Secessionists formally launch quest for California's independence | Hacker News Reader

Secessionists formally launch quest for California's independence

latimes.com

25 pointsspking119 comments

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.

In my 'conspiracy' timeline, Patri Friedman convinced Thiel to back Trump in order to turn California into a seastead.

The more you know...

It all makes sense now.

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.

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

Bay area secession ?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

Who did our northern neighbors secede from? (I presume you mean Canada.) Not from the US.

Who did the states that broke away from parent states secede from? Not from the US.

Secession from the US may well require war. If not that, it's going to require following a recognized constitutional process (which I'm pretty sure there isn't one). Barring that, it's at least going to require congressional approval, not vetoed by the President. Good luck getting that.

California passing a referendum? Yeah, that and $6 will get you coffee at Starbucks.

Why do you need a US example? Just because it hasn't been done in the US does not make it impossible, but in any case, it has been done:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Declaration_of_Inde...

> Why do you need a US example?

Because here is what happens when states try to secede in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

That is what happened that one time. Why do you assume that is the only way it could ever happen? Do you think that the people proposing Californian secession are entirely unaware of the Civil War? Perhaps they have learned something from that example, and don't merely aim to repeat it, as you appear to assume.

Yeah, and how did that work out? Quoting from the article:

> The Philippine Revolutionary Government did not recognize the treaty or American sovereignty, and subsequently fought and lost a conflict with United States originally referred to by the Americans as the "Philippine Insurrection" but now generally and officially called the Philippine–American War, which ended when Emilio Aguinaldo was captured by U.S. forces, and issued a statement acknowledging and accepting the sovereignty of the United States over the Philippines.

So maybe not the example you're looking for.

Why do I need a US example? Because the examples of one state seceding from another happened with the blessing, and even the instigation, of the Federal government. More: The new state remained within the US. That's quite different from a state trying to leave the US (in particular, it's different in how the Federal government would respond).

It's happened elsewhere? Well, it shouldn't be news that the US doesn't really care how it's done elsewhere...

And eventually they got independence diplomatically:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)

The lesson from history is that peaceful secession's work better than violent ones. Do you really think the rest of the world will turn a blind eye to the US holding Cascadia hostage?

They got their independence politically - 44 years later. I doubt the California crowd is going to regard that as success.

"Holding Cascadia hostage"? Overdramitize much? "Denying the legitimacy of the secession process" is probably closer to it.

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

They are referring to the fact that Canada (and Australia and a bunch of other nations) peacefully separated from Great Britain. The fact that it hasn't happened in the U.S. does not mean it cannot be done.

> The fact that it hasn't happened in the U.S. does not mean it cannot be done.

It has been tried before, and there's a pretty big precedent for what happens. That precedent is civil war. How is California seceding going to be any different from the southern states?

The Confederacy independence also involved seizure of federal assets, something that would be very unlikely or impossible with a modern independence movement.

You mean after several other states did so violently and demonstrated beyond any real doubt that Great Britain could not maintain control ?

That's not peaceful. Or at least, not any more peaceful than nuclear deterrent is.

No, we mean after the world changed and violently suppressing independence movements became no longer viable in western democracies.

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.

Tough sanctions by whom? All the other developed nations with their own potential sessionist movements?

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'.

California is by far the largest contributor to the US's GDP. It's quite literally California's money that funds our federal programs and corporate tax breaks. California leaving the union would kindof obliterate the union's economy. Also, California is physically connected to the US. What circumstances are you imagining where the feds just let CA mosey on off and do their own thing?

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

But read "Ecotopia" and "Ecotopia Emerging".

I wasn't aware the legality of secession was ever officially ruled on. It was supposed to be part of the Jefferson Davis trial, but that never happened due to the full pardon of the entire south.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White

Arguably SCOTUS has ruled that you can't secede, and that the South did not in fact secede.

Sometimes multiple wars are fought for roughly the same reason. The Scots have rebelled against England more than once, and they may still vote their way out due to brexit. Supposing that people are willing to accept defeat now due to historical reasons is empirically inadvisable.

