Can you imagine the fallout if China or Russian tried to land troops in California … I’d pick caesium-137 … who knows what the other 49 States would do …
An independent California Republic would be a nuclear power of high degree, and the eighth largest economy … as mentioned above, they do lean towards the liberal side of things and totalitarianism wouldn’t be the direction they go …
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Nothing can become law without US Senate approval … where Vermont and California have equal say … so what ever power California should have, there’s a choke point where it doesn’t matter …
What makes you think California would be a “nuclear power” at all? The rest of the states aren’t going to just hand over a bunch of nukes to the traitorous bastards, and they don’t have the power to seize them.
The US armed forces aren’t going to hand over nuclear weapons to what is either a state in open rebellion or a foreign country, so no California attempted to go independent would not be a nuclear power right off the bat. And US foreign policy has been consistently negative on countries developing or possessing nukes especially near the US, see the Cuban Missile Crisis for a historical example.
The fact that seceding California would have the means to fairly rapidly become a hostile nuclear power bordering the US is yet another reason the US government would not just sit back and go ‘51% vote to leave? See ya!’.
Yo aren’t applying math in an intellectually consistent manner. It’s Californians’ choice to be a rubber stamp. And they are biggest stamp of all. So if they have 0 power every other state must have negative power. Which is frankly ridiculous. What we are seeing here is nothing more than childish petulance. And if push came to shove I’d rather see Civil War II than to see the splintering of the nation.
Apparently we’re looking at two different things … my understanding is that the infrastructure to manufacturer nuclear weapons exists in California … Lawrence/Livermore … it’s currently mothballed but it’s a big complex and the USA just can’t pack it up and move it.
The reason the USA can’t sit back and go ‘51% vote to leave? See ya!’ … is that we also need 2/3’s of each House of Congress and 3/4’s the States to agree … or it’s just 1861 all over again … we’re not talking about a mess of red-neck Texans looking for an excuse to use their guns … this is a bunch of tofu-pukers who want to secede so they can outlaw guns, guard their own borders and mandate Zen Buddhist prayers before every football game …
I suspect they’d move everything they could and demolish what they couldn’t (assuming they agreed to a peaceful secession, which is a pretty big assumption). Peacenik California would have no need for nukes anyways.
No, it’s consistent. The point is voter equality. I shouldn’t be able to draw any disproportionate values. That it’s “only somewhat less than the mean” is nonsensical when arguing about the foundational belief in equality. Equality is a binary, it either exists between two things or it doesn’t.
I could concede all day that California is close to the “average” and it wouldn’t change the fact that the influence of the EC is offensive in the face of the concept of democracy. To be fair, the USA is only mildly democratic. That doesn’t make it right though - unless this is some bizzaro universe where, say, it was also right for Pol Pot launch mass purges because that’s the form of his nation’s government…
(Ib4 low information “…but republic!” nonsense)
It’s the DNC’s choice. Remember, CA is subject to the two party system - which I clearly also oppose - and thus they get two choices. Horrifically bad, and whatever merely terribly bad candidate the DNC forces down their throats. CA’s alternative to being a rubber stamp to the DNC is to empower Horrifically bad - in other words, have elections reflect their desires even less.
Most states have zero power. I’ve said already that for the most part, it’s the swing states that matter. Yes, other states can at rare times influence elections and are therefore considered worth the candidates time to so much as visit, but this is rare. There’s a reason this election is considered an extreme outlier.
That said, this still isn’t the oppression Olympics. No one is weighing the pros and cons of their participation or how they might address the injustice they face. Why does the OO seem to be such an appealing argument to people? It demonstrates nothing and any conclusions you draw from it are complete fallacies.
You’d rather see millions of Americans die horrific deaths than go their separate ways peacefully? That’s quite frankly disgusting. It’s also odd that you don’t consider a war between states to be “splintering.” I seriously hope I never catch you arguing in favor of either democracy or self determination…
Don’t be a drama queen. It wouldn’t take anywhere near “millions” of deaths. It probably wouldn’t even be thousands. Pop a few hundred secessionists in the grape and the rest would fall in line PDQ.
Yeah. You don’t get to decide to fracture the Union. And if you want to fight over it that’s your choice to advocate a path of major ass whipping. That’s on the pro-secessionists. Just like it was during the Civil War.
And it has nothing to do with democracy or self determination. That’s more pure nonsense. Democracy doesn’t mean that anytime a vote is lost a bunch of god-damn crybabies can threaten to destroy the whole nation out of petulance.
I don’t like every policy that the nation, state, country, or city imposes on me. But if I tried to be one of those nutty gold-fringe flag fearing “free men on the land” I’d expect the state to take, with force if need be, what rightfully belongs to the state. That’s part of living in a nation and having to live with democracy. That is democracy. Democracy is not anarchy or every man for himself as soon as a policy or a vote occurs that somebody somewhere is going to whine about.
It’s a dangerous world. It’s a competitive world. And deliberately fracturing the most powerful nation on the world so a few left wing loons or a few right wing loons can take their ball and go home after losing an election deserves war as a consequence.
