Let Texas Secede? Screw That!

I'm sure that by now everyone is well aware of all the petitions that people have started on the White House site regarding state secession. There are petitions for all 50 states, at this point, and close to a million signatures combined. To counter these, people have put up petitions to try the signers of secession petitions for treason and even to make it easier for states like Texas to go ahead and leave the union. But should we even be giving these petitions, which are not being started or submitted by the states themselves but rather disgruntled voters, consideration in the first place? The answer is a resounding no. More importantly, as atheists we should be saying hell no! For some reasons why this should be our response, let's look at recent history.

First, let's look at the 2000 election. George Bush “won” the electoral college vote, but the results in Florida were questionable and he failed to win the popular vote overall. There were a lot of failures in the electoral process, from voter suppression to probable outright fraud in the vote counts, but you didn't see liberals crying that Blue states should secede from the union. If anything, the outcries heard were that the electoral college was outdated and the fact that Gore won the popular vote proved that democracy and the will of the people were not served. The left fought for changes in voter laws, to stop voter suppression and to update electoral processes so we wouldn't have to hear the term “hanging chad” again. The right wing response to this: “We won. If you don't like it, you can leave!”

Regarding religion and separation of church and state, the right is constantly trying to put theocracy into our government and forcing religious issues into the political agenda. Things like a womans right to choose, her right to birth control, equal rights for women in the workplace, rights for LGBT people and much more are considered to be against the christian ideology and continue to be legislated against along religious lines. Do liberals petitions the government to secede from the union in these cases? No, they fight in the court to uphold the secular laws of the land, keep religion out of government and fight for equality of citizens. How does the right respond? You guessed it, they say: “This is a christian nation, if you don't like it, you can leave!” Of course they are mistake about the christian nation thing, but facts never stopped them before so why would they make a difference in any discourse concerning reality. But there is indeed a trend here, as long as the right gets their way, their response to people trying to legally make change or that dissent right wing nonsense is always the same - “if you don't like it, you can leave.”

Now the tables have turned and the right has lost the election for the presidency. Prior to the election, many of these people were declaring if Obama won, they would leave the US and move to Canada or some other nation. You even had misguided individuals making statements like: "I'm moving to Australia because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says". Oops, guess that one didn't get the memo that Australia has a Prime Minister, not a president, who happens to also be both a woman and an atheist. Let's also not forget the fact that Australia also has socialized medicine and a whole bunch of other things that the right appears to hate, just like Canada. I guess that is why there is no mass exodus of right wing republicans doing what they promised and instead they are moving on to this secession nonsense.

Essentially, democracy worked. The man who got the majority vote also got the majority of the electoral college votes and won the election. The right tried to use voter suppression tactics by reducing early voting days and hours in some states, through voter intimidation by “poll watcher” groups and other means. Their war on democracy failed and they lost and this is their response, “we didn't win so we want out of the union”. Well, guess what right wing sore losers, it just doesn't work that way. Democracy worked this time around and I'll go ahead and borrow your phrase and amend it: “If you don't like it, you can leave and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”

That is the only response appropriate for all of these secession petitions. The next time someone you know brings it up and acts as though it's a viable option your response should be: "Democracy worked.  If you don't like it you can go ahead and leave!"