Secession in the Nation

We all know those people who take politics a little too seriously. Sometimes (as my last post demonstrates) we can even be that person in the room. I can't say that many people would know someone who has the audacity to start a petition to secede from the Union, however, due to political unhappiness.

As the video above demonstrates, some people are taking the election, the economic crisis and the "threat of national government" to an extreme. While it's completely fine for these people to exercise their right to free speech, do they truly think that 25,000 signatures is going to make anyone sit up and take notice?

As of the most current numbers that I have seen, the petition for the secession of Texas is sitting at 93, 175 signatures. I find it hard to believe that citizens of the United States are looking to secede from the Union because they can't have their way when it comes to politics. It seems immature and, frankly, sad.

This move from the citizens of some states, such as Texas, is not surprising in a historical context. Anyone remember the Alamo? But not only Texas has the thirst for independence, but other deep south states such as Louisiana have citizens calling for secession. To be honest, when I think of this issue now, I will only be able to think of people sitting in front of their computers whispering sinisterly, "The South will rise again," as a Confederate flag hangs in the background.

That could be an ad campaign for these petitions.

I doubt that anyone in the federal government will take these petitions seriously. Since they weren't formally from the states themselves (only residents of the states) the federal government probably won't even acknowledge these calls to action. Also, the Civil War brought about the end of the States' rights to secede from the Union. So good luck to those citizens in attempting that.

As is with any Internet phenomena, there have been many spoof petitions that have popped up as well. A few of my favorites include:

• Forcing all states to pay their part of the national debt before seceding (764 signatures) 
• Peacefully grant the University of Illinois Chief Illiniwek back as the school mascot (2,144 signatures) 
• Peacefully grant the city of Austin, Texas to withdraw from the state of Texas and remain part of the United States (3, 327 signatures) 
• Deport everyone that signed a petition to withdraw their state from the United States of America (12, 931 signatures)

All petitions, whether they be about seceding or actual, sensible things like cutting foreign aid to Uganda if they actually do pass the "Kill the Gays" bill, can be found here.