
Would Calexit be a good thing? - davidbarker
http://waitbutwhy.com/table/calexit
======
vonnik
This is one of the stupidest things ever published on WaitButWhy.

The Civil War killed more Americans (~750k) than WWI and WWII combined. Think
of it as SouthExit. There are powerful forces binding this union together, and
they will not allow a gentle transition to an independent California. So any
one who wants Calexit, wants war, and war is really, really stupid. I'm
baffled by the irresponsibility of this discussion. This isn't like moving out
of your parents' basement because they told you to stop smoking weed.

Let's just remember, when we compare Calexit to Brexit, that Britain was and
is a sovereign nation, and at no point in its history did it cease to be so.
Stupid as Brexit was, the UK's right to leave the EU was enshrined in the
articles of the EU. California is not Great Britain. The analogy does not
hold.

Calexit is sponsored by Russia. "Yes California" is run by a guy based in
Yekaterinburg.[0] What should this tell us? The enemies of the US want
California to secede. Separatists are playing into their hands. Russia
sabotaged the US presidential election, and now it is trying to break up the
continental 48. That would lead to a weakened and divided country, much more
so than it is today.

Secession would also lead to a more fragmented North America, indecisive as
Europe.

There is no such thing as a clean slate. Calexit does nto present us with that
opportunity. History is a nightmare from which we cannot escape, as Joyce
said.

The WBW author is basically saying he wants California to exit to speed the
advance of technology so he can become immortal. Why should we care about his
immortality? And why should we believe that Calexit would accelerate
technological development? He gave zero substantive argument that Calexit
would have an affect on tech.

Just remember, every state in the US benefits from its close relationship with
all the other states. There are huge positive externalities to union and the
free movement of goods, people and capital. All of that ends with Calexit.
Anyone who see a carefree paradise in separatism is living in a fantasy world.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/us/yes-california-
calexit...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/us/yes-california-calexit-
marinelli-russia.html?_r=0)

~~~
xiphias
Brexit is a mess. It's the first time that I'm seeing British people leaving
their own country and come to Switzerland where they don't know the language
at all. My friends who moved to London from Eastern Europe want to leave,
because the worth of their salary dropped by 20% on the global scale, and all
they can hear about is Brexit and the negativity around it. Britain is not fun
anymore for anybody living there. Also older people who voted for the Brexit
are just starting to realize how much they depend on foreigners.

~~~
williamgb
I'm British and would prefer to remain in the EU. Yet I am quite satisfied to
remain here in Edinburgh, both for employment and the quality of life. Believe
it or not, there are a great many who share my opinion.

------
JBReefer
No. People in the current bubble forget that California is usually broke/in
legislative crises, which might be about to happen again. Texas is probably
the only state capable of thriving if it secedes, CA doesn't even have it's
own electric grid.

* [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9312_California_b...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9312_California_budget_crisis)

* [http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-s-400...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-s-400-billion-debt-worries-analysts-6812264.php)

~~~
hyperbovine
You act as though power exports from Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada and
Utah would somehow cease overnight if California were to become its own
country. This is of course false.

~~~
makerbraker
It wouldn't continue uninterrupted forever.

Those power exports are paid for in currency denominated by the US dollar.

California is no longer part of the US, remember?

Each of those states would have to negotiate with the new Republic to receive
something in equal worth to the power they were delivering.

And if they don't get it, they're not going to give away power for free. Their
governments won't let them, their constituents won't let them, their budgets
won't let them, and lastly, the FERC won't let them.

~~~
traek
I don't see why paying for the power would suddenly become an issue. If
California can afford it now, they'll be able to afford it later, even if it's
paid in a different currency--it's still the same amount of wealth.

~~~
smkellat
There still has to be two parties to a purchase. You can have all the currency
with which to pay but if the seller does not want to sell, it doesn't really
matter how much you have. The very big problem is that, regionally speaking,
California may wind up a willing buyer with no willing sellers and no way to
compel anyone to sell to it.

------
increment_i
It's hard for me to see a scenario where a Calexit doesn't mark the end of
American hegemony and quite likely the United States itself. A successful
Calexit would without doubt lead to a New York exit. Now there's no way Texas
is sticking around. And the Carolinas and Florida want to make a go of it too,
etc. Once the pillars have fallen, the house collapses. Isn't that basically
how all great empires slowly crumble?

So the stakes do seem quite a bit higher than outlined in this article and
others I've read like it.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Would it really be so bad? Cultures/beliefs/values vary tremendously from
region to region, and smaller country subsets would be able to iterate faster
to support their own value/belief systems.. Texas and related states that join
it's new union could be as red as they want, California and those who join w/
can be as blue, and have things like Single-payer healthcare, no public
prisons, no anti-immigration laws and open borders. -- U.S. as a super power
has been waning for awhile now, and will continue to do so. Rome conquered the
entire world, yet somehow a group of germanic tribes brought it to the ground.
-- Every empire in history has fallen, America is no different.

~~~
spootnik
Putting everyone into echo chambers is the stupidest idea. You'll get such
radical agendas pushed. Balance and variety is good.

~~~
helthanatos
Too bad that's what we've done... If you look at America's history, political
parties have been divided by a few issues and that's it. For the most part,
the political parties until the 1900s followed Washington's wish of not being
divided. Sadly, these modern political parties have decided that issues must
be divided by party. This has lead to pretty much every issue we face today to
be voted against by one party simply because the other party thinks they can't
support it because it's somehow a partisan idea. The media has also made this
worse by not documenting things objectively. Citizens think one party is pure
evil and the other one is magically full of saints. Unless you ask a
libertarian about which party is better, you'll probably get a terribly
slanted view. I don't understand this. Both parties have some rotten people,
but why is it expected of the American public (it is expected) to vilify one
party? Issues about whether the government should be small and whether
agrarian life is best have left to be about whether the government should tax
its citizens into submission and whether it should be a police state. The much
more rigid divide in beliefs is good for no one. I can't vote for anyone
without them contradicting some of my beliefs because I don't follow the
awkward divide in political ideals.

------
bobthechef
Interesting that there is no mention of demographics. Hispanics account for
almost 40% of the population, close to 80% of which are Mexican. Following
secession and taking history into account, there is reason to speculate that
California could become the subject of Mexican annexation, or at the very
least, subject to turmoil that could arise from stoking such sentiments among
a very sizable chunk of the population, most of which is not associated with
tech. Furthermore, secession, if it is to be meaningful, would make a
geopolitical impact that would arguably be good for neither California nor the
rest of the US (nor the world for that matter; with a weakened US, worse
things can fill the vacuum). What I could see is something more in line with
right-leaning thought i.e. greater autonomy of the states and greater
decentralization of power.

(On a somewhat humorous note: if Putin is spurring Calexit movements, then it
sounds to me like a perversion of Pilsudski's Prometheism[0], except that
Pilsudski was motivated by a desire to neutralize the threat that Russia
posed.)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism)

------
adrenalinelol
There is a plethora of issues that have to be addressed, to name a few:

* The U.S. Government would have to be ok w/losing a ~1/6th of it's economy.

* California has no military; funding such would be expensive.

* All existing multilateral agreements the U.S has entered into would NOT apply to an independent California. An independent California would have less bargaining power in renegotiating said agreements.

~~~
Isamu
I don't disagree but the California National Guard is under state control
normally, when it isn't federalized by special order. Some 23,000 individuals.
They'd have to act quickly to seize control before the federal government but
it could be done.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I think the wiser plan would be for technology companies who are pro-secession
join forces and create a militia of tech -- i.e. invest in robotic/drone tech
for military purposes, that way they can unleash a war if need be--but one of
robots/drones instead of people. I think the next world war will be more about
technology than it will people fighting people. Controlling drone/robotic
weapons tech could be huge for a country wanting to secede.

~~~
hprotagonist
Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. (username v. relevant)

------
ygaf
I love that this writer puts on no airs.

>As far as defense goes—would you want to fuck with a country with the world’s
best drones, robots, tech weapons, missile defense systems, and cyberattack
abilities? No one would dare attack California.

Most people try to sound more important and qualified when discussing
something so radical.

------
Glyptodon
Whether it's good or not Cal would instantly get a civil war with the
Jefferson people unless the exit agreement included allowing a State of
Jefferson to replace Cal.

------
jmspring
Also missing from things is the fact that more rural parts of the west coast
are much more conservative than areas close to the ocean.

Look up continued interest in the State of Jefferson.

