Secession and Other Silliness

In my recent election recap, I neglected to mention one of the widely reported absurd reactions to the results. It seems that almost as soon as President Obama won reelection, people in a number of different states started petitions on the White House petition website calling for the US to permit their states to secede from the country. The petition which got the most signatures (at least 75,000, three time the number required to elicit an official response from the White House) was from Texas, the state I grew up in. Presumably the signers were motivated chiefly by dismay at the election results, though pro-secession sentiment is not new in Texas, which was briefly an independent nation and also a member of the Confederacy at the time of the US Civil War. But secession is a bad idea for a number of reasons.

Now I am not by any means opposed in principal to regions in a country declaring independence. I am a firm believer in the right to self-determination, and I support the right of occupied territories around the world (such as Tibet, West Papua, Western Sahara, East Turkestan, Chechnya and Kurdistan) to claim independence from their occupiers if that is the will of the majority of their people (though this becomes more tricky when the occupier settles large numbers of outsiders – who presumably will not support independence – in the territory, as has been done by empires since at least the Assyrians and is still being done by countries like China). But not all struggles for independence are equally worthy. While there is a lot to be said for the idea of breaking up the largest and most dangerously powerful countries in the world, including the United States, China and Russia, to name the most obvious ones, this particular effort, even if it were truly serious, would not be one I’d support, for a number of reasons.

First of all, it should be pointed out that it is unlikely that the signers of these petitions represent a significant segment of the population of the states in question. While 75,000 people may sound like a lot, Texas has a population of over 25 million, so only a very tiny proportion of Texans have signed, and the same is true of the petitions by residents of other states. But even if the petitions really represented the sentiments of a substantial group, there remains the question of their reasons for wanting to secede, and the consequences should they get what they wish.

From their timing, it is clear that the main motivation for most of the signers of these petitions is unhappiness at the reelection of Barack Obama. While I can understand this to some degree (had Mitt Romney been elected, I’d have been even less inclined than I am now to consider returning to the US on a permanent basis), dissatisfaction with an election result is a rather weak reason for seceding. It is rather ironic that the Obama haters who no doubt make up a substantial proportion of the petitioners are, by calling for their states to secede, making Obama look like Abraham Lincoln – after all, it was Lincoln’s election as US President that prompted the southern states to secede in 1860-1. Using Obama’s victory as an excuse to secede is particularly ridiculous given that, despite the shrill claims of some, he is a fairly moderate leader who has shown little inclination to push for dramatic changes, and it is improbable that he will be able to do anything revolutionary in his second term even if he wanted to.

Speaking of poor reasons to secede, the Confederate states that seceded in the wake of Lincoln’s election victory are a very good example, and one that relates closely to why secession by states like Texas would also be a bad thing today. While Confederate sympathizers now try to claim the South was fighting for states’ rights, anyone who knows the actual history is aware that the only states’ right which really concerned the southern states was the right to retain slavery. Slavery had been the big issue dividing the nation for decades, and it was the election of a pro-abolition President and the perception that the balance of power was permanently tilting toward the “free” states that led the South to secede. All the talk about fighting for “states’ rights” and “the Southern way of life” is just another way of saying they were fighting for slavery, and no independence fight is justified if its main purpose is to allow the seceding region to oppress or enslave others. Now let’s look at some of the things that those who would like Texas to secede dislike about the way things are going in the US under Obama (I know they claim budget issues as their key motivation, but I don’t buy that for a minute). Legalization of same sex marriage, making contraceptives easily available to women, allowing young undocumented immigrants to attend college without fear of deportation, making it easier for people to vote, taking a scientific approach to the issue of climate change, allowing Muslims to worship freely, teaching evolution in schools rather than theories with no scientific basis…these are the kinds of things that bother many of these people, and these are almost certainly among the first things that would be targeted in an independent Texas (or Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, etc.).

The above issues are why I would not like to see states like Texas secede from the US; even as it is, membership in the Union only partly restrains the negative impulses of many in the more conservative states (President Rick Perry, anyone?). If they were independent, I hate to think what would happen. While they might not try to bring back segregation or other blatantly discriminatory practices, I am sure the rights of ethnic minorities, women, homosexuals and Muslims would take a huge step backwards, and schools would be teaching all sorts of absurd nonsense. If I could feel sure that an independent Texas would uphold the principles of equality and fairness and would educate its children on the basis of rationality and science, then I could very willingly support a movement to separate from the US. As it is, I’m happy that these petitioners represent only a tiny fringe movement.

Another silly issue that dominated the post-election news in the US even more than these petitions to secede was the story that CIA Director and former general David Petraeus was resigning due to an extramarital affair, and another top general was being investigated for potentially “inappropriate” email exchanges. As a few commentators pointed out, good leaders are not so readily available that the US can afford to lose them for so inconsequential a reason as having an affair. While I am not in position to judge Petraeus’s effectiveness as either a general or the head of the CIA, I certainly don’t think he should have had to resign just for having an affair. America needs to stop being so obsessed with people’s sex lives and start getting its priorities straight.