly. I own a portion of Texas and don’t want some zealots declaring that my land is no longer part of the United States. So yeah, there might be shots fired.
Federal troops stationed in California and Texas nukes. They’d either be invaded at inception or not have any nukes if they managed to negotiate their way out.
The thing is, it’s not like the pre-Civil War days where the country’s ideological and geographic lines lined up pretty conveniently into North and South. Instead, it’s more of a rural/urban divide, in ALL states. That makes it a LOT harder for secession or civil war to break out
If say… California did want to secede, the military could probably rope them back into the fold with a minimum of bloodshed; blockade all the ports and major ways into the state (highways and railroad lines), bomb the power plants, telecommunications hubs and certain vital bridges, and then sit back until California wanted back in.
It would take a significant chunk of the country willing to secede to prevent something like this.
If California wanted (voted) to secede, I would let them go with my blessing. Buh bye. Some CA landowners may take the issue to a CA court and some landowners may start a civil war (bullets flying, people dying). I see no reason to send U.S. troops to prevent California’s flight to freedom.
I would, however, support an armed defense to prevent them from coming back.
Oh, and the water in the Colorado River is property of the U.S.A…
