California movement to secede from US cleared to gather signatures

However this would be done at a great cost.Think the likes of Al Jolson
a Great American and Patriot.And even greater crooner.
His burial site is enomorous.It's more a Monument.Other Great Americans
and Patriots would feel Shame as they entered the Gates of Kalfornia.
it's not like Democrats are beneath shame.But their way of Governing
does depend on it.

 

LOL - you keep struggling to find tiny stuff to disagree on.

There are right wingers inside CA and right wingers outside CA.

You need to keep track of which is being referenced.

 

You stated CA was "hopelessly dependent on Washington for money."

I point out that your data show nothing about that. In fact, I pointed out that your data show that many other states are far MORE dependent on WA for money than is CA. Some more than TWICE as dependent.

 

I suspect that we are not so very different in political viewpoints, XploreR, and I cannot help but agree with much you suggest.

For several years, I've actually advocated a "single-payer" healthcare system on a national basis, along with unrestricted welfare-for-life support for unfortunate people who are verifiably UNABLE to work, due to factors like crippling accidents, horrible diseases, birth defects, etc. That's my 'hyperliberal' side.

But, I'm also an unapologetic advocate for free citizens in this country who ARE able to work doing so -- and supporting themselves!

All that said, we are approaching an inevitable point of change, due largely to developing technologies which will rapidly and greatly reduce the need of human workers for a very large number of activities. We must change ourselves as a society of free citizens, but I honestly don't know all that we should aspire to in those changes. I'm retired now, and those 'changes' won't involve me, but I'd like to hope that we won't degenerate into a nation of hopelessly dependent, mindless parasites....

 

Really weird post, Foolardi.

So, Al Jolson's wife built him a mosoleum.

Do you really think that has ANYTHING to do with this thread - or ANY politicians??

 

While I certainly understand your determination to miss the point, I'm not quite sure I understand why you found it necessary to expend so many keystrokes to get it done - unless of course you're hoping to divert attention from the abject intellectual bankruptcy of your position.

 

You were the one who wrote, "...they could expect nothing but tears of gratitude from freed slaves who were compensated with a lame apology, 40 acres of marginal farmland and a mule." And I replied that the freed slaves weren't given an apology at all -- plus, a lot of them didn't get in on the "40 acres, the mule", or anything else -- except to hatred, mistreatment, and violence 'up north'....

A lot of the four million freed slaves did go North, mostly because the South had been functionally DESTROYED. There was nothing to do, no plantation system to provide for their needs, and next to nothing even to EAT. And what was the loving 'welcome' from their 'liberators' in the North...? Race riots by White northerners against Blacks, "Jim Crow" laws, lynchings, etc., etc. Is it surprising that many Blacks went to Haiti, or to Liberia?

I hope that wasn't too many 'keystrokes' for you....

 

I don’t think you know what slavery was. Slaves might have lived on the property and labored, but they had no rights and couldn’t just leave without being shot. They also didn’t get paid per hour in any traditional sense. Workers today if they dont like the job are free to leave. They won’t get shot by the boss. Find another job.

By your logic, a live at home Nanny is a slave

 

Well that "tiny stuff" was the exact topic we disagreed about. You think that right wingers were behind this secession movement when it seems fairly obvious that secession would be very very bad for California right wingers.

Err yes? Not sure what your point is?

I think I've done a great job. I've learned on this forum I need to because too many people here, on losing a point, want to change the subject and pretend we were always discussing whatever new topic is brought up as a distraction.

 

I'm not suggesting these people are slaves. I'm saying that their jobs are highly similar and their pay is so low that they end up getting welfare - it's an artificial economic system that is outside the realm of capitalsim.

And, your idea that these people are upwardly mobile is just plain laughable. And as for their citizenship, states work on policy that causes these people to be unable to vote, unable to be policed and tried by peers, unable to compete with the billions of dollars of "voice" that corporations and the wealthy have, etc.

Claiming they are equal before the law is really an artificial argument - an appealing claim not based on reality.

 

Of course you did, because you were, and are, determined to miss the point.

 

Well, yguy, YOU wrote what YOU wrote. If there was some other 'point' about 'apologies, 40 acres, mules', etc., you didn't make it well, frankly. Take another run at it, or just forget it. I suggest the later, since whatever this "apology" crap was supposed to be about, it was very forgettable....

Back to the main point -- the states that formed the Confederacy wanted to be free and independent to adopt or reject slavery... period! In their view, they had the perfect right to make this determination, BASED ON THE TENTH AMENDMENT to the Constitution itself!

Never read the 10th Amendment? Here 'tis:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

You see? "Slavery", per se, was an issue to be decided by STATES -- not a 'Federal Government'....

