(NEWSER) – White House to Texas: You're staying in America. The Obama administration has officially rejected a petition signed by more than 125,000 people demanding that the Lone Star State be allowed to leave the union, the Houston Chronicle reports. Similar petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, all started within a few days of President Obama's re-election, were also nixed. The White House said the Founding Fathers who created the US "did not provide a right to walk away from it."
"In a nation of 300 million people—each with their own set of deeply-held beliefs—democracy can be noisy and controversial. And that's a good thing," wrote the director of the Office of Public Engagement. "Free and open debate is what makes this country work, and many people around the world risk their lives every day for the liberties we often take for granted." The Obama administration received secession petitions from all 50 states, but only responded to the ones that gained more than 25,000 signatures.
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Show me in the Constitution where it says they have to stay after they are admitted into the Union.
But might makes right, as we saw back in 1861.
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Show me in the Constitution where it says they have to stay after they are admitted into the Union.
But might makes right, as we saw back in 1861.
The slave drivers never change do they!
ReplyDeleteObama my hero!
Ummmm... wot?
DeleteMaybe Washington DC wants to secede as well... (I would if I had to pay tax without representation in Congress). Isn't this the new trend? Scotland wants to secede from the UK, Catalonia from Spain, the UK from Europe...
ReplyDeleteFind me someone in DC who isn't on the dole and actually pays taxes. A more over-represented, undertaxed group of people one could never imagine! :)
DeleteIt is the same old trend. Scotland from the UK, the UK from Europe, Europe from the U.S. :) :) :)
Nobody's going nowhere. I think.
125,000 out of what population? Around 0.5%, I believe. That doesn't sound like anything other than a vociferous minority. What percentage would make it worthy of attention?
ReplyDeleteApparently 0.5% :)
DeleteBeing dismissed out of hand doesn't constitute being worthy of attention.
DeleteI suppose Obama IS dismissing them out of hand. As you say, the petition numbers are insignificant. There are always a few kids who want to take their ball and go home instead of go by what the majority wants. I don't know what percentage would make it worthy of attention. More than half? In Texas that would be maybe 10 or 12 million signatures. The answer would still be no in the end.
DeleteI believe the constitution should be corrected to be more clear about what happens if a territory joins the club and later wants to leave. It doesn't prohibit leaving, as it reads now. That was one of my points. Anyway, Obama isn't acting as an official constitutional judge in this matter, only responding to a petition to his office.
My dinky little suburban "city" on the outskirts of Houston has 85K citizens, so we're not exactly representing the state as a whole.
DeleteIf you know what I mean.
Houston proper (not by any stretch the only sizable city in Texas) has > 2million, 8X the number of signatures.
Giving it the courtesy of a response at all seems more than it likely merited.
On the other hand, a petition certainly beats gathering up guns/nutcases to storm the capital or leaving a bomb in front of a federal building, so kudos to that.
Petitions do beat the nutcase methods.
DeleteRob, Scotland does not wish to 'secede.'
ReplyDeleteScotland, an independent nation, wants it's nation back!
A big difference.
Texas, as an independent republic, wants its nation back.
DeleteNo difference. Except for size and population, maybe. :)
And a couple of ACTUAL real football teams....
Texas belongs to Mexico!
DeleteAnd Scotland belongs to the Romans, but what can we do if these folks can't manage to hang onto their property?
DeleteUmm, let's be pedantic. The Romans built Hadrian's wall to keep the barbarians out. They did not want Scotland.
DeleteHadrian's wall is in England.
DeleteWe let them build it to keep them out.
Similar happens here every so often, too. Secession rears its head; and then buries it again. The tropical north of Queensland, the state in which I live often declares it's going to secede from the southern part of the State. And then sometimes Queensland as a whole wants to secede from the rest of the country. Neither desire will succeed in seceding!
ReplyDeleteI hope it never happens, Lee. It just wouldn't be the same.
DeleteAnd Canada, don't forget Canada and the Québécois. They have been trying to become independent from the rest of Canada for many years.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is another good example. But I don't think they have ever received a majority vote in any past referendum on the subject. Like France, they seek respect and attention and recognition for their presumed uniqueness. That's fine. I can live with that.
DeleteQuebec would probably get many more votes to leave than Scotland ever will, but that's just my opinion. Either way, in the final analysis, the "patriotic" rhetoric always gives way to "What will I gain and what will I lose."
But Canada would allow Quebec to go it's own way. In the U.S. (if history is any indication) they just bash the dissatisfied state's head in and keep them in the union. It's the american way. :)
And Yorkshire. Why should we be dictated to by a bunch of southern jessies?
ReplyDeleteAs for the secession of Texas, or any other state, I'd say that any request or demand or negotiation should surely come from the state legislature, not from 0.5 per-cent of random persons, many of whom, in that petition, were not themselves living in, or born in Texas.
Should a state be able to secede? Absolutely, but joining, and being part of a union, should not be a fair-weather act.
Saying it should be possible, however, is a long way from figuring out how it would work. Border posts on the interstate? Deportation of 'foreign' persons, like New Mexicans? Would Texan nationals then also be deported from Union states?
Military personnel? ejected from the U.S. armed forces?
If Texas wanting to secede ever became a real threat and Washington didn't want it to happen, they need only mention that they're imposing a tariff on foreign oil.
DeleteI bet the position changes in days if not hours.
Yorkshire secede?
DeleteYou are getting so mellow, Soub.
DeleteStephanie, I'm sure they would never agree to lose Texas oil.
DeleteI wonder how badly losing Texas (representatives and Senators) hurts the Republicans in Congress? I wonder if anyone's given that some thought?
ReplyDeleteProbably, which is likely why this isn't more than a publicity stunt.
It's just another teaparty stunt. :) Don't take this seriously. Every single state in the union sent in a petition. He only responded to the ones that had at least 25,000 signatures. The crazies. He should go pick up their guns.
Delete