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.

It's also a question of whether the borders of a state breaking away remain valid. While the cities of LA and SF might support secession, the rural residents occupying the remaining 98% of the actual territory in California would want to stay.

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...)

That is what other foreign allies are for.

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.)

Funny how the "land of the free" doesn't support self determination.

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 [2] https://books.google.com/books?id=IHKXAAAAMAAJ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_Lands_Act

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!

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.

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

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

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 :(

20% in terms of dollars, perhaps.

Not in terms of calories.

The rest of the US could live just fine without out-of-season artichokes or whatever.

Water is rather more important. You can live a long time on a plain diet (especially if you have vitamins available). Without the water, things in California would get very, very ugly, very, very quickly. ]

Also: what are you planning to do if (or maybe "when" would be better) Mexico decides that it wants to take back its former territory (i.e., all of California)?

Even in drought, California has a lot of water. Imported water is only necessary so long as we irrigate the central valley. We wouldn't need it just for residential use.

I think an independent California would have a good relationship with Mexico. Though I'm interested in why you think we wouldn't.

Desirable land, no longer defended by the US military, and a fair number of their citizens here. I'm not sure I agree that it'd happen, but I can see some reasons.

The savings from not having to pay federal taxes would go a pretty long way to paying for water.

Until California creates even more generous welfare programs and state taxes go higher than federal ones. It's not as though Medicare, social security, Medicaid, the military, copyright enforcement, etc will all still be funded by the remaining 49 states for California's benefit.

Doesn't California, alongside most other "blue" states, contribute more to those welfare programs than they take in?

I'm not sure about that. But remember that once CA is its own government there's little to stand in the way of ever more generous programs. There's no telling what could get passed. But seeing the basic income debates rage here on HN it doesn't seem implausible that a huge BI experiment might take place. That could easily cost double the programs it's ostensibly replacing and or augmenting.

>But remember that once CA is its own government there's little to stand in the way of ever more generous programs

There's nothing standing in the way of that now. Colorado just had the opportunity to vote in a single-payer healthcare system.

You're saying "what if a government spent more than they had", but that's hardly unique to a seceded California. I don't see how it's at all relevant.

A state having the option to design new programs from the ground up, while simultaneously also needing to implement something to replace federal programs is literally unprecedented in the US. Yes of course the programs could end up being very stingy. I strongly suspect (though I can't prove) that a politically progressive CA would end up passing some politically progressive social programs. Would there be an obstructionist state legislature that actually managed to oppose effectively? Maybe, I don't know. I don't live in CA. My suspicion is no, however.

But that still isn't any different, fundamentally. Any state could come up with such programs now. This dynamic of legislature vs governed liberal populace vs fiscal responsibility exists now, so I don't get your point about how it would somehow be a deathknell for the finances of such a seceded state but not the one still in the union.

Because when there are federal programs in place there is much less pressure to do something, anything to fix the problems. Obviously anything is possible and restraint could win the day also. I won't deny that such an outcome is possible. But is it likely?

>Doesn't California, alongside most other "blue" states, contribute more to those welfare programs than they take in?

California is not a net payer. According to wikipedia (and I realize these are from two different years, but they're the easiest numbers to find), California pays $7,690.66[1] in taxes on a per capita basis and receives $8,967[2] in federal spending on a per capita basis.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state#F... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_...

Regardless of where money is going now, how much of californian industry would not exist had it not been for the US military industrial complex bootstrapping the computer industry?

California is a net receiver of federal spending, with the feds spending $1.18 in California for every $1.00 paid by Californians in taxes. Federal spending amounts to 15% of California's GDP.

Where are you getting your data from?

This map / story from 2014 says otherwise. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...

Wikipedia has pages for federal tax dollars paid[1] and federal spending[2]. The spending data matches this publication from the state of California[3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state#F...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_...

3. http://www.lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/131

Sounds like a suitable problem for Musk to address after he's done with cars, space and solar.

California will be fine.

California economy is on the order of France and UK.

Country like Israel, with much less people and smaller economy, manages to desalinate and recycle its water in the middle of desert, surrounded by hostile neighbors.

Of course, the angriest neighbor of California might install an energy blockade rather than providing California with resources, Israel may not be instructive.

There's no way Colorado is keeping the water rights as is, the whole state hates that California has them.

So Cascadia is actually happening?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movem...

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.

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

As in, "states' rights"? You racist!

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.

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.)

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

> "Take California."

- The Propellerheads ('Take California')

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.

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

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...

Nomenclature: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner

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

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

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.

>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.

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

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.

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.

...and yet candidates don't usually waste any time or effort campaigning in California or North Dakota because they aren't one of about a dozen persuadable swing states. In one sense the electoral votes per person ratio is a sensible way to measure political clout, but if a state is outright ignored and isn't taking part in the political conversation then that clout isn't translating into meaningful influence.

No thanks, we've got our own thing going here in the Northwest. An independent California would be a great neighbor, but if Washington and Oregon seceded, we would be doing our own Cascadian thing.

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

> 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.

But I thought the Obama election settled that Texans who wanted to do the exact same thing were racists!

More Federal taxes for less Federal spending and substantially less Federal representation.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...

Take a look back at the Base Realignment and Closures of the 90s and 2000s. California was gutted. The Bay Area was dotted with bases, pretty much all gone. Mississippi lost one, in 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_Realignment_and_Closure

This is a good point that I overlooked and I know my home city of San Diego was effected by this as well. However, despite these closings, the Military still contributes greatly to California's economy and that revenue would have to be made up. By the numbers I highly doubt these secessionists are also proponents of defense spending.

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.

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.

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...

Traffic Time from Santa Monica to Burbank alone: 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.

Note that I'm not making an argument, so I don't necessarily disagree with you. I was merely pointing out that trying to avoid differing opinions likely isn't the main motivation behind this.

Yes, those are the stated reasons for the cause, but why is the idea getting so much attention at the moment?

My guess is there are a lot of people angry that Trump got elected who are resorting to useless hail-marys like petitioning the electoral college to vote for their candidate or for California to secede.

Given a few months, the secession movement will hopefully crawl back into the hole it came out of once the anti-Trump crowd runs out of a bit of steam.

There is a pretty big difference between not wanting to see opposing opinions and not wanting to be governed by opposing opinions.

It makes sense to compose governments from ideologically aligned people. It does not make sense to compose debate about those ideologies from aligned people.

Well the irony is that it is California's own senator, Boxer, pushing to eliminate the Electoral College which was designed for the sole purpose of stopping states like California from dominating the legislative agenda. The fact is that California gets its voice heard so much more than say Nebraska that its hypocritical for California to start complaining in a rare instance where they didn't get their way.

The irony of California wanting to be segregated from opposing opinions alone should be alarming enough to send everyones hypocricy meter into a tizzy.

If you try reading the article before commenting you'll see they've been planning for two years and it's about California not getting back what it pays in Tax.

Is it really a short term problem? For a long time there has been a growing gulf between various regions of the USA. Some of them would probably be much closer to a European style social democracy by now if they were separated.

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

Yes because in-group is in and out-group is out.

Remember if the in group wants to do it, it's for the most righteous and pure reasons possible and everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. But if the out group does? It's because of their baser motivations.

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.

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.)

Oh, good point about the power grid. For years, California has been moving their power plants to other states so that the other states get the pollution. That would come back to bite them if they seceded.

"These people"? Who? People who live in California? There's a lot of people who live in California. They have lots of different opinions about lots of things. The LA Times? People who live in LA? People who back Calexit? Who are "these people" of whom you speak? If you find yourself thinking in terms of "these people" and "those people", some propagandist somewhere has defeated you and everyone should feel bad about that.

California Secessionists

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...

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).

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.

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.

I'd expect two secessions: California from the US, red-state California from blue-state California. Perhaps an independent Outer California, and an Inner California remaining in the US -- I hope they go with those names!

I think something similar happened in Kosovo: secession of Kosovo from Serbia, secession of the four majority-Serbian counties of Kosovo from the rest of the province. (Or at least, I hope that second secession has gone through by now; I certainly remember there was a push towards it.)

