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akuma587 on 23 April 2009
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TheRealMafoo said:
highwaystar101 said:
TheRealMafoo said:
akuma587 said:
Threatening to secede from the Union is about the dumbest idea I have ever heard.

 

Why?

If the Union is far more of a burden then they are worth, why should a state stay? (Other than the fact that the US would attack them).

The problem is the only states that can afford to leave; the US cannot afford to lose.

Could any state survive to current standards by themselves though. I would almost bet that California would be the only one that would thrive without the USA and that's only because of the amount of industry there.

 

California would fail (the way it is now anyway). The only three states that come to mind, are Texas, Alaska, and Hawaii.

They generate far more taxes for the US then they consume.

You are right about Texas, but wrong about Alaska.  For every $1.00 it sends out in taxes it takes back $1.86 in federal dollars.  I don't know about Hawaii.  And it is a myth that Texas can leave the Union if it wants.  There is no legal vehicle for it to do so.

Well, for one, no state can legally leave the Union.  For two, the economic disadvantages of seceding from the Union would be extreme.  Anything entering or exiting the state would be taxed, you would need a passport to enter or exit the state, etc.  The state would also have to maintain its own military, its own intelligence, and all kinds of other things.  The benefits heavily outweight the cost.  And a recent survey in Texas said 70% of the people would never even remotely consider secession.

Not to mention the state would be taken back by force.  You can't just join the Union when you want and leave later if you want.  That's not how it works.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson