Ron Paul - Gone but still an Asshole

[Anomalocaris]

That wasn't my point. My point was that a state should be able to secede if it wants to. Currently in the US, I understand that there is no legal method for secession. All the states may be united at the moment, but the moment secession becomes popular in one of them, and it is effectively prohibited from leaving the union, you cannot call it "united" anymore without calling into question some definitions.

Fair enough.

It should only be legal if a plurality of the national population wishes to let them go. Every state is in a binding contract to form our union, and the secession of states would have huge effects on others. One state should not have the unilateral right to secede.

I of course don't think any state should have to put up with preventable session efforts that would regard as an weaken infleunce on itself in the long run.

But using your logic, would't a plurality of other nations also get a definitive say in whether it suits them to accept any changes to geopolitical situation resulting from such a session?

For example, Some countries looking to the United States to keep the Chinese from sweeping up all their off shore islands might want to veto any session that would take American attention and resource away from keeping up its treaty obligations.

[Tiberius]

Fair enough.

It should only be legal if a plurality of the national population wishes to let them go. Every state is in a binding contract to form our union, and the secession of states would have huge effects on others. One state should not have the unilateral right to secede.

I'd imagine as with joining the union, a secession would not be a simple case of "one moment you're in, the next you're not". Obviously if people in one state have commitments (jobs, houses, etc.) in the seceding state, protocols are going to have to be drawn up for handling those sorts of things.

I'm not sure it would need the national population's vote though. States have some form of self-government, and again, it isn't "united" if 49 states can stop one from leaving if it wants to.

That said, there should be a protocol that a seceding state must follow before being allowed to, to protect people in the state as well as those with interests in it.

[Minimalist]

I for one cannot see how you can legitimately call anything "united" if states exist that don't want to be in it. That doesn't seem very united to me.

It's a handful of morons in each state, Divi Tiberio.

And lets be really honest here. What most of them mean by secession is that they don't want to have a nigger as president.

Sometimes you take your eye off the ball, my friend.

[Anomalocaris]

High time to have Sherman march to the sea again.

[Ryantology]

But using your logic, would't a plurality of other nations also get a definitive say in whether it suits them to accept any changes to geopolitical situation resulting from such a session?

No. The United States is not in a legal union with other nations as an individual state is with the nation.

[Anomalocaris]

But using your logic, would't a plurality of other nations also get a definitive say in whether it suits them to accept any changes to geopolitical situation resulting from such a session?

No. The United States is not in a legal union with other nations as an individual state is with the nation.

Well, the united states is in a union with other states in the form of united nations. That it's not the same type of union as the united states is less relevent because in the absence of any terms regarding secession in the any original formal legal instrument binding the union together, your argument would seem to suggest the existence of the union, not specific form of the union set out by any legal instrument forming its basis, implicit gives its component such a right.

On the other hand, the legal precedence of civil war suggests that, so long as the union would theoretically survive in some significant form after any theoretical secession attempt, then all member states not seceding is implicitly regarded as having cast a veto on secession.

[Polaris]

Good for him. Why should states stay in a country that has lost its way?

[Cato]

I for one cannot see how you can legitimately call anything "united" if states exist that don't want to be in it. That doesn't seem very united to me.

It's a handful of morons in each state, Divi Tiberio.

And lets be really honest here. What most of them mean by secession is that they don't want to have a nigger as president.

Sometimes you take your eye off the ball, my friend.

Anybody can look up the petition. The curious thing is that many of the signers are not from Texas. This is nothing more than a temper tantrum from those that didn't get their way.

[Darth]

For those against in most/all cases: What would it take before you were in favour of secession (even if the other states weren't happy about it)?:

president Romney
President Sidious?
president Santorum?
president Akin?

Or, how many wars before you should be allowed to?

Where I'm from (Western Australia) the idea of secession comes up occasionally (mostly due to the perception that we don't get our fair share back from canberra at the moment), we voted FOR it in 1933, didn't get anywhere but. Way I see it these contracts go boths ways, if your state joined on certain conditions, yet the federal government doesn't hold up their end of the bargin...
I'm not in favour of it at the moment, but I can see situations (for us and you guys) where it would be the moral thing to do.

[A Theist]

I for one cannot see how you can legitimately call anything "united" if states exist that don't want to be in it. That doesn't seem very united to me.

And lets be really honest here. What most of them mean by secession is that they don't want to have a nigger as president.

That's false...race has nothing to do with it...you're pretty liberal playing the race card with anybody you disagree with...it must be terrible for you to wake up every morning and look at your own white face in the mirror...Barack's skin color is not the issue...it's just that they don't want a fringe far-left socialist for a president....it's nothing to do with racism.