Yeah, and we all know what a model of functional statehood the Balkans offer the rest of the world.

So you'd say the four majority-Serbian counties shouldn't be allowed to secede from Kosovo?

I'm saying that in some ideal counter-historical world, Yugoslavia shouldn't have broken apart. The separations that occurred relied on a lot of ethnic cleansing to draw clear geographic lines between peoples. Without that ethnic cleansing, which is wanton and cruel, you could advocate for self-determination on a house-by-house and apartment-by-apartment basis, which is idiotic and unworkable. Most nation-states are made of several peoples, and the idea of nationhood upon which self-determinationists and secessionists make their argument always leads to a bloodletting.

A nation-state, by definition, is a state comprised of a single nation. But a nation-state isn't the only kind of Westphalian state -- and frankly the nation-state idea has mostly been a destructive one, although holding a nation (or other community) in a country by force of arms is no better.

It sounds like you'd say that permitting secession is wrong because it leads to ethnic cleansing. How much ethnic cleansing do you anticipate in the event of California seceding from the United States?

When groups secede, it is usually for nationalistic reasons.

I'm saying secession leads to a lot of geopolitical instability and usually violence and loss, for very little gain.

I think multiple conflicts would arise if California tried to secede from the US. The first would be between the secessionists and federal forces. If the secessionists did not have the support of a foreign power, US federal forces would win, and even then...

The second conflict would be between the "leavers" and "remainers" within California, where the remainers would initiate their sub-secessions from the breakaway state of California. Here you can imagine the awful process of Partition in India, for example; or the Serbian minority in Bosnia.

And while everyone in CA is thinking they should be self-determining, we would see other political fractures. North v south. The coastal cities v the interior.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but since when is seceding from a government that you don't think represents your interests un-American?

Since the Civil War, probably.

The people who fly the traitor's flag would argue otherwise, but then, if they want to leave America, they are un-American, no?

I would tend to be more cynical and put it at right after the formation of the United States. Self-determinism seems to very much be a "Do as I say, not as I do," sort of thing.

Certainly that is another way to look at it. I can imagine that modern-day secessionists, like the CSA founders before them, would argue that it's the other guy who has changed.

There are a lot of responses to a government that doesn't represent your interests. Secession is only one, and it's one of the most violent and the most risky. There are many ways to exercise democratic pressure in America, even when one's presidential candidate doesn't win. Anyone who cares should be putting pressure on their local and national representatives to investigate Trump's past and present business practices, block the campaigns of his bigoted cronies, and calling for an audit of the vote, which was clearly swayed by both Russia and the FBI.

Secessionists just show that they don't know how democracy works. Sometimes you lose, and sometimes you lose big.

I find this poem by Anna Akhmatova quite powerful and topical:

I am not one of those who left the land

to the mercy of its enemies.

Their flattery leaves me cold,

My songs are not for them to praise.

But I pity the exile's lot.

Like a felon, like a man half-dead,

dark is your path, wanderer;

wormwood infects your foreign bread.

But here, in the murk of conflagration,

where scarcely a friend is left to know,

we, the survivors, do not flinch

from anything, not from a single blow.

Surely the reckoning will be made

after the passing of this cloud.

We are the people without tears,

straighter than you...more proud...

(1922)

http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/874564/poems-of-anna-akhma...

> This is a deeply stupid and un-American idea, which will harm the US and help its enemies.

How is it un-American when it's quite literally how America came about and why "American" is distinct from English.

I'ts about the most American thing I can think of.

It is un-American in the sense that it hurts America, flukus. And by hurting America, I mean it would make the lives of everyone who lives in the US more precarious vis-a-vis this nation's rivals, who would love to see the US be weakened through such a dissolution. Harkening back to the War of Independence is facile and hawkish. Do you really want a war? I don't. Again, aside from the conversations taking place in Trump Tower, secession is probably the stupidest idea with any currency today. Nobody who advocates it can imagine what a dark place that would lead us to.

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