Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Half a Million Secessionists Impotently Petition White House

By Will Conley

As of Tuesday night, Nov. 13, 2012, more than 500,000 Americans have signed online petitions at the WhiteHouse.gov petition portal, requesting permission from President Obama to let their states consider seceding from the Union — including a few hundred from my home state of Minnesota.

Click to magnify.

That the number of signatures on the Minnesota petition at the time of this writing is commensurate with a concurrent petition to let a university have their Injun mascot back is illustrative of the fact that the secessionists' bark is louder than their bite. Also, that apparently only racists ever petition the White House. (Not true. Joke.) (Wait, Will, how can a bite be loud? Well I suppose if it's a really gnashing, cartoony-sounding bite...)

The maps below — which I created merely to shock and frighten you — show how the United States would be carved up if the election-losing crybab- er, secessionist movement ever managed to drag their states into a civil war. The first map represents the state of the petition situation as of Monday night. The second reflects the massive surge in popularity just 24 hours later.

Click to magnify.

Click to magnify.

But don't polish your muskets just yet. The secessionist movement is little more than a temper tantrum thrown by a small minority of the roughly 314 million people whom the U.S. Census Bureau deems Americans. A few points to remember:

► The petitions do not reflect the will of the state governments in which the petitioners reside. Governor Perry of Texas, for example, expressly does not support the Texas secessionist movement, even though in the past he has hinted at his sympathy with the movement in an effort to garner more votes.

► Anyone can start a petition. You only need one person to start a petition and thus "represent" a state.
► If a petition receives 25,000 signatures, all that means is the president is legally obligated to respond in words to the petition.

► Most of the petitions are copycats of one another and do not reflect separate spontaneous movements to secede. That means most of the secession rhetoric is bandwagoneering, and most of the petitioners couldn't have spelled the words in the petitions independently let alone comprehend the full meaning of those words.

► It's a safe bet that there's at least one These-Colors-Do-Run quitter in each state, so I guesstimate all 50 states and the District of Columbia will have petitions by the weekend. That means that if a secession movement could even remotely succeed (it can't, not in this police state), then the whole country would have to secede from itself. It would be like a kid threatening his brother to take the ball and go home — while the two were still standing in their own back yard.

Conclusion: It's very, very safe to point and laugh at these clueless wannab- er, brave revolutionaries. Your comments, whether sane or idiotic, are welcome.

Sources:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57548572/states-petition-to-secede-from-union/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/12/petitions-to-secede-are-filed-for-23-states-since-/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/secession-petitions-gain-steam-article-1.1201439
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/petition-to-secede-states_n_2120410.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

Maps created with the assistance of:

Defocus Blog: http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/generate.html

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