Don’t Like the Election Results? Secede!

It’s been a week since the election. By now many, if not most of us, have settled down, relieved that campaign ads have given way to Christmas shopping commercials. But not everyone has come to terms with the election results. There are those who are so unhappy that the President has been reelected, that they are petitioning the US Government for the right to secede from the Union. According to the Huffington Post, citizens in 34 states have filed secession petitions. Any petition that receives 25,000 signatures within 30 days must be reviewed and responded to by the Obama Administration.    

            Most petitioners claim to be dissatisfied with the way the Federal Government spends our money and they are not happy about the way our rights are abridged by agencies such as the TSA. I can’t say that I blame them but I am a bit perplexed that they waited until after the election results were in to decide that secession was the best course of action. These problems go back to the Bush era. Of course secession requests do seem to follow Presidential elections. When Bush won and Kerry lost in 2004, there were petitions.

            What if no one objected and 30 or more states were gone? Would these states ultimately get together and form an even more perfect union? Or is it more likely that some states would band together and others, like Texas, would return to its lone star origins?

            Here is a list of the 34 states with citizens that thought it would be better to go it alone:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida,Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virgnia and Wyoming.,

            I guess the worst case scenario would be 34 separate countries. If I wanted to drive to New Jersey to visit family and friends, I would need a passport which I would have to show to the good people of the great nations of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I wonder what New Jersey would require of a visitor from another country? What if there were no treaties between Tennessee and New Jersey? What if there was a dispute and the President of Tennessee issued a travel warning about the former Garden State? On the other hand, a trip to Atlantic City would sound exotic. I mean gambling in a foreign land would be cool assuming the currency exchange rates were favorable. Would the Tennessee Moon Pie be the equivalent of the New Jersey cannoli?  

            I suppose the original Confederacy could get together but at the moment of this writing, only ten of the eleven states are in. So far Virginia, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee hasn't sent a petition. Let me say right now that if Virginia isn’t going to be part of this deal I’m out. Any nation that I’m a member of has to have a access to the Chesapeake Bay when crabs are in season. If they have to be imported the price will be outrageous. Equal opportunity for all in the new Confederacy goes without saying, but I don’t foresee a problem. This is the 21^st century after all.

            I really suspect that the petitioners haven’t thought through all of the ramifications of a successful secession. At first blush it sounds fine if you’re Texas. You have the fifth largest economy in the world. Why not go your own way? After all, they’ve been there before. But if a whole bunch of states are suddenly on their own, a treaty with the USA stipulating an alliance in the event of an attack on either country would be a lot less attractive if the USA consists of Vermont, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Hawaii. It’s a dangerous world out there. I wonder if the Texan that filed that petition considered the fact that a nation of 26 million people would be dwarfed by its neighbor to the south. Mexico has 112 million people. The outcome at the Alamo probably would be the same as it was last time.  

            One good thing about secession as an exercise at least, is that it forces us to recognize that regardless of who is in the White House we’re all in this together. I mean I don’t want to pay for an International permit just so I can drive to the Kentucky Derby. God Bless America.  

Copyright 2012, Len Serafino. All rights reserved.