You naively believe each state is monolithic hive mind? What? You expect that once the childish “self determination” and secession genie is let out of the bottle it will be trivial to put back in. Look at damn map. Look at what political ideology is prevalent, not on a state level, but at a county level or a voting district level, or a neighborhood level. Are you “against democracy and self determination” for those levels of political division? I doubt you’d be fine with each city having a say in secession.
Anyone who advocates this is completely clueless about reality. Yes. The nation would be better off without secessionists.
I’m sorry, but it is very relevant when discussing math. You claimed a vote in California was worth “1/5 a vote” in Presidential elections. Then you said it was 1/3. Both claims are untrue by any rational anlysis of how the Electoral College works. Math is not a matter of debate.
As to your claim Californians are merely a rubber stamp for the DNC, that is the choice of Californians. They can vote for whomever they please. If it happens to be the case that Californians always vote Democratic, that’s up to them.
Well, let’s ask a frank question; if California opted to secede, and then parts of California asked to secede from California, as would undoubtedly happen, you’re okay with that, right? And when Southern California demands to secede from the jerks up in Sacramento, that’s okay too, I suppose?
I think you are on very shaky ground if you’re suggesting that the Constitution guarantees equality as a principle that is never compromised in any way. The Great Compromise wasn’t based on a guarantee of equality. It was based on recognizing a political advantage for small states in some ways, and large states in other ways.
But if you’re referring to a more general principle of equality, then California itself surely falls short in that regard as well. Does the name Phil Burton mean anything to you? The guy who perfected gerrymandering in the Golden State?
I thought we were talking about a situation where the equivalent of a constitutional amendment had been passed authorizing California secession, not a shooting war.
It’s still silly. Very very silly. However, situations like California closing the border are further nonsense. Goods cross international boundaries all day every day.
And of course, if a peaceful dissolution of the United States could plausibly occur, then there wouldn’t be any need for a peaceful dissolution. It’s only when peaceful separation is impossible that you’d want it.
I almost wish that happened. I think the Silicon Valley frat-house would be going “oh shit” once they saw how much they were going to be expected to pay for water.
Your definition of rational analysis certainly is. The point I made was that extreme inequality in terms of voter power exists. A Californian counts as 1/3 of a Rhode Islander. A person living in a city counts as less than someone living in the country. That’s an affront to the idea of equality. We’re supposed to be a nation of equals.
You’re aware of the concept of a false choice, right? Do X or get shot isn’t a “choice” at all. CA can be a rubber stamp for the DNC, or get a candidate who is directly opposed to the values that seem to define CA. Because a victim chooses to live rather than get shot by a predator does not mean it’s “up to them.”
That would be fine, but you present a silly scenario. Secession would have to be well supported to act on it, both geographically and numerically. If most of the geographic region of the state did not want to seceded, then it’s no longer a Calexit, it’s a “coastexit” which is an entirely different scenario than anything mentioned in the OP. A “coastexit” is indeed doomed to failure, but we’re not talking about such a strawman.
A secessionist CA would have to give concessions to those eastern districts to make it palatable to them. It’s possible, though, that those districts would want the significantly greater representation they’d get in a “free” CA and wouldn’t need much to sway them. Remember, one of the core principles of the right is local government. This would be abandoning the distant federal government for… greater local government. You also seem to forget also that no district is 100% blue or 100% red. So you needn’t convince 100% of the population of each district, more like 2%, if you operate on the assumption that “typical blues” will always say yes/“typical reds” will always say no without convincing one way or the other.
Oh, you’re correct there, no question. But I do not ascribe to some dogmatic approach to the constitution - the founding fathers themselves were quite clear in the perspective that it was a deeply flawed document that needed to be updated quite regularly (they envisioned ~20 years, which is a bit crazy, but there it is). It was never the gold standard we seem to think it was, it was simply a step in the correct direction.
The core value of equality goes deeper than the constitution. The Declaration, written long before the Articles or the Constitution as we all know, touches on it… but the times didn’t allow for a sudden jump into their ideal society (I don’t think any times allow for a jump into the ideal, just incremental steps some bigger than others).
Oh, certainly. California has a lot to answer for. When it comes to gerrymandering, I believe districting should be stripped from human hands and left to an algorithm that spits out a California (or every state) shaped voronoi diagram with elements containing roughly equal populations using inputs specifically excluding things like voting history, race, income level etc…
But whether or not CA is innocent is rather irrelevant.
We were, which is why I haven’t commented much about it, except to respond to people suggesting that death and destruction for their fellow countrymen is somehow a good thing…
I wouldn’t be so sure. You might be right. But then, Tribalism is powerful, and the fastest way to make a tribe out of a mob is to present it with a common enemy. You start shooting and you become the threat that must be eliminated at all costs rather than those guys I don’t agree with right now. You become a monster that must be destroyed, something inhuman that cannot and must not be reasoned with.
I think it really depends on circumstances. What made the secessionist movement shift from wild eyed idealists to acceptable to the vast majority of the state? How did whatever that was effect the identities of those individuals? What preparations did those newly radicalized individuals take?