------
maxlybbert
Proposition 8 added "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or
recognized in California" to the state constitution. The Supreme Court ruled
that violated the federal Constitution. If California left the US, would that
resurrect Proposition 8? How about Proposition 187, which didn't modify the
state constitution, but set up a system of state laws that a federal court
ruled violated the federal Constitution?

~~~
grzm
Those are legitimate questions that would have to be answered as part of the
national government California would set up. Going back over all of the
historical differences between US federal and CA state law. I suspect however,
that nothing would _revert_. If those were important issues to CA citizens
after secession, I think it's more likely that such propositions would be
reintroduced.

------
darnton
The United States is a maritime superpower, able to project power across the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Losing the Pacific coast would end that. I can't
imagine it being let go easily.

~~~
lebanon_tn
The bulk of U.S. naval forces in California are in the San Diego region. It's
possible the U.S. could negotiate a border that leaves the naval bases as well
as the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton as part of the United States. (The
entire swath of Southern California below Los Angeles.)

------
koyao
He who controls the nukes, controls California's destiny.

~~~
JBReefer
And for non-American readers, those are located in the big, flat central
states that California would be seceeding from.

~~~
justin66
If command authority to launch ICBMs devolves to the states where the missiles
are stationed, that will be an indicator that civilization is over. The
political fate of California would be a footnote.

------
wrsh07
This post might be worth a damn if Tim thought a little bit harder about why
Russia thinks Calexit would be good for them.

It's not obvious or true that anything good for Russia is bad for the US, but
when you see the country who recently interfered in an election (propaganda,
releasing dnc emails) is also interested in weakening the union of your states
further.... maybe consider why before jumping on board.

------
CuriouslyC
California is almost certainly going to break off from the larger United
States in our lifetime. The interests of the United States are already too
heterogeneous to be effectively served by a single government, and the problem
is only going to get worse.

I don't believe California will be successful if it attempts to secede solo
though. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that if it is going to work,
it will need to secede as part of a coordinated action with Washington and
Oregon. The end result will probably be a commonwealth of nations relationship
similar to the one shared by Canada and Great Britain. I've even got a catchy
name for this new nation: the pacific coalition of states, or Pac Coast for
short.

I'm also going to go out on a limb and predict that a combination of pushback
on federal enforcement of marijuana laws and immigration policy is going to be
the match that starts the fire burning. I believe popular pressure on both of
these issues is going to force the coastal states to take a stand rather than
roll over, and things are going to escalate from there.

~~~
M_Grey
On what planet do you expect that the US at large is going to accept 1/7th of
their economy seceding without a fight?

~~~
makerbraker
Not just the economy.

You'd also need high level US military leaders to go insubordinate,
voluntarily ignore their chain of command, and "donate" the assets of the US
armed services to the Republic of California.

Texas is the only state that could probably put up a fight, but it'd be very
ugly and very bloody.

Secession almost always equals war.

I think the folks advocating for secession trivialize the fact that the end
result is armed conflict and not knowing which side your neighbor is on.

And Brexit is not precedent whatsoever -- Britain can exit from the EU because
there was no large amount of shared military/defense assets based within the
UK, and the EU is primarily an economic cooperation effort.

~~~
douche
At least the southern states in 1861 had the advantage of providing a large
percentage of the prewar officer corps and West Point graduates, as well as
graduates of the other military academies like VMI and the Citadel. The
demographics of the current US military are not favorable for liberal coastal
regions thinking of secession.

------
eximius
No.

~~~
exception_e
Correct.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)
:)

------
hrodriguez
The very idea is insane. I think we need to do a better job of fighting the
divisive forces attempting to destroy this country, led by a domestic
terrorist like George Soros.

The site itself seems to be run by children[1]. This is where HN news is
coming from now?

[http://waitbutwhy.com/wait-but-who](http://waitbutwhy.com/wait-but-who)

~~~
perardi
The right thinks Soros funds everything. The left thinks the Koch brothers
fund everything.

Me, I'm waiting around for a shadowy billionaire to fund my histrionic
internet posting. $30/per trolling comment seems fair.

~~~
DrScump

      I'm waiting around for a shadowy billionaire to fund my histrionic internet posting.
    

Me, too. I keep looking for such an offer in the "Who is hiring?" postings,
but no dice.