Slavery as an institution had been common throughout much of the United States, Great Britain, France, and many other areas where "White" societies prevailed (and overwhelmingly in Sub-Saharan Black Africa). Oh, it seems so dreadful to think about it from the comfortable, 'woke' distance over 160 years later, but that was 'reality' for hundreds of years prior to our American Civil War.

At any rate, now it seems that the 'woke', "Sanctuary State" of Kalifornia wants to be free and independent, either as a separate nation or as some kind of "Nation-State" -- ostensibly based on (dare I say it...) THE TENTH AMENDMENT!

. "Trump needs to send in the Army, and show the rebel bastards the BAYONET!"

 

The individual state articles of secession declare in favor of slavery - not in favor of choice.

The confederate vice president Alexander Stephens in his famous"Cornerstone" speech at the advent of the Confedreacy was a declaration on slavery, NOT on the 10th amendment.

Trump is the first president in US history to promote a divided America - somthing our founders strongly opposed even though there was huge disagreement at the time.

 

I would like to propose that conservatives and libertarians should seriously support the California independence movement, but in a principled way.

We ought to initiate a national discussion, as non-partisan as possible, that recognizes that 'self-determination' is a fundamental democratic right. I believe that
it is implicit in the theory of self-government, that if the people of a geographic region have shown, as settled belief, demonstrated repeatedly, that they do not wish to be in the same polity with, do not wish to be ruled by, those in another geographic region ... then they should have the right to separate.

Obviously, as in all issues, pragmatic considerations cannot be ignored. If, for example, during WWII, the inhabitants of a certain island in Hawaii, had shown they wished to join the Empire of Japan, that would have had to be denied. The classic case is the Civil War: the cause of this war was slavery. I believe it's an open question whether or not public opinion outside the South would have supported a bloody war to preserve the Union, had the South not had slavery. If, for example, Maine had wanted to become independent, and had not initiated violence to attain its independence, i believe the issue of whether the Union was indissoluble may well have been settled differently. Apologists for the Confederacy will swear that slavery was not the issue, but it was, and was known to be at the time by everyone on both sides.

The trend around the world has been for people living in one area, who don't feel much solidarity with people in the greater polity, to want to leave: Norway and Sweden were one country at the beginning of the 20th Century. Yugoslavia was one nation, now it's several. Czechoslovakia is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Iraq would divide into three if it could. Kashmir would like to leave India. The Tamils of Sri Lanka would like to split away from the Sinhalese. China has some small minorities, in Tibet and elsewhere, who would leave if they could. Scotland will leave the UK, and Northern Ireland will follow (although there will be a civil war there first). Catalonia will leave Spain. The Muslim republics of the Russian Federation are waiting their chance. Quebec came close to leaving Canada forty years ago -- probably the majority of the French-speakers wanted to leave but the immigrant vote thwarted them. Indonesia lost E Timor, and Sudan lost South Sudan.

This natural desire should be recognized in official democratic theory: the right of self-determination.

There are many practical questions to take up, but the principle should be established.

On California: we should offer an independent California generous terms before the issue is put to a vote, so as to encourage the largest possible vote for it there. Conservatives living in California should be offered the most generous support for resettlement should they choose it, to encourage them to vote in favor of it. Hopefully, this will spark a similar movement in Oregon and Washington. However, we might want to put a provisio on this right: what is correct for a state, should also be correct for a smaller unit: that is, if the majority of a county within a state does NOT want to leave, then it should not have to. So we might see the eastern counties of Oregon and Washington remain, or perhaps merge with Idaho, where they would be very welcome:
https://www.opb.org/news/article/move-oregon-border-greater-idaho-petition/
https://mises.org/wire/greater-idaho-movement-latest-indicator-shift-toward-decentralization
http://www.greateridaho.org/

 

I am much encouraged by the continuing outcomes of the dialogue between us. I am convinced there would be much more forum agreement than now, if other members of opposing sides would take the time & devote the same consideration to UNDERSTANDING what each other were saying, that you & I have done. You are a conservative & I am a liberal, but we have succeeded together in discovering that huge region of common ground we both share. Thank you for that. I sincerely hope other forum members are watching.

I agree with the vast majority of your post above. I was especially gratified to see that you are aware of the technological changes that threaten to take so many jobs away from human workers over the next decades. That's a real issue that I see little to no discussion on. And the solutions don't fit well with that simplistic notion held by most conservatives that anyone who really wants to work can find a job. That may change dramatically over the next few decades, to no fault of their own. How do we (or any society) cope with such change? Blaming the workers, or regarding them as lazy or stupid, is certainly no answer. Conservatives must become open to studying the real issue, accepting it for what it actually is, & working together with moderates & liberals (even democratic socialists), to find real solutions that don't simply demean the victims.