It’s probably a deep rabbit hole best suited for another thread, which is why I specifically said lets ignore the military aspect in the OP.
Admission of new states into the union is in the Constitution. Secession is not mentioned anywhere that I can see, but that does not mean it is illegal or impossible. Since admission has required a vote of the residents of the territory to petition Congress, which votes to admit, one could infer that secession would require a similar petition followed by a vote in Congress (the latter which the antebellum South failed to do).
Once secession is finalized, however, what does the former state become? It seems to me that a seceding state becomes unmarked territory inhabited by former Americans, unless it achieves diplomatic recognition from the US and the rest of the world. Until its borders and sovereignty are duly established, neighboring countries and multinational corporations are at liberty to carve into it and take pieces for themselves.
Secession just seems like an ill-considered notion, unless it is executed with great care and deliberation.
I’m confused, do you want to argue about the electoral college or argue about the pros and cons for California if it seceded?
If California apportioned its EVs by congressional district like Maine/Nebraska do, you’d “matter” plenty, but you’d be hurting the Democratic party, and since California is controlled by the Democratic party, that’s the reason that you don’t “matter.” But it’s actually because you’re very important to the Democrat’s chances of putting people in the White House and they don’t want to deplete that. I’m not interested in an EC system, but you’re confusing the concept of “California isn’t a swing state so gets little attention in Presidential elections” with the concept of “California gets not say/doesn’t matter.” California is like the foundation of a wall, and without it the wall crumbles–that’s precisely what California is for the Democratic party in terms of the electoral college. So saying it doesn’t matter is like saying my house’s foundation doesn’t matter because I don’t pay as much attention to it as I do to other parts of the house.
As for the pros: a lot of stuff you list as pros are already possible under State law. California can pass gun control (it has, lots of it), it could implement its own single payer healthcare etc. One of the pros is likely not true: that California would suddenly have $20bn/yr more in its coffers, or whatever the figure was. California may on net only get $0.78 in direct Federal benefits for every $1.00 it puts in, but the overall GDP and taxable income base of an independent California will absolutely shrink. Expenditures would also have to go up as you lose economies of scale in some areas, and have to do things like build a military up de novo (that’s going to likely be at least 1-2% of GDP realistically speaking, since you aren’t.) There’s no way to put a precise dollar amount on it, but that $0.22 is likely almost nothing, and in fact you may realize no overall cost savings at all due to the aforementioned factors.
It’d be like all the negatives of Brexit probably raised by an order of magnitude. Politically, once you’ve split away it’d be hard to argue against breakaway republics/U.S. loyalists wanting to split off parts of the State themselves. If California is just and right to break away from America, how can you justify forcing Orange County to stay against its will? Or what if Silicon Valley wants to split away and become like a technology-Hong Kong? Or the resource/agricultural regions want to split away and rejoin the U.S.? I see little reason at all to assume these are just silly concerns, especially if you’re asking us to take seriously the cons of California secession.
The former Yugoslavia isn’t a terrible model, or even the former Austro-Hungaria Empire, once these large, cobbled together entities break up, there’s no reason to expect semi-artificial political subdivisions of said entity will themselves be stable and stick together.
California is a huge state with diverse and varied regions with strong regional desires and differences of opinion. It’s silly to suggest any piece breaking off because we’ve largely established in America that we don’t let States split up or split out (West Virginia being an exception, but a historical quirk), and once you remove that norm it’s questionable you’re going to be able to reapply it again but solely for the new repbulic’s benefit.
The devil will also be in the details of any split. Assuming a Trump-like President, the trillions of dollars Californians have put into the Medicare/Social Security system are forfeit, the U.S. won’t give Californians a cent of benefits, that’s a major loss of accrued wealth. You also won’t get a single U.S. military base, a single piece of equipment, etc without either a war or some agreement to pay through the teeth for them.
Let’s throw in Hawaii while we’re fantasizing — they’d probably want to stay with their Pacific neighbors. Nevada better go along or be annexed: water would be useful to have…
In an amicable separation, West America would keep some military. In an unamicable separation we’ll want some Western loyalists storming the bridges of the Naval vessels in port. :eek:
Only in America would the economy-of-scale problem be raised for the government bureaucracy in this new nation, which would immediately become one of the richest and largest in the West. :smack:
If that’s a problem for West America, with its tiny population of 54 million, imagine how onerous the bureaucracy burden must already be in even tinier countries like Belgium or Austria.
States are already not liable for the Federal debt, it’s an obligation of the United States government. There are nuclear weapons all over the United States, and anytime a submarine that’s part of the nuclear shield is at port they’re there too etc.
Boeing would likely 100% relocate, it won’t get beneficial treatment like it does now if it’s located in another country, and government revenues are a huge part of its business. That’d be rough on the Washington area.
Like I said, leaving the U.S. would be similar to Brexit–but worse because California/Washington/Oregon don’t really run a country today, so they’d have to develop new capacities to do all of these things. There’s almost no way it’s a cost savings whatsoever.
