While this is not a commonly discussed topic in government (yet!), we would like today to step outside the box. We want to pause and reflect on issues that affect the lives of hippies across the country—something many a Wesleyan student can relate to. Why should the granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing citizens of California necessarily be subject to the federal government of the United States when they clearly view themselves as distinct? So today, we ponder….
Should the people of California live free from the fiscal and social tyranny of the United States? Today we’re addressing what is certain to be the foremost issue in everyone’s minds – California: Do/do not secede from the Union?
LIVE FREE OR EAT SUSHI!
Liberated from the financial oppression and permitted to exercise a sound social policy, Californians will be a loved and respected people. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, a fully diversified marketplace with a very high average income. The taxpayers of California give $58 billion a year more to the federal government than they get back; in other words, $1,600 per Californian is squandered by Washington annually. Indeed, Californians have far more peaceful views than Washington, but their own state’s share of the military budget is greater than that of Israel and the UK combined! As a free and independent economy, California would easily pay its share of the U.S. national debt and avoid the financial catastrophe that the looming debt will inflict on American economy. California could be flooded with tourists longing to visit the fabulously liberal and beautiful California Republic.
The primary reason for secession is the value gap between mainstream America and the Golden State. California would have national funding for stem cell research, keep abortion legal, and perhaps permit gay marriages. It would end the racist war on drugs and the silly prohibition of marijuana. The Republic of California would not be bound to participate in the regular moral abominations committed by the U.S. government. I am sure we all can agree that California does not deserve to be on an equal playing field with Utah, Oklahoma, and New Jersey. Let the West Coast breathe free!
CALIFORNIA: DO NOT SECEDE!
California is a great and noble state, but it would be an absolute laughing-stock as a nation. The Republic of California? Next thing you know, they, too, will have 20 percent unemployment and give out welfare checks to dogs (we’re looking at you, Germany!). However, there are a few salient reasons not to secede, as follows:
First and most obviously, states do not have the expressed right of secession. Secession blocks direct intercourse with other states and thus disrupts the unity of the nation. To prevent a state from seceding, the U.S. government is prepared to utilize a military occupation. Forget the ‘war of northern aggression.’ We’re looking at a threat to national security with a timeline the length of Jack Bauer’s crises.
But let’s say California managed to get free. A disastrous fate would undoubtedly await! If California is shunned or blockaded by U.S., it will have to rely on trade through Mexico – and lose its best market for its industrial and hi-tech goods. What else? The Mexico-California border is one of the major fronts in the drug war. Declining resources and an exhausted military will see the newly-minted republic of California overrun by drugs, overcome with vice, and sinking further into a pit of its own, self-righteous disaster.
While comical, this hypothetical issue can certainly call into question many of the assumptions upon which our system is predicated. For example, are states able to succeed should they so wish? How would that affect the state and the federal system respectively? While the issue of California succession can perhaps be mocked, one should study the convoluted history of Hawaiian statehood and Puerto Rico’s history as a territory before dismissing the greater question of statehood as transitory as unimportant.
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