• @LunarVoyager
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    167 hours ago

    Sorry, opting out is only available for California residents

    • @[email protected]
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      77 hours ago

      Realistically how likely is secession? Pretty unlikely, right? What’s the process like?

      • @[email protected]
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        26 minutes ago

        Its really unlikely mostly because we’d have to go authoritarian as fuck to get the maga traitors out before they could seriously damage us from within

        The Sierra Nevada make a great natural barrier on one side, then the big ass desert to the south, so getting large amounts of anything in once we cut ourselves off would actually be harder than youd think

        If we successfully negotiated with Mexico, Canada, or someone to back our asses up we might be able to manage it just off the idea that bombing us to oblivion is a really bad idea for your supply of quite a few crops & your major entertainment for the country as well as the busy ass ports on our shores, and that’s before you consider how much the rest of the world would find such a move incredibly distasteful from a “holy shit what did you just do” aspect

        All in all if ANY state can successfully pull it off, it’s California, but it’s not going to happen

      • @[email protected]
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        42 hours ago

        There is also “constitutional convention” path to “a better union” (revoking current government). Secession when threatened by TX gets an ok vibe, but the “right wing states rights” gang sees invading California as completely hinged response, if they suggest it.

      • @LovableSidekick
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        22 hours ago

        I’ve thought for a long time that the US will end up as a collection of smaller countries. Not looking forward to the transition period.

        • @LovableSidekick
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          2 hours ago

          “Can’t?” States are not supposed to secede. People aren’t supposed to commit crimes either, but they do. Some even get away with it.

          • @[email protected]
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            156 minutes ago

            As we learned from the American Civil War, the southern states were incapable of seceding. However this isn’t the question at hand. The above user asked this:

            What’s the process like?

            There is no such process.

            • @[email protected]
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              125 minutes ago

              There is no such process.

              There is, it worked once and failed once in our history

              Step 1: Declare independence from the other government

              Step 2: don’t lose the war

              Step 2 is the hard part, admittedly

            • @[email protected]
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              12 minutes ago

              The only thing that prevented the south from seceding was Lincoln’s re-election. Literally.

          • @samus12345
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            12 hours ago

            They can’t do it legally without changing the law. Of course, the only laws that will matter soon are those that the GOP supports.

            • @LovableSidekick
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              1 hour ago

              It’s not like the DON’T WALK sign at the crosswalk. If a state presented Congress with a demand to secede they would have to address it. Simply telling the state it was illegal wouldn’t be enough. The state could take whatever next step they want, the federal government would have to respond, and whatever was going to happen would happen. There’s no point speculating about the results, but if a state got to the point of actually starting this sequence rolling, it wouldn’t just stop with “sorry no you can’t it’s illegal.”

              • @[email protected]
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                141 minutes ago

                A jaywalker doesn’t petition the town council to cross the street illegally. They jaywalk. A state seceding could involve as little as a governor declaring their state left the Union. At that point the ball would be in the Federal Government’s court to set the record straight, to clarify that the state in fact did not secede.

        • @AngryCommieKender
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          2 hours ago

          They could divide the state into as many as 5 states just to fuck with the liberal cities and the Senate though.

          The only reason I see that as unlikely to happen is that all 5 would want to remain as the remaining state of Texas

      • @dejected_warp_core
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        96 hours ago

        Pretty unlikely, right?

        Very. The last time, warfare was far less asymmetric than it is now. Millions of people would need to be well past the point of “dying for their values and ideals” before that would get traction politically.

        What’s the process like?

        There literally isn’t one, or at least, not an official one; we’re not the EU. One spot on a map says “no” and the bigger spot on the map around it says “LOL… oh wait you’re serious?” Then they fight.

        Also, the optics are very different for a state like California or any other economic powerhouse in the union. These places make up a huge chunk of the country’s GDP, so losing them would cost a massive chunk of the tax base. Plus, that would reduce the overall coastline of the remainder. Combined these outcomes are strategically “very bad”, further motivating the use of force to counter it.

        • @LovableSidekick
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          2 hours ago

          Secession is a very complex subject. Besides the issues you mentioned there are tons of consequences of using force. The Civil War was over 160 years ago and we still have lingering grudges. How would our wealthy feel about the impacts of another one on their investments? Or on US bond values and the value of the dollar itself? I feel like analyzing the possibilities is far beyond my Econ 101 knowledge, but it seems like resolving a secession issue with negotiation would be vastly preferable to all parties involved than any armed conflict. I think it would come down to how the most influential people thought any outcome would affect them.