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Would Calexit be a good thing?

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Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#21

Post by M_Grey »

leggomylibro wrote: post #17
M_Grey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what planet do you expect that the US at large is going to accept 1/7th of their economy seceding without a fight?

What are they going to do? Occupy the entire coast with federal armed forces? Sure, they could do that, but it's hard to take any sort of moral high ground or project strength on the world stage when you are forced to militarily occupy your own country against its will. That said, I doubt any states are realistically going to secede, but at least Texas won't be the only ones constantly going on about it now.

...Moral high ground? We've been manufacturing that since Vietnam, and people still haven't caught on well enough to stop it happening again. The economic devastation brought about through secession would be the casus belli anyway.

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#22

Post by makerbraker »

M_Grey wrote: post #5
CuriouslyC wrote: post #3

California is almost certainly going to break off from the larger United States in our lifetime. The interests of the United States are already too heterogeneous to be effectively served by a single government, and the problem is only going to get worse. I don't believe California will be successful if it attempts to secede solo though. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that if it is going to work, it will ne…

On what planet do you expect that the US at large is going to accept 1/7th of their economy seceding without a fight?

Not just the economy.

You'd also need high level US military leaders to go insubordinate, voluntarily ignore their chain of command, and "donate" the assets of the US armed services to the Republic of California.

Texas is the only state that could probably put up a fight, but it'd be very ugly and very bloody.

Secession almost always equals war.

I think the folks advocating for secession trivialize the fact that the end result is armed conflict and not knowing which side your neighbor is on.

And Brexit is not precedent whatsoever -- Britain can exit from the EU because there was no large amount of shared military/defense assets based within the UK, and the EU is primarily an economic cooperation effort.

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#23

Post by M_Grey »

jurassic wrote: post #18
M_Grey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what planet do you expect that the US at large is going to accept 1/7th of their economy seceding without a fight?

I'm not sure there would be much opposition. Without California fucking things up, conservatives would reliably win the electoral AND the popular vote. The people with the most to lose are liberals in red states who would become a permanent minority. Personally, I would not want to live in an independent California. I love everyone's good ("bleeding heart") intentions, but our legislative system seems fatally flawed.

Cali represents far too much GDP, far too much raw valuable coastline to ever let go. It would be cheaper to kill every last man woman and child in the state, and repopulate it, than it would be to let it secede.

Never mind what Lincoln knew... if one goes, the union will wall.

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#24

Post by eksemplar »

M_Grey wrote: post #5
CuriouslyC wrote: post #3

California is almost certainly going to break off from the larger United States in our lifetime. The interests of the United States are already too heterogeneous to be effectively served by a single government, and the problem is only going to get worse. I don't believe California will be successful if it attempts to secede solo though. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that if it is going to work, it will ne…

On what planet do you expect that the US at large is going to accept 1/7th of their economy seceding without a fight?

This planet perhaps. The divide between rural populations and urban populations have grown so far that people in city hubs feel more kinship toward other major cities around the world than they do toward their rural co-citizens.

Division is a dangerous thing. The us at large might not have a choice.

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#25

Post by tossaway1 »

JBReefer wrote: post #10
Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MA and NY have major economies and plenty of legislative cooperation.

And no shared border. Also, NY State is much more conservative than people assume, the State legislature is usually controlled by Republicans.

> And no shared border.

TIL MA and NY do not share a border...

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#27

Post by makerbraker »

hyperbovine wrote: post #13
JBReefer wrote: post #6

No. People in the current bubble forget that California is usually broke/in legislative crises, which might be about to happen again. Texas is probably the only state capable of thriving if it secedes, CA doesn't even have it's own electric grid. * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9312_California_b... * http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-s-400...

You act as though power exports from Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada and Utah would somehow cease overnight if California were to become its own country. This is of course false.

It wouldn't continue uninterrupted forever.

Those power exports are paid for in currency denominated by the US dollar.

California is no longer part of the US, remember?

Each of those states would have to negotiate with the new Republic to receive something in equal worth to the power they were delivering.

And if they don't get it, they're not going to give away power for free. Their governments won't let them, their constituents won't let them, their budgets won't let them, and lastly, the FERC won't let them.

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#28

Post by grzm »

JBReefer wrote: post #10
Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MA and NY have major economies and plenty of legislative cooperation.

And no shared border. Also, NY State is much more conservative than people assume, the State legislature is usually controlled by Republicans.

And no shared border.

Massachusetts borders New York to the east. Or were you thinking California?

Re: Would Calexit be a good thing?

#30

Post by phamilton »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #3

California is almost certainly going to break off from the larger United States in our lifetime. The interests of the United States are already too heterogeneous to be effectively served by a single government, and the problem is only going to get worse. I don't believe California will be successful if it attempts to secede solo though. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that if it is going to work, it will ne…

I would go further and say that California will split into 7 states, Washington and Oregon will split into 5 between them.

Then we can go further and call this new union the Twelve States of the Pacific, or Pac12.

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