Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Let Them Secede, But Let Us Leave First

So, since any group of idiots can create a petition, I made my own. Basically, I think it would be great to get rid of a bunch of wingnuts and led them drown in their own Objectivism. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in states where petitions for secession have been filed (including yours truly) who love their country and would like to remain American citizens. My petition attempts to allow the best of both worlds. You can sign it here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/take-steps-insure-orderly-peaceful-secession-states-and-repatriation-american-citizens/VY8X2Lpc

Unfortunately, the whitehouse.gov site has a word limit, so I had to slightly edit my original petition, which appears in full below: 

This petition requests that the federal government take steps to insure the orderly, peaceful secession of any state that ratifies, through legislative process or referendum, the decision to withdraw from the Union. These states are entitled to the right of self-determination and besides nearly all of them are states that receive more federal money than they pay in taxes, so allowing them to succeed would reduce federal expenditures by cutting non-productive “dead weight” out of our nation.

Because simple secession would result in involuntary expatriation of the 30-45% of citizens who voted for President Obama in states where secession petitions have been filed, not to mention the Romney and third party voters who believe that calls for secession are an extreme reaction to losing an election, this petition also requests that the federal government enact legislation to assist in the relocation of those in soon-to-be former U.S. states who wish to remain United States Citizens. The steps below outline a very rough plan for allowing for orderly secession and repatriation.

  1. Congress shall set a deadline by which all fifty states must decide, by methods of their own choosing, whether to remain members of the Union.
  2. Once it is determined which states will be seceding, citizens of secessionist states who wish to relocate to non-secessionist states may file a petition declaring their desire to remain American citizens. Likewise, any citizen in a non-secessionist state who wishes to become a citizen of one of the newly formed states should declare their intent to give up their American citizenship.
  3. The federal government will institute programs to assist refugees from secessionist states in finding jobs (perhaps by matching job skills to jobs that will be vacated by those who plan to relocate to a former U.S. state.) and relocating to U.S. states. This program should include government assistance for low-income families and individuals who would otherwise by unable to remain U.S. citizens. Similar programs will not be necessary for those revoking their U.S. citizenship, as they don’t want any help from the government.
  4. Once everyone has been relocated to a state of their choosing, the federal government may begin disentangling itself financially and politically from the former U.S. states.
  5. As soon as all formal ties are dissolved, the U.S. should erect secure borders to prevent foreigners from stealing our jobs and government benefits. 

Since this is our country's chance for a "reboot," we should enact corporate reform concurrent with the above actions. This should include breaking up "to big to fail" banks, ending commodities speculation and off-shoring of profits, and enacting an Workers Bill of Rights that mandates health care, vacation time, and all the other perks that people in Europe consider essential. The legislation should also set a cap on the ratio of CEO pay to employee pay for any company that wishes to receive government subsidies of any kind. Corporations who do not wish to play by these rules will be allowed to relocate to newly-independent former states and their infrastructure will be converted for use by employee-owned startups.