Secession

The latest craze is petitions from various states to secede from the U.S. and be allowed to form their own governments. Noteworthy is the lack of knowledge that the various states are sovereign and theoretically allowed to do whatever they want. Also not noted is that the federal government has specifically enumerated powers and is not actually permitted to do anything beyond what is permitted.

There are petitions from 30 states at last count including that bastion of right wing Tea-Partiers, New York.  I haven't seen their petition but if it were me writing it it would offer to leave New York City to the old country. I expect that any petition from Illinois would offer to leave Cook County behind as well.

 Unbiased reportage on the topic includes an article in Westword headlined:

Obama haters petition for Colorado to secede: More than 3,000 signatures at WhiteHouse.gov

Good opening. If you read down, second page on their online post:

The petitions, which don't mention Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, come just weeks after both candidates made commitments to bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle in their final pleas for votes.

Emphasis mine. So both candidates may be responsible for this, but probably only Mitt.

In parallel to this is a petition has been launched to charge anyone who signs one of these petitions for redress of grievance with treason, revoke their citizenship, and deport them, although no destination is mentioned.

Someone with a sick sense of humor should put together another petition demanding that the government, by executive order, have all the signatories picked up and removed to re-education camps where they will be given 6 months weeks to learn the error of their ways, or else be executed for treason. I bet you could get the 25,000 signatures fairly quickly from the Kosmonauts or the Puffington Hostesses.

Update: Seven states have now reached the 25,000 signature mark required for official notice. Colorado is 2/3 of the way there. Predictably Austin has asked to not be included in a Texas secession. Most Texans would gladly go along with that.Colorado would certainly let Boulder exempt itself.

All 50 states now have petitions in the queue. Maybe we're taking the wrong approach. Maybe we should be petitioning to throw D.C. out and keep the rest of the union.