just to tell them that.

I have no doubt that their Coast Guard just might not be able to hold off the U.S. Navy ...

I have never seen a Coast guard here.

Almost certainly, there is a majority of Lone Star Staters who are proud to be Americans, or so they perpetually say. Many many more have financial reason for those states to remain in the union.

I'd think they'd fight secession from within. And they have guns too.

would not exactly be happy with their new masters, who would make them work harder, and fight for them, FOR NO PAY ... or at least, no pay worth anything outside the "company store" ...

I guess the Rio Grande would require smaller slave ships though

would probably be shot first, by the people they were going to fight alongside!

Idiots, but that's no surprise, they've been deliberately dumbed-down over the years.

go over real well.

I'm thinking Fuckus on the Family would squat there.

This is like asking what happens if you are driving at the speed of light and turn on your headlights.

they think it might work. I can't wait to encounter one.

but the headlights are on so you see it when it happens, like when a bug hits the windshield of your car. I think that's what he was saying.

Never happen. Mississippi roads would all be dirt in 20 yrs.

SCOTUS, Texas v. White, secession illegal. It would take a Constitutional amendment to allow it. Not gonna happen. The petitions are meaningless.

These gun hungry, war mongering, right wingers, teaparty types can't live without the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard.

And national guard

.....I would say they are going to do more than take away your free stuff.

BFD. First, no sane person wants to secede. Second, the idiots that think it's a good idea already vote against their best economic interests. Third....I'm thinking it's not a bad idea....give them 500 sq mi of federal land and let them establish their perfect political-social-economic-religious uptopia. No taxes, no gun laws, no abortion, no fact-based education. Lets see how that works out....

We could call it "Fort Stinkin' Desert (and Cobalt Testing Range)"

I suggest if they secede then

(a) No mail service
(b) No telephone service
(c) No air travel service
(d) No border crossing of individual persons without payment of a significant fee
(e) Goods for sale would be subject to a 5000% tariff
(f) Cutoff all pipelines, power supplies, etc. that cross international boundaries
(g) Withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel and equipment
(h) Bombing or otherwise obliteration of any U.S. government facilities such as government buildings, military bases, etc.
(i) Destruction of all federally-funded levees....Goodbye N.O. you fucked yourself over
(j) Destruction of all federal highways including the Interstate system through the "self-deporting" states

The list could go on and on but these "morons" are almost worse than the ones seen in 2008 and 2010.

The state wohld no longer be part of the US. Probably SS payments and federal govt pensions would continue for those who are eligible. But no funding for roads, education, judicial system, military installations, no FEMA or forest firefighters, no farm aid, no food stamps, no unemployment...

It means no federal money for anything, since they wouldn't be part of the US any more. No money for roads, airports, schools, colleges. No Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid for the citizens of the new country unless they came up with the money themselves. The United States government would want to be paid for real estate it owns (federal buildings, military bases, and national parks, monuments and forests), and it would take back federal assets such as military aircraft. The new country would have no army, navy or air force, since those personnel work for the U.S. No Centers for Disease Control; no Army Corps of Engineers; no National Weather Service; no NASA. Within a few years they'd be a third world country not much better off than Bangladesh, begging the United States for foreign aid.

The federal government is the only thing that keep them from being Bangladesh. They would be there within a week.

You forgot -- no border patrol. Good luck with that, Texas.

gangs. The new nation of "Textus" would be littered with rotting, headless Teanut bodies.

Oh, wait - most of the states who want to secede get more from the Federal government than they pay in.

no federal jobs. nothing.

never gonna happen.

Regardless of whatever weirdos that have started a petition... We cannot secede! Jaysus f'ing christ!

We are legally part of a UNION. We are Americans! It's not gonna happen!

I am so shocked that 23,000 dumbasses start a stupid petition and all the sudden it's NEWS!

HELLO? This is ridiculous talk by some fringe lunatics!

putting out these petitions.

Why IS this news anyway?

It's the dumbest shit I've heard on a long time.

And really, to DU'ers that think this is "real" I've never been more disappointed than I am now. C'mon...seriously?

That's why it's news and that's why the question.

I am just confused as to why 23,000 idiots started a huge conversation in the media that makes NO sense at all!

No offense intended. Just annoyed that this is even a thought, especially on DU.

and you can always find out what to reply to these idiot. I'm serious, here in fundyville you can end up having conversations with some really crazy people.

is to get some of these secessionist wannabes on camera while someone explains slowly, carefully and completely what they will no longer have once they truly go it alone.

...and what might happen should they get on the bad side of the U.S.

That does not even come CLOSE to the state population!

Give me a petition to sign about how utterly stupid these people are and you'll find much more than that!

That's what these nuts need.

It's so ridiculous it doesn't deserve a response.

I've always wondered what right Lincoln had to force those who willingly entered the union to stay in it. I thought his arguments were weak.

Granted, I think secession will never happen and is stupid to threaten, but from an academic standpoint, why can't states secede?

Sure, it isn't specified in the Constitution one way or another, but even Jefferson wrote

""[T]he several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by compact, under the style and title of the Constitution of the United States, and of certain amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for general purposes, delegated to that government certain powers, reserving, each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void and of no effect."" in 1798.

