We The Sour Grapes People

Back in 2011, the president wanted to give everyone in the nation a chance to be heard so he instituted a website entitled "We the People." Anyone could petition the White House on any issue he or she thought was likely to have a significant effect on his or her well-being. In order to make it to the web site as legit instead of being labelled a potentially crackpot idea, the petition had to have at least 150 signatures.

If the petitioner wanted an actual response from the White House, that number jumped to 10,000. As of today when I read about it, there were 146 petitions currently on the site...66 of them (like the one from Texas posted above) asking that the president "peacefully grant" secession to an individual state. Petitions from all 50 states are noted, though one must wonder why there is no coordinated effort (after all, there ARE 66 of them). Most of these petitions have arrived following the latest presidential election, as one might guess. To date, the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia and Texas have more than the required 10k signatures.

But, secede? Really? Wasn't that tried once before? How did that work out?

Interestingly enough, some petitioners would like to have the president grant the request on a few conditions:

1. Anyone signing such a petition could be "peacefully deported." (leaving room, one might assume, for people who wanted to live here)

2. Allow any state to secede as long as it paid its share of the national debt before closing the border.

I guess there are scapegoats for everything we don't care to admit (see Karl Rove)...a result of our entitled childhoods as Baby Boomers, perhaps. But, really, get with it, folks. Without a federal government, what would any individual state do when a natural disaster struck...or when they found out that there really IS such a thing as global warming...or when all the immigrant workers moved to a more friendly environment leaving all the crops to rot in the fields and all the cows to cross their hind legs for want of milking? There would be NOBODY to perform those tasks we consider ourselves too refined to complete.

When the roads crumbled and schools failed even more miserably, where would they get the money? Bake sales? You can see that the middle class would all move to places like Oregon that would welcome new blood since all the hippies are getting older!

How would they enforce laws governing transport, travel and business between states? Would Iowa jack up corn prices for ethanol because Illinois people are rude? Would there be no bread because Kansan farmers won't sell to the godless people of...well...just about anywhere? Where would we house all the criminals that we keep sending out of state because we still believe incarceration is the best way to go?

The degree to which some people go to vent idiotic ideas (are you reading this, Donald?) borders on insanity.

As we rush toward the fiscal cliff like lemmings following people like Rush Limbaugh because "our" guy didn't win, we need to stop and get a grip on reality. More people (and the electoral college) voted for the winner than they did for the loser. Get over it. Let's start working together...foreign concept though that may be.