
Secessionists formally launch quest for California's independence - spking
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-california-secession-calexit-htmlstory.html
======
jaxomlotus
You know I was about to mock this as ridiculous and not worth any media
attention, but then I stopped to realize I mocked the notion of a Trump
presidency as ridiculous too.

I don't think there is any policitcal scenario that can be deemed far-fetched
anymore in this alternate timeline we branched into.

~~~
carsongross
There is nothing ridiculous about either.

Peaceful secession is the only humane way forward and the sooner people
starting thinking about it seriously, the better for all of us.

~~~
candiodari
And what if, say, next election, again someone you don't like gets elected ?

Bay area secession ?

~~~
carsongross
Of course any idea can be reduced to absurdity but, as a general concept, I
have no problem with city-states and free cities and would be very happy to
see them revived as a widespread form of sovereignty.

~~~
ende
Federalism is a perfectly good system for distributing sovereignty within a
shared security arrangement so as to avoid the wars that naturally erupt
between perfectly soverign states. Unfortunately we have spent the past 100
years eroding local and state sovereignty by treating national politics as the
only place where meaningful government happens.

Devolution is a much saner path than sessesion.

~~~
carsongross
I agree that federalism would be preferable in the case of the United States
in theory, but experience has shown that in practice power tends to
concentrate in the highest level of sovereignty.

I don't share your pessimism regarding wars and smaller sovereign states. I
think a world filed with relatively small Switzerland-style nations would be a
less bombed world.

------
gedy
I find it ironic that many of the folks who feel this way are also seem to be
those who lean (heavily) towards the federal government being the go-to
solution for most/all issues. Maybe this is a good reminder that doesn't just
apply when the government is aligned with your personal interests and beliefs?

~~~
ende
Exactly. Everybody wants to rule the world, and the minute they can't they
want an enclave.

------
orthecreedence
I am a Californian. I do not support secession. I think it's stupid, and the
people who support it are short-sighted. The movement got a lot of attention
after Trump got elected, which to me, smells of a bunch of whiny babies who
are stamping their feet because they didn't get their way (disclosure: I did
not vote for Trump, nor am I happy he won).

Not only that, but I have a vague recollection of this being tried before.
Exactly what makes secessionists think they can build an army large enough to
beat the US military? Oh, ok. They want to vote themselves out of the union.
Guess what, it doesn't work that way. And the second the US military comes by
to put us all back in our place, the people crowing for secession are going to
run with their tails between their legs. Also, how are we going to build a
militia with all of our strict gun laws??

If our economy is so much bigger and worth more representation than everyone
else's, let's quit whining and start flexing that muscle more...many
regulations we enact here have the ability to force companies across the
nation to adopt them.

We have the amount of representation we have because of the US constitution.
If that's a problem, either change the constitution or find other ways to
exert power. Secession is going to be a _lot_ more expensive in the long run.

~~~
flukus
Secession does not require war. Look at your northern neighbors, or even
several states which broke away from their parent states.

~~~
orthecreedence
Sorry, which states in the US have successfully seceded from the union?

~~~
flukus
I never said any have. Just because none have does not make it impossible,
especially in modern times. If California voted for independence on the US
stopped it then the would be seen as a belligerent invading nation and suffer
tough sanctions.

~~~
dingaling
There is no formal right to or recognition of secession in international law,
even if the seceding population votes for it.

Kosovo and Bangladesh were widely recognised as valid seceded nations due to
previous oppression; Rhodesia and Biafra were not and suffered fatal
international sanctions as a result.

But there was no rule of law behind this, in each they were sponsored or
opposed by a powerful nation which had an interest in the outcome. It's who
you have as friends that determines whether the seceder or the supranation is
'right'.

------
Animats
Not going to happen. Can't secede. See "American Civil War".