I don't actually DISAGREE with any of your commentary above, but my more "liberal" perspective implores me to a milder interpretation or expectation than you perhaps gravitate to. In the blue sentence, I just want to say, there ARE times & locales where descent jobs simply aren't available for a person willing & eager to work. I've experienced that myself on more than one occasion. I've known others who have too. I'm not disputing your claim that there are individuals who simply don't want to work. I'm just saying they don't comprise the entire field of unemployed persons.

I also agree with your sentiment in the red sentence above, but just wanted to suggest, not all outcomes are negative. The other side of the increasing automation coin in employment, is that more free time for more people CAN result in some highly positive outcomes, like having more free time available to share with loved ones, or more involvement in activities of personal interest. If the challenge of mere survival is defrayed thru conscientious government programs, allowing the lucky population that freedom of opportunity & choice on what to do with themselves in daily life, it could lead to a flowering of innovative new ideas, inventions, forms of leisure, discovery, or any other of a myriad of possibilities. I know without that ever present stress for survival dominating so much of my own personal life, given the opportunities possibly awaiting our descendants, I feel almost certain I could have accomplished greater things, & enjoyed the joy & happiness of life itself for an appreciably longer span of time.

 

Low taxes will do that, you have no state income tax vs. CA being as high as 13.3%.

 

LOL!!

We don't have low taxes. What made you think that?

 

I wonder how many months between the pull out of all remaining U.S. military bases, and all the funding that comes with it, and the bankruptcy of the Nation of California? With the Navy Sub based and the Vandenburg launch site both closed, Beale AFB PavPos shutdown, ... Billions of exterior to the state income lost.

How long will any silicon valley chip foundry stay in CA, once the new government starts making up for the Military loss, by taxing the snot out of them.

I wonder how many months between the creation of the new nation of California, and their application to become a vassal province of Mexico.

But, the high cost of the Drug Cartels insurance payment demands on CA business will also cost the loss of just about every other type of business too.

And then there is the tariffs to be paid as CA wines and produce is attempted to be sold across the international border, into Arizona. With much cheaper agriculture products to be obtained from Arizona lands, I doubt they'll still sell much to the USA.

And in a matter of a few years, the economic, political, poverty and violence of CA looks just like Old Mexico. Now That's Progress!

-

 

Shhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I suspect that an independent California would fall under China's sway, not Mexico's. That would be a major geo-political success for China. China has cash to buy influence and California's legislators would be open for business!

 

This raises an important and very uncomfortable question: how should we respond to the growing strength and influence of China?

When put that way, someone may obect: China is not going to become strong -- it has many internal problems which have been covered up. There are several books written to this effect. I don't know how true they are, or how much is wishful thinking.

But let's just stipulate, as the lawyers say, that (1) China retains its authoritarian system and (2) continues to grow in strength economically and militarily. At some point -- I've seen the middle of the century posited as the time -- its per-capita GDP will equal and then surpass ours. (Its economy is supposedly going to be larger than ours within a few years, but it has four times our population.)

How should the US respond?

It's emotionally very difficult to imagine a world in which we are not Number One. We've all gotten used to reading those (usually critical if not anguished) articles which report that American military spending (which supposedly is roughly equivalent to strength) is greater than the next five or ten nations added together.

What will the world be like when China is our peer, or superior? What should we be doing now to prepare?

China's history, for the last few hundred years, is one of being the victim of other, stronger nations. They haven't forgotten this -- and the fact that it was the Communists who unified China, drove out the foreigners, and made her strong, is what keeps them in power.

I don't believe that China is run by Fu Manchu descendants, rubbing their hands together and cackling about how under their direction, Evil will rule the world. They're nationalists. (By the way, I also don't believe that they are racists, in the same sense that you are not 'racist' towards your dog.)

In the modern world, there are many opportunities for win-win situations when nations co operate. There are few if any irreconcilable conflicts among the big powers. (And plenty of such conflicts among the smaller nations and tribes, which, hopefully, the big powers can avoid being drawn into.)

Okay, this is a thread diversion, and maybe the moderators will want to transfer out of the Eyes-on-California thread.

 

Keep your eyes on four earthquake faults: the Hayward, the Elsinore, the Garlock, and, yes, the famous San Andreas. "Mother Earth" may ultimately decide this issue for all of us....

It will be interesting to see how anxious Kalifornia is to be a "Nation-State" when its infrastructure is torn all to hell, there's no water or food, and there's roving bands of murderous criminals all over the damned place....

. Yeah, have fun with that! But DON'T come to Colorado!

 

the san andreas fault cannot reach the movie stars in the hills, that is why their property is expensive.

 

We giving them a going away party?

I'll bring the beer, they have crappy beer in California so I'll bring some good stuff brewed in Tejas.

 

My exposure to CA came form 3 years at Camp Pendleton. Your right a ton of money from the military in CA. Beautiful state but crap politics.