Which handouts are you talking about?Quote:
Originally Posted by AmPat
If being economically sound were a requirement for statehood, wouldn't the beggar states be in trouble if they were on the block today?
Which handouts are you talking about?Quote:
Originally Posted by AmPat
If being economically sound were a requirement for statehood, wouldn't the beggar states be in trouble if they were on the block today?
This will of course go no where but hopefully the morons in DC will see We The People are a tad pissed off.
Good for the Lone Star State. They probably wouldn't want to unite with some of the other states, like NY, with a huge debt.
Obama has managed to be the ultimate divider in chief. Good for the people not bowing meekly to the current administration. The meek generally don't inherit the earth.
A state of Southern California would be Alto Mexico.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elspeth
Vermont has actually had a secession movement going on for awhile now:Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintLouieWoman
Time Magazine (January 31, 2010): The Secessionist Campaign for the Republic of Vermont
The President on Wednesday may have reassured Americans that the state of the Union is "strong," but, just the week before, a group of Vermont secessionists declared their intention to seek political power in a quest to get their state to quit the Union altogether. On Jan. 15, in the state capital of Montpelier, nine candidates for statewide office gathered in a tiny room at the Capitol Plaza Hotel, to announce they wanted a divorce from the United States of America. "For the first time in over 150 years, secession and political independence from the U.S. will be front and center in a statewide New England political campaign," said Thomas Naylor, 73, one of the leaders of the campaign.
A former Duke University economics professor, Naylor heads up the Second Vermont Republic, which he describes as "left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar, with small is beautiful as our guiding philosophy." The group not only advocates the peaceful secession of Vermont but has minted its own silver "token" — valued at $25 — and, as part of a publishing venture with another secessionist group, runs a monthly newspaper called Vermont Commons, with a circulation of 10,000. According to a 2007 poll, they have support from at least 13% of state voters. The campaign slogan, Naylor told me, is "Imagine Free Vermont." In his fondest imaginings, Naylor said, Vermonters would not be "forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East."
Second Vermont Republic's gubernatorial candidate is Dennis Steele, 42, a hulking Carhartt-clad fifth generation Vermonter and entrepreneur. He owns Radio Free Vermont, an Internet radio station, and honchos an online venture called ChessManiac.com. Steele says that, if elected, his first act in office would be to bring home Vermont's National Guard from overseas deployments. "I see my kids going off to fight in wars for empire 10, 15, 20 years from now," said Steele, who served three years in the U.S. Army. "People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes. We live in a nation that is asleep at the wheel and where the hearts are growing cold like ice."
Steele and the secessionists have nothing but contempt for Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, who are otherwise considered among the most liberal members of Congress. "They've done nothing to stop the wars," says Steele flatly. Thomas Naylor was more pointed: "Every time a Vermonter serving in the National Guard gets deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, likely to be hurt or killed, Bernie and Patrick are there to commemorate the departure and have pictures taken."
With 20 or so mostly middle-aged attendees looking on, the candidates each stood at the podium to deliver a remarkably unified message: The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise — engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens — and they wanted no more part of it. "The gods of the empire," Steele told the room, "are not the gods of Vermont."
"It's an abusive relationship we have with the central government," says Peter Garritano, a square-jawed 54-year-old Subaru sales manager who is running for lieutenant governor. "We know it's scary to leave the abusive nest. It's a comfort zone in its own way. But we think we'll do better leaving."
An independent Vermont, the group believes, would exploit its already highly developed local small-scale agriculture, its "locavore" farm exchanges, with a tax structure reformed to incentivize small business and industry (and to make life difficult for large out-of-state corporations). By 2020, they foresee Vermont producing at least 75% of its own electricity and heat, using wind-, solar-, biomass- and hydro-power. They want to establish a Bank of Vermont owned by the people of Vermont — freed from the arbitrary controls of central bankers — as well as a local alternative currency, with Vermont pension and operating funds invested not in Wall Street but in locally owned financial institutions. "We favor devolution of political power from the state back to local communities, making the governing structure for towns, schools, hospitals and social services much like that of small, decentralized states like Switzerland," declares the group's "21st Century Statement of Principles."
Seven secessionist candidates declared for seats in the state senate. Among them is Robert Wagner, 46, an economist who is also a computing consultant with Oracle Inc. Wagner, who homesteads with his wife and six-year-old son in the Green Mountains, says that current U.S. law enables multinational corporations to abuse Vermont as a "resource colony." Citing a 2008 study by the University of Vermont, Wagner says the state stands to gain over $1 billion a year in revenue by taxing equitably the corporate behemoths that exploit Vermont's "commons," which includes everything from the state's groundwater, surface water, wildlife and forests, to the public spectrum of the airwaves. According to the UVM study, for example, Coca-Cola, Nestle and Perrier and other refreshment manufacturers avoid $671 million in taxes for the environmental damage incurred by their siphoning of state groundwater.
But what about that comfort zone of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps, plus the infrastructure currently funded by the federal government, including bridges, roads and particularly the interstate highways? One analysis by a researcher at the University of Vermont found that the state only gets 75 cents back for every dollar it hands over to the federal center. The secessionists say they'd prefer to save their money and keep it at home. "Not only would an independent Vermont survive," says Naylor, "It would thrive, because it would free up entrepreneurial forces heretofore held in abeyance. We're not preaching economic isolationism. We want to confront the empire, and that doesn't mean just owning a Prius and keeping a root garden."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...#ixzz2C3KoOkTq
:blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::b lah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::bla h::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah: :blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::b lah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::blah::bla h::blah:http://www.smiley-lol.com/smiley/ord...ordicarre1.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by Novaheart
At least some people speak their mind openly and forcefully, but he's a bit strong calling the O supporters maggots. Well, maybe some might be, especially those voting from the grave. :biggrin-new:
[QUOTEAfter repeatedly nodding at the possibility of secession in the last few years, Gov. Rick Perry, R-Tex., has more recently kept mum on the subject. But some local GOP officials in Texas have been happy to fill the void: Tom Head, a county judge from Lubbock predicted in August that Obama's reelection could lead to a second civil war. And the treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party, Peter Morrison, asked in a post-election newsletter, "Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government?" Morrison's newsletter requested an "amicable divorce" from the "maggots" who reelected President Obama, many of them voting on an "ethnic basis." ][/QUOTE]
Update, La now has 18560 signatures and have til Dec 7th to get to 25k.
I just read the petitions need 25,000 signatures, Texas has 40,000.