The Articles of Confederation state "the union shall be perpetual", but the Constitution doesn't.

Doesn't "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."" Allow for it?

Marriage is a legal union. Should divorce be illegal? Many say vows "until death do us part". There is more of an argument to prevent divorce than there is secession.

come begging the rest of us for help when there's a disaster. Plus something would need to be done about import/export etc I would think.

Thank you!

Thank you for "getting it" !!!

The Civil War occurred because the South wanted to secede and the North refused to allow it. That says nothing about a voluntary mutual agreement to separate.

The tea party, and thanks to their entertainment bullshit, they tried to legitimize racism

fox, drudge, beck, Limbaugh, all these low life's have down much damage to our country

Now they are trying to build something out of succession

Frum is right, the right wing entertainment industry is playing their listeners for fools, just to generate bullshit

This is not even a molehill, it is an anthill.

Let the stupid fucks really experience what it would be like to be at the mercy of Mississippi or Alabama with no inalienable rights, federal oversight or the full faith and credit of the US.

Secessionists may not value it, but the US Constitution introduced some radical rights in its day. We take a lot of that stuff for granted, and it's no guarantee that the country of Alabama would allow free speech or exercise of religion.

Too bad there's not something like scared straight for people who want to secede.

There will be no seceding of states. Any of them. Period.

settled that. Oh that was 1876 by the way.

On the other and a modern day referendum would show how much of a minority neo confederates truly are. If they hit 20% in a referendum, I will eat my shoe.

Remember that little thing called the Civil War?

And actually I expect a civil war...this is where these petitions matter, we have a loud minority...civil wars are started by minorities.

idiots who want to secede? IMO they are all racist, ignorant assholes and we would be better off.

....and have gotten pretty damn sick of the bullshit coming from posters like you who tend to post first and think second. Here's another clue for you....another 30-40% classify themselves as conservatives and/or Republicans but they're not "racist, ignorant assholes". Most are pretty good people even if they do have different religio-political beliefs.

We'd be better off if posters like you thought about what you were going to post before doing so.

you do have the option of trashing the thread. "Bullshit" is people, and I will be nice and not say, "like you" as you did, who get all bent out of shape about a post on a discussion board. You can always petition Skinner to set up a list of topics that are allowed to be discussed if it bothers you that much. Of course just like the secessionists, I doubt you will get very far.

...did you not?

Did you expect everyone who lives in those states to just accept your bullshit (yes, I wrote it again!) and roll over? Yes or no?

Those of us who live in the South read comments similar to the one you posted EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Newsflash for you...we're tired of it and we're not going to accept them any more without pushing back. If you don't want to read responses like mine then stop making comments like the one you made.

If you don't like it, go ahead and run whining to the mods.

Last edited Wed Nov 14, 2012, 10:23 AM - Edit history (1)

I stand by what I said. "IMO they are all racist, ignorant assholes and we would be better off"... This is a sick fantasy they have, and IMO they wouldn't be worth it.

If you took that to mean the whole state, you took it wrong, I sure as hell am not talking about you people in the South. Not everyone who lives in these state are secessionists.

If YOU are not part of that group talking about secession no one is talking about YOU.

They would lose much more than they could ever prepare for.

Imagine: Texas (for instance), secedes on Tuesday. They have a big party on Wednesday. On Thursday, we invade them (not to maintain the union, but as one nation invades another) and throw their entire state government into Guantanamo and make them a protectorate!

Let's go let's go let's go!

How few people does it take to decide the fate of the millions of people who live there? Is 12,000 enough? 2,000? 50?

The whole notion of secession is a just a right-wing wacko wet dream.

more at the whole stupid idea.

....and do the following:

1. Blockade all roads into and out of that state to include food shipments
2. Cut off all communications into and out of that state
3. Lock down and secure all military installations in that state
4. Give the state three weeks to come to their senses and capitulate, or proceed to Step 5....
5. After three weeks, move in with enough military force to occupy that state with a minimum of casualties

I'm a liberal, but I'm not going to sit by and watch the US fall apart from the inside out.

Land, sea, and air blockade... no goods or people in or out. They wouldn't last a week. Then impose a "stupid tax" on everyone who signed the petition.

in the red country of TextUS.

The can pack up whatever they own that they want to take with them and catch the next plane, train, boat to anywhere that will let them in.

Passing a "law" to that effect would be no more legally binding than me writing down on a piece of toilet paper that I declare my own property "independent".

Seriously, what about football?

They could apply for foreign aid.

... it just wouldn't be USA Federal funding. It would be Federal Funding from the Federal Government of the Sovereign Republic of Colorado, in Colorado Dollars, or Francs or Zlotys, whatever currency they invent.

Would they need a Fox News for each country?
What would Rush Limbaugh do? Where would he go? Who would he complain about?

These are serious questions (sarcasm)

how do you sustepct the 99.5% of the population feels?

because I am part of the 99.5%.

the MSM just made a big deal out of stating that now 40 states have petitions to secede. All it takes in 2 nut cases per state, and apparently the entire state is labelled. Gawd it's annoying!