But read "Ecotopia" and "Ecotopia Emerging".

~~~
krapp
Any state willing to secede would no longer recognize the authority of the US
government, or the Constitution, so that's a moot point. It was treason for
the US to secede from Great Britain, but we did it anyway.

It's not a question of "can" or "can't," but whether or not a state is willing
to fight another civil war.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It's not even whether the _state_ is willing, but whether the _people_ of the
state are willing. I doubt whether California could field a sufficient force
if the US government declared their succession illegal.

(Go out and get shot at rather than hitting the beach? C'mon...)

~~~
PretzelFisch
That is what other foreign allies are for.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
That are willing to fight the US military so that Californians can hit the
beach rather than fight for their own independence? I doubt you'd find many
takers.

And who would be the taker? Russia? China? North Korea? Iran? Venezuela? Are
any of them going to really want to go against the US military within North
America? (The closest I could see happening is some Russian statement of
support and an attempt at nuclear blackmail, but few or no troops on the
ground.)

------
niftich
Intriguing idea. Let's talk logistics.

Almost 46% of the land area of the state of California is owned by the US
Federal Government through some agency (BLM, National Park Service, DoD, etc)
[1], including several key military bases, like Naval Base San Diego, home of
the US Pacific Fleet. Furthermore, federally recognized Indian Tribes are
domestic dependent nations of the United States and as such tribal authority
on Indian land isn't granted by the states in which they appear to be in [2].
The US Government also owns the territorial sea of California further out than
3 nautical miles from the baseline on the shore [3].

These, among others, are issues that would have to be settled.

[1]
[http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42346.pdf](http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42346.pdf)
[2]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=IHKXAAAAMAAJ](https://books.google.com/books?id=IHKXAAAAMAAJ)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_Lands_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_Lands_Act)

------
trendia
If California secedes, it will no longer be in the US' best interest to give
them water for free. Who knows what the price will be!

~~~
ohwello
They stop giving us water, we stop giving them food. Agriculture is 2% of the
state GDP, 20% of the US food supply, and 80% of state water use.

~~~
mjfl
Oh no, the US will starve relying on the enormous strip of super fertile land
between Texas and Idaho.

~~~
ohwello
Point is, the US needs to consume the food more than we need to grow it. The
water is not that great a threat.

~~~
DamnYuppie
Actually if California stopped producing food we would still be fine. Most of
what is produced is fruits.

Most likely the US could halt 1/2 of its food production and still have plenty
of food. We have no shortage of arable land, we have a greater shortage of
people actually wanting to be farmers/ranchers :(

------
spitfire
So Cascadia is actually happening?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29)

------
grizzles
I doubt that the outrage from Democrats over Trump will be able to sustain the
time frame necessary to make this a reality.

On the other hand, Republicans have historically been more supportive of
secession than democrats. They might have a slim chance by linking up with
Republican led secession movements in other states / prospective city states.

------
magoghm
Wouldn't it be enough to just make use of the tenth amendment to reduce the
scope of the federal government?

~~~
SwellJoe
Would it? How many pot growers and dispensaries were raided before the Obama
administration directed more reserved behavior. The federal government kinda
does what it wants, and rarely do the (federal) courts agree with states on
where the limits of federal power lie.

I'm not saying that's always a bad thing. In Texas, for instance, the federal
government knocked down numerous anti-abortion laws as unconstitutional, and I
support that federal encroachment on behalf of individuals (because Texas is
run by petty tyrants, when it comes to women and minorities).

But, I suspect the answer is "no, it wouldn't be enough to just make use of
the tenth amendment", particularly when the president is Trump. I doubt
anything will be sacred under president Trump. We've entered a new era that is
pretty much entirely unpredictable.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The Tenth Amendment has been ignored for a very long time. It's not just
Trump. The courts have decided that the commerce clause gives the Federal
government almost unlimited power. (See _Wickard v. Filburn_ for one of the
most outrageous examples.)

------
taneq
> "Is there anything of yours that we could keep as a memento of this visit?"

> "Take California."

\- The Propellerheads ('Take California')

------
misnamed
Let's play this out: CA secedes and suddenly there is no hope of blues winning
elections in the US for the foreseeable future. So suddenly CA is a nation
surrounded almost entirely by a Republican-run United States with all that
goes with that. Sounds like a bad situation for everyone involved.

~~~
flukus
The north east would very quickly have their own independence movement.

------
hyperliner
Let's assume for a second that this could happen. Then, assuming no foreign
alliances, the US could simply conquer California back.

CA has the largest contingent of military personnel by state (about 190k) but
not per capita. The size of the brave population is actually small compared to
the population of the free and it's likely most of them will swear allegiance
to the US. And it's not like all of the sudden a lot of free people from the
large, typically peaceful cities in CA will all of the sudden find the courage
to fight. Historically, outside of the military and rural areas, CA is not
known to be a land of fighters (like, say, Texans).

Source: [http://ijr.com/2015/02/251918-data-shows-highest-numbers-
uni...](http://ijr.com/2015/02/251918-data-shows-highest-numbers-united-
states-military-come/)

Nomenclature: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-
Spangled_Banner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner)

------
throwaway4891a
Things to consider:

\- Product safety

\- Electrical device standards

\- Radio spectrum allocation

\- Education

\- Disaster response

\- Vices: alcohol, marijuana, tobacco

\- Medical and medicine research & regulation

\- Intellectual property

\- Food inspection / standards

\- Environmental standards

\- Chemical safety

\- Prisons

\- Courts

\- Mining

\- Agriculture

\- Highways and transportation

\- Aviation licensing / safety / incident investigation

\- Defense

\- Trade deals / bargaining leverage

\- Bank regulations

\- Securities regulations

\- Currency

\- Military

\- On and on...

Conclusion: pipe-dream

------
nolepointer
I totally support this. Take Oregon and Washington, too.

~~~
elihu
There's about 39 million Californians, about 7 million Washingtonions and
about 4 million Oregonians. As an Oregonian, the idea is kind of appealing but
I'm not very comfortable with the idea of being politically dominated by
California.

~~~
nolepointer
>I'm not very comfortable with the idea of being politically dominated by
California

That's how many Americans feel when the presidential election rolls around.

~~~
pizza
Many Californians feel like their votes are useless in comparison to the
number of electoral votes the tiny states get.

~~~
nolepointer
California is one of the 50 states and yet the candidate who wins it
(obviously a Democrat) is already a fifth of the way to winning the
presidency.

~~~
unclenoriega
I think your phrasing makes this sound worse than it is. The candidate is a
5th of the way toward winning, but has a 10th of the electoral votes. And
California has more than a 10th of the US population, so I'm not sure what
point you're even trying to make.

------
blackflame7000
Succession is the long term solution to a short term problem. The irony of
California wanting to be segregated from opposing opinions alone should be
alarming enough to send everyones hypocricy meter into a tizzy. These people
are exactly who SNL was addressing in their Bubble skit.
[https://youtu.be/vKOb-kmOgpI](https://youtu.be/vKOb-kmOgpI)

~~~
stanleydrew
> The irony of California wanting to be segregated from opposing opinions...

This probably isn't the primary drive behind the secession movement. Not
wanting to pay federal taxes to a government that you don't feel represents
your interests (see the CA popular vote difference for president) is probably
more important.

~~~
blackflame7000
It would be one thing if California had a history of reasonable public finance
policy but the argument looses weight when you consider how much money
California is wasting on the Crony Express. You can't be the arbiter of fiscal
responsibility while simultaneously building the equivalent of the Springfield
monorail.

~~~
ardit33
Do you think High Speed Rail is a stupid idea, or just the implementation is
wasteful/corrupt?

I am asking this as I am traveling from NYC to Boston via train, and it takes
almost 4hrs on a french made train, while if it was in France, it would have
taken only 1.5 hrs to 2hrs max.

In one thing the US is behind the rest of the developed world, fast train
travel is one of them.

~~~
blackflame7000
The biggest problem is that the Santa Monica Mountains block the high speed
rail from connecting to LA. The closest they can get is Burbank. Having lived
in LA for college, I can tell you that the time it takes to get from say Santa
Monica to Burbank is often more than it takes to fly to San Francisco from
LAX. I'm not kidding.

Flight Time:
[https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=LAX;t=SFO;d=2016-12...](https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=LAX;t=SFO;d=2016-12-06;r=2016-12-10;q=lax+to+san+francisco+flight+time)

Traffic Time from Santa Monica to Burbank alone:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+monica+to+burbank&btnG...](https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+monica+to+burbank&btnG=)

The plan fully acknowledges this short coming and responds with nothing more
than a shoulder shrug to the glaring problem. Now consider the costs of the
train compared to that of a flight, when you have factored in LA's terrible
public transportation and suddenly flights are clearly more economical.

Even worse is that California only has less than 50% of the funding for the
project secured and that is without cost overruns. Jerry Brown is hoping to
put enough sunk cost into the rail line that we are forced to build the entire
thing much to the benefit of the select few land owners in the central
california.

I'm all for improved public transportation but the whole thing is a giant scam
taking advantage of Californians affinity for the environment and ignorance of
bond measures.I have yet to hear a convincing argument on why people would
take the train when they could be in SF by the time the get to the train
station.

------
hyperliner
Funny thing is that these people were making fun of Texas' efforts a while
back.

~~~
god_bless_texas
Texas has the resources to do it. We're largely separate from the nationwide
power grid, have plenty of petroleum and resources to trade.

I'm not a fan of Texas' secession dreams in spite of my username, but
considering the basic resources that California lacks I can't imagine their
secession being a good idea.

~~~
SwellJoe
What does California lack? I think I can see a pretty good case for either
Texas or California to be able to stand alone. (Not that I'm really on board
with either secessionist movement, but I've lived in Texas and California,
and, both are huge states with huge economies, and they both produce a lot of
food and have tons of resources, both natural and human.)

------
vonnik
This is a deeply stupid and un-American idea, which will harm the US and help
its enemies while distracting Americans themselves from the work they have to
do to take back their country. As campaigns like this occupy our headlines, we
are already losing on other fronts:

Russia Deploys New Missiles to the Baltic Sea Region
[http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/21/world/europe/ap-e...](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/21/world/europe/ap-
eu-russia-military.html)

We'll see a lot more erosion of our influence over the next few years while
Trump's clown car rolls over US civil liberties. We have to focus. Secession
is not the answer.

Finally, I'd simply point out to the "Yes California" people that large parts
of California a) don't want to break away from the US (including but not
limited to much of northern and eastern CA) and therefore b) would be
perfectly within their rights to secede from the new nation state in an
infinity of recursively splintering secessions that will finally be reduced to
one dumb guy who cuts off his nose to grant it independence (and to spite his
face).

~~~
stanleydrew
When is there ever unanimity behind any separationist movement? Reductio ad
absurdum doesn't work too well here. By your logic, the colonies shouldn't
have declared independence from Britain since it wasn't unanimous.

~~~
vonnik
Actually, reductio ad absurdum is precisely why self-determination is
problematic, because it raises the question of where you draw the line between
a nation that initiates its own sovereignty and a bunch of wackos who don't
like taxes (all too common in this country).

Secessionist movements typically underestimate the costs of separation. Like
the UK post-Brexit, no one knows how an independent CA would relate to the
rump US. Would it enjoy the free movement of goods, services and people? I
doubt it.

There is almost no basis to consider Californians as a separate people, which
is usually what drives self-determination. I live in CA. We do not share a
common language or religion or history distinct from our neighbors.

