The Post-Election Secession Movement: Let ‘Em Secede!
Apparently, a lot of people who voted for Romney would like to secede from the United States.
OK–let’s put aside for now the clear absurdity of this…the condemnation of the idea by Republican governors…the enormous difficulty of getting a majority of any state’s citizens to go along with it…the likelihood that this is based in crude racism…and the zero percent success rate of state secession movements in the United States.
Let’s just say they really do secede.
Most Southern states extract more money from the federal treasury than they pay in. And many people in the region work at US military installations or government offices. Everyone in the region relies on federal funding to maintain their transportation infrastructure, civil defense/disaster response And then of course there are those getting by with the help of federal assistance programs such as food stamps and Social Security (the ones Romney derided as “the 47 percent”).
In other words, if the secession movement succeeds, the secessionist states are going to take a huge economic hit. Bob Cesca, in one of the links cited above, says the federal government could simply starve them out and have them rejoin without military action. He’s probably right.
But here’s something perhaps more important that I don’t hear anyone saying:
If the Red states secede, Democrats will have a whopping majority in Congress and could actually get a much more humane, people-centered society in place–which the Red states would have to accept as reality when they come crawling back in a few years, IF the US will have them back.
Wouldn’t it be grand to have a country with a European style single-payer health plan…a solar-powered economy with jobs for all…a military designed to actually defend our shores instead of pursue imperialist wars in countries where we have no justification for our invasion (can you say Iraq?)…an education system that values science and knowledge, and prepares the next generation to play a leadership role in advancing society through technological progress…and so on?
So I say…let ’em Secede!
