Status Quo vs Secession vs Revolution: Discuss

[ungoliant]

Soooo, it seems that secession petitions have been filed in all 50 states this year, some of which have passed the 25000 signature mark legally warranting an official response from the white house. Interesting factoid: Alaska Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that secession is illegal.

 

Apparently, a lot of people have come to the conclusion that the Federal Govt of USA is FUBAR to the point of being unsalvagable. I don't think any of the secessionists intend to make a new country, or have their state be independent of the US, but more so to reformulate the republic based on the original Constitution that made USA so kickass, without any of the bullshit.

 

So if secession is deemed officially (or federally) illegal, what then? James Madison, the "father of the constitution", advocated revolution over secession. Is it worth it, or just let things sit as they are?

[demagogue]

Simple answer: The whole thing is a practical joke. There's nothing serious to actually respond to.

 

Longer answer anyway: It would be under state law for obvious reasons (ex hypothesi they're denouncing the application of federal law), and every state has its own law, so you'd have to look at each state law individually to see what's legal. I think it'd be a good idea to update our constitution, if that's what we mean by "revolution" (you could just have a new constitutional convention and legally do it like any normal amendment). From a lawyer's perspective, it's a 250 year old dinosaur. So reformulating it on taking into account a lot of developments in constitutional law over the last 100 years would be worthwhile. (Not sure what you mean by reformulate it based on the original constitution? We are still *under* the original Constitution. You can't get closer to what we already are. Unless you mean either (1) revoke the Bill of Rights & 23 Amendments, in which case you can't be serious and that'd never sell, or (2) go back to the Articles of Confederation, in which case you really can't be serious ... I mean, that's what the Civil War tried to do but, it'd be a political, economic and legal mess & probably sink the world economy into a 2 decade depression from which we'd probably emerge an poor agrarian economy, which is what confederacies are designed for, but it would be awful in every way imaginable.

 

But even a more "confederacy-like" Constitution, like early interpretations before the Civil War, which is what many of these critics seem to be calling for, would be awful for pretty much the same reasons. We want the economy of scale & the reach of strong and competent Federal law for high-level industry to have any hope of having a stable foundation in the market to grow. The critics apparently do not realize they're calling for the government of impoverished agrarian economies. Do you know what countries have very limited central governments that cannot control their populations? Malawi and Burkino Faso.

 

But anyway like most Americans I like how our Constitution looks & it's like a quasi-religious civic text that has had most constitutional developments read into it by the Supreme Court anyway. So I'm happy to see us continue with the status quo. FGS if people hate Obama that much they want a civil war, just wait for the next election and they'll live longer. The political disputes we're going through pale in comparison to real political disputes where constitutional matters are involved in a serious way, like the kind of thing I'm dealing with for Burma here.

[nbohr1more]

There is a reason for a revolution but it's not Obama. Put simply, big corporate interests have gotten away with murder for at least the last 12yrs. Neither party has done much to obstruct it. But here we are with half the country convinced that unions and welfare recipients are the source of our economic woes. Quite brainwashed I'd say. The big banks gamble away decades worth of financial solvency and we're worried about how spoiled the middle class is for wanting music programs in their schools. Secession wont help and really only serves to give those big financial entities more power (not to mention weaken the US's relative standing on the world stage). To me, talks of seccession are traitorous and probably fueled by opportunists (Fox News) taking money from China. Why have WW3 when you can dismantle your enemy's country from within?