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All these secession petitions
Maybe most of you have heard of this already: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/secission-petitions-filed-20-states-190210006.html
In the wake of last week's presidential election, thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
Is it just me, or is this just some reactionary butthurt over Obama's re-election? The Texas petition apparently has the most signatures, but their governor is against that. From what I can tell, state governors have not shown any support for these petitions. (although I could be wrong, due to not living in the U.S.) I don't think I need to state how unlikely actual seccession will happen. Interestingly, someone recently started an online petition to show that online petitions can be terribly meaningless. Kind of amusing.
This is probably not going to mean anything in the long run. According to the Yahoo News post, this kind of thing happened before.
An article from WKRC quotes a University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't uncommon. Similar petitions were filed following the 2004 and 2008 elections.
Still, maybe this is worth making a thread for, anyway. Sounds like such a stupid thing to do, as hardly anything is gonna come out of it. But maybe these are the kind of people who tend to partake such fruitless endeavors. Especially since signing one of these wouldn't take much effort anyway.
Comments
It is not just you. I feel a lot of these petitions are created out of anger that the election did not go the way creator wanted them to go. Of course a lot of the states that are petitioning to leave the union are the ones that receive a good portion of federal aid.
I guess that's a big reason why these things won't be getting much support from state governors.
i cant wait to be an ardent fighter against tyranny all day and sign all these petitions
why can't I
hold all this secession
I warned you about petulant, empty gestures, bro.
^^^ The amusing thing is that you can read that in a really backhanded way. Like how most of the signatures for LA seceding weren't actually from people in LA, but people who hated it.
The only state that could possibly secede without a drastically lowered quality of life is Texas, and we won't. I'm looking forward to the administration's response, since the Texas one is past the point where they have to respond.
Comedy option: we can let Oklahoma leave, deed their land to the Chickasaw Nation, and then admit Puerto Rico.
Yeah, since people signing petitions ever really mattered.
Again, the Texan petition represents barely a fraction of the state. Probably a little over 1/40th. (Think I got an outdated figure from SA earlier)
Well, state initiatives to put measures on the ballot only require about 8% of the voting population in signatures. As far as orders of magnitude go that's probably not too far from 1/40 of the state population.
It seems like it would need even less than that, honestly. Either way, those are still tiny proportions that shouldn't be taken seriously, I would think.
No, Texas has a population of over 25,000,000.
The number I checked said somewhere around 66 or 76 thousand had signed.
So the fraction is a lot smaller, though not as high as my previous estimate.
"The Texas petition was filed on Friday and had more than 70,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning." http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2012/11/13/gov-perry-doesnt-want-texas-to-secede/
So, a little more than .28%. Should've checked my math the first time.
There are ~85000 signatures on the petition.
Based on Wikipedia's population estimate that's ~0.33% or around 1/300.
But the way We the People works apparently is that the federal government must give an official response to any petition that reaches 25000 signatures within a 30 days.
Ah. So, yeah, roughly 1/300. When I think about it more, that's kind of astonishing. Those numbers, in general. 85,000; 25,000,000; fractions. Numbers like that are humbling.
It is at 87000 now.
That is to say, it gained two thousand signatures in the last two hours. Either someone's running a script or this may be actually going somewhere. Probably the former, but still.
It's probably just a result of all the publicity it's attracted.
I have to wonder how many of the people who signed it are actually from Texas.
None.
It's just like... everyone else going "Wait, we can get rid of Texas??? Awesome!"
I'd say at least half of the petitioners at least claim to be from a town in Texas.
Not that anything on petitions.whitehouse.gov is remotely binding. An actual referendum in Texas would be interesting though, because while legalizing marijuana is ignorable by the federal government, secession...isn't.
It's reached more than 90, 000 now. Even then it probably still won't amount to anything.
Also, there's a "deport anybody signing petitions to secede" petition. That's probably a "let's prove a point" deal like the "petitions are stupid" petition.
I would totally be okay with swapping Texas out for Puerto Rico.
You could take Tasmania if you want. Tasmania sucks.
> Comedy option: we can let Oklahoma leave, deed their land to the Chickasaw Nation, and then admit Puerto Rico.
imokaywiththis.png
Anyway, if I were the White House press team I would respond to the Texas petition with "talk it over with your fellow Texans first". Or better yet, "Go right ahead and try it."
This has gotten rather ridiculous.
At this rate, we'd have petitions from all states, and if this is allowed, the new nation would still be the same geographically. Kind of hilarious.
We petition the Obama administration to:
Peacefully allow the states that have asked to secede, and the states that have not, to do so, and form their own new nation altogether, under the United States Constitution, with the Barack Obama as the current head of the executive branch, the upcoming composition of Congress as the basis of the legislative branch, and the current court system as the judicial branch, and
Come up with a better demonym for us U.S. Americans.
Its only going to be a matter of time before this mentality leads to a terrorist act or a riot, then I can imagine things getting really ugly considering how much leeway our government has if it ever declared martial-law.
lolno. 25,000 people is not a lot, and even if the petitions "passed" I think you'd find the vast majority of American citizens wish to stay such for one reason or another.
Also, I found a much better petition, courtesy of